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OUR COUNTRY'S 
WEALTH AND INFLUENCE. 

SHOWN BY 

TRACING IN HISTORICAL FORM FROM YEAR TO YEAR AND DECADE TO DECADE, FROM 1620 TO 
1880, THE RAPID INCREASE OF POPULATION, AND PROGRESS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF OUR 
VAST NATURAL AND INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES, INCLUDING TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTA- 
TION, LABOR-SAVING MACHINERY IN ALL BRANCHES OF INDUSTRY, EXTENSIVE 
MANUFACTURING INTERESTS, INVENTIONS WITHOUT NUMBER, MINING, 
INTERNAL TRADE, AGRICULTURE, SCLENTIFIC DI8COVERLES, GROWTH 
OF GREAT COMMERCIAL CENTERS, TELEGRAPH, TELEPHONE, 
ELECTRIC LIGHT, AND OTHER GREAT WEALTH-PRODUC- 
ING INTERESTS, ALSO OUR SYSTEM OF UNIVERSAL 
EDUCATION, FROM THE COMMON SCHOOL TO 
THE HIGHEST LITERARY AND SCIEN- 
TIFIC INSTITUTIONS, WITH 
VALUABLE MISCELLANEOUS AND TABULAR STATISTICS, GIVING NUMBERS, AMOUNTS, DATES, ETC. 



DEMONSTRATING THAT WE HAVE ACHIEVED 

A POSITION OF EQUALITY WITH THE FOREMOST NATIONS OF THE CIVILIZED WORLD 

IN ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF INDEPENDENT NATIONAL EXISTENCE. 

BY 

Eminent Literary and Scientific Writers, -who have made their Respective Subjects a 
Special Study. EDUCATION, by Henry Barnard, LL.D. 



Illustrated with Four Hundred Instructive Engravings by Eminent ^rtists. 



v EDITED BY 



L. R Brockett, A. M., M. D., 

Associate Editor of JOHNSON'S CYCLOPEDIAS. Author of Numerous other Valuable Work9. 



■ -3»«»»»- 

HARTFORD, CONN.; 

Published by L. Stebbins. 
1882. 



&&° 




THIS ENGRAVING SHOWS THE BEST 



gigl* at §aitfe |lote <£ngra&htij in ik tim a! % gmcrtntit JetoMott. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1882, by 
L. STEBBINS, 

AND 

SAMUEL. J BURR, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 









PREFACE. 



The subjects embraced in this volume are of the deepest interest to every 
American citizen, and to the students of history, political economy, and 
national progress, of every nation on the globe. 

They furnish the materials for a more wonderful chapter in the world's his- 
tory than has ever yet been written. 

A people, in 1783, numbering less than three millions, of different nation- 
alities, poor, oppressed by a heavy debt, just emerging from a ruinous war of 
seven years' duration, without national or much private capital, with no manu- 
factures of importance, unskilled in agriculture, their commerce nearly ruined 
by the war, without mineral wealth, and with scanty means of education, 
with nothing, in short, but brave hearts, strong arms, ready wit, and an, 
indomitable love of liberty, have, in a hundred years, made greater pro- 
gress in agriculture, manufactures, the arts, in commerce, mining, educa- 
tion, and material prosperity and luxury, than any other nation on the 
surface of the earth has ever made in a thousand years. To-day, in pop- 
ulation, wealth, influence, intelligence, and social position, they are the peers 
of any nation on the globe, and the superiors of most. What Great Britain, 
France, and Germany have attained through the painful experiences and 
v-icissitudes of fifteen hundred years, they have easily equaled or surpassed 
in a single century, and as yet they have hardly passed the infantile stage of 
their development. What remains for them to accomplish in the next cen- 
tury, when their fifty millions shall have become four hundred millions; when 
the arable lands are all under plow, when every village of prairie or hillside 
or valley has its vast manufactories, and its commerce whitens every sea ; 
when at eventide the electric light glows from every portion of the horizon, 
and makes the light of one day as the light of seven clays ; and the beneficent 
effects of education and a pure literature are universal, — we can only conjec- 
ture. 

In attempting to chronicle the grand results already accomplished, the pub- 
lisher has sought the advice of many eminent scholars and publicists. It lias 
been a work of years to garner all these histories of our past national pro- 
gress, and the most careful watchfulness and assiduous labor to bring the rec- 
ord as nearly as possible to the present moment. In this work he has 
employed many of the ablest writers of the country, and in its final colloca- 
tion and revision has availed himself of the services of a cyclopa?dist who has 
been for twenty-six years engaged in these labors, and has attained the high- 
est reputation for accuracy and carefulness in his researches. The subject of 



VI PREFACE. 



education has been committed to Hon. Henry Barnard, whose lifelong devo- 
tion to that cause and whose numerous writings on educational topics are 
known all over the world. Other subjects have been treated by eminent 
experts, and the whole brought up to 1881 or 1882 by the careful and critical 
labor of the editor. As it stands, the work will be invaluable to the farmer, 
the merchant, the banker, the scholar, the manufacturer, the mine owner, the 
professional man, the traveler, and the citizen of wealth and leisure, and not 
less so to the engineer, the machinist, the artisan, and the household which 
desires to know something of the land in which we dwell, — its rapid progress 
in the past, its glorious present, and its grand promise for the future. 

If we are supposed to be a little enthusiastic on the subject, we are privi- 
leged to say that the solid merit of the work is endorsed by a large number of 
the best judges in the country. 

A few words in relation to the expense of getting up this work. The public 
have no conception of the outlay on a work of this kind. Probably most 
people would think two or three thousand dollars an extravagant sum, and 
will be much surprised to learn that it required twenty thousand dollars, in- 
cluding the drawing and engraving of the illustrations, yet it will exceed rather 
than fall short of it. There are comparatively few farms or stocks of goods in 
country stores that involved so large an outlay as this book has required. 

L. S. 



CONTENTS. 



Improvements m travel and transportation, • 

Table showing miles of railroads by States, built each year 

from 1830-1881, . 
Early roads — Post roads — Macadam — National, 
Mail Service from 1791-1880, 
Charcoal roads, . 
Turnpike companies, 
Macadam roads. . 
The Cumberland road, . 
Coasters — Steamboats — Canals, 
Sloop experiment, for passengers only, 
Increase of tonnage in coasting trade, 
Increase in speed of steamboats on the North River from 1811- 

1870, .... 

Early steamboat days on Western rivers, 
Time of flatboats on the Mississippi from New Orleans to St 

Louis, 1,300 miles, 120 days, 
Time of steamers in 1880, 2$ days, 

Increase of steam tonnage on Western waters from 1842-1880, 
Cost ol all state canals up to 1867, 
Increase in tonnage on lakes from 1841-1880, 
Wheat received from lake ports in 1860, 
Cost of Ohio canals, ..... 
Financial results of the New York Canals from their com 

mencement to 1870, 
Canals for transportation of coal, 
Railroads — Land grants — Extent and cost, 
Early experiments in the construction of railroads — rolling 

stock, etc., ...... 

Dates of building the ^several railroads now embraced in the 

N. Y. Central, 
First successful American locomotive run, 
Building and cost of various lines of railroads, 
Land grants for internal improvement, . 
♦Railways of the World in 1877 in each country, giving the 

area, population, and miles in railroad, 
Statement of Government debt, June 30, 1881, 



PAGE. 

31 



32 
34 

36 



37 
38 

<< 

39 

40 
41 

43 



45 

47 
« 

48 

50 
m 

51 
53 

62 

67 

<< 

69 

72 



♦United States, 1880. 



VU 






Vlll 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

Increase in transportation of coal from 1830-1880, . . 78 

Increase in transportation of cotton from 1841-1880, . . " 

Increased agricultural productions, the result of railroads^ . 81 

Chicago as a railroad center, . . . . .82 

Table showing miles of railroad constructed each year from 

1830-1880, ......." 

Number of miles of railroad — cost — cost per mile — of the vari- 
ous countries of the World, . . . .85 

Steam, . . . . . . " . . 91 

History of the steam engine, . . . . " 

First steam engine constructed in America, . . " 

Experiments of Robert Fulton, Ohver Evans, Watt, Stephenson, 

and others, ....... 92 

Steamboats, . . . . . . .95 

Various experiments in construction of steamboats, . .104 

Locomotives, . . . . . . .109 

First locomotive built in U. S., . . . . .111 

Numerous experiments in constructing locomotives, . . 113 

Stationary engines in great variety, . . . .116 

Steam pumps — description, . . . . .126 

Miscellaneous uses of steam, . . . . .131 

Improvements in steam production and use, . . .136 

High-pressure and low-pressure engines, . . .139 

Compound engine, . . . . . .141 

The horse-power, . . . . . " 

Some peculiar engines, . . . . . 1 42 

Machine tools, . . . . . . .144 

Description of Corliss engine, . . . . " 

Conclusion, . . . . . . .151 

Cotton Manufactures, . . . . . .155 

Progress of cotton manufacture from 1781-1860, .' . " 

Various inventions of machinery for its manufacture, . . 156 

Cotton imported into Great Britain from 1775-1789, . .158 

Manufacture in America — Spinning — Progress, . . .161 

Number of cotton establishments in 1 1 states — their products in 

1831, ....... 164 

Cotton manufactures of United States per census 1870, . 166 

Inventions — Mode of manufacture — Printing — aggregate, . 169 
Cotton manufacture in the United States from 1809-1880, . 175 
Paper — Its manufacture, . . . . . .176 

Materials — Progress, . . ■ . . . " 

Importation of rags into United States from 1846-1880, . 177 

A book containing sixty specimens of paper, made of as many 

different materials, . . . . . .178 

Great variety of stock used, . . . . .179 

Water mark, ....... 180 



CONTENTS. 



IX 



Inventions — Manufacture, 

Name and size of paper, 

Bleaching process, 

Statistics of manufacture, 

Number of mills, production, value, etc., 

Woolen manufactures, 

Progress of manufacture from 1810-1880, 

Carding — weaving — felting, 

Description of manufacture of various cloths, qualities of wool 

used, process of dyeing, etc., 
Carpet manufacture, 
Table showing number of mills, hands employed, capital invested, 

cost of raw material, number of yards, value of product, 

1860-1870-1880, ..... 
Clothing trade — total manufacture— shoddy, 
The clothing business of both sexes in 1870, . 
Statistics of wool manufacture and importation, 1840 to 1880, 
Imports of cloths and cassimeres into the United States from 

1840 to 1880, ..... 

Leather, ...... 

Tanning — Boots and shoes, .... 

Leather manufacture of United States in 1870, . 
Hides — tanning — leather, etc., .... 

Hides brought into New York in a year, 

Process of tanning, ..... 

Time required in tanning, .... 

Quantity and value of hides imported from 1850 to 1880, 
Machinery employed in manufacture of boots and shoes, 
Leather and manufactures of leather in Massachusetts in 1878 
Importation of gloves in 1880, . 
Fire arms, ..... 

Colt's revolvers — Sharp's rifles — Dahlgren's guns, 

The Merill, Greene, Maynard, Ballard, Spencer, and Henry rifles, 

The Armstrong, Whitworth, Blakely, Lancaster, Krupp, Parrott, 

and other guns, 
Cutlery — edge tools — files and saws, 
Value of importations, . 
Statistics of production, 
Furs and fur trade, 

Table showing values of various kinds of furs, 
Hats, ..... 

Great variety of styles and process of manufacture — materials 

used — hands employed — value of products, etc., 
Individual industries, . 

Building and building material, . 
Number and value of dwellings in the United States, 



PAGE. 

181 
182 
183 
184 
187 
189 



191 

199 



203 
204 
205 
206 

207 
211 



212 
213 
214 
217 
218 
220 
222 
225 

230 

ti 

232 

236 
246 
248 
249 
250 
253 
260 

262 

265 

<< 

266 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

Number of persons to each house, . . . .267 

Materials used in the construction of buildings, . . .269 

Ship building, . . . . . . .274 

Carriages and coaches, ......" 

Horse-cars and railway cars, . . . . .275 

Sleeping and drawing-room cars, . . . .276 

Statistics of manufacture, . . . . .283 

American clocks, . . . . . . .284 

History of their manufacture, improvements made, etc., . " 

American watches, . . . . . .286 

History of early watch -making, . . . . " 

"Watch manufacture by machinery, . . . .292 

Electro-plating, . . . . . . .296 

Fisheries, ....... 300 

The herring, salmon, halibut, cod, and mackerel fishery, . 302 

The oyster trade, . . . . . .307 

Fish culture, . . . . . . .311 

Ice, 312 

Description of ice business, its magnitude, process of gathering, etc., 315 
Pins, ........ 319 

Machinery for manufacture, . . » . .320 

Refined Sugar, . . . . . . .321 

Process of refining and magnitude of the business, . . 322 

Candies, ........ 323 

Silk, . . . . . . . " 

Great increase in American manufacture, . . . 324 

Fire-proof Safes and Safe Locks, . . . . .327 

"Wilder, Herring, Lillie, and other safes, . . .331 

Glass Manufacture, . . . . . .332 

The materials used and process of manufacturing various kinds 

of glass, ....... 334 

India Rubber and its Manufacture, .... 345 

Table of statistics, . . . . . .351 

Sewing Machines, . . . . . .352 

The early experiments in its invention, . - . " 

The Howe, Wheeler & Wilson, Grover & Baker, Wilcox & Gibbs, 

Home, Domestic, Singer, and numerous other machines, 355-365 



Musical Instruments, 




368 


Piano, church, and parlor 


organs, reed instruments, etc., 


369 


Flour Mills, 


. 


373 


Statistics of Production, 


. 


374 


Furniture, 


. 


376 


Its manufacture, . 


. 


377 


Iron, 


. . 


381 


Production of iron from 1828 to 1880, . 


. 383 


Materials employed in its manufacture, . 


tt 



CONTENTS. 



XI 



Distribution of the ores, 

Iron manufacture, 

"Wrought iron — Bessemer steel, . 

The process of its manufacture, . 

Steel, .... 

Cast steel, 

Blast furnaces per States, 

Table of production, 

Manufacture of railway rails, 

Copper, .... 

New Jersey, Virginia, Tennessee, Missouri, Colorado, Michigan 

and other mines, .... 

Production of Lake Superior mines from 1853 to 1878 
Copper smelting, .... 

Useful applications of copper, . 

Gold, ...... 

Where found, ..... 

Gold mines in California and Rocky Mountains region, 

Placer and quartz mining, 

The process of separating the gold from quartz, 

Total gold and silver production for years 1880 and 1881, 

Coinage of United States mint and branches, 

Lead, ..... 

Location of lead mines — smelting of the ore, 

Shipments of lead from the upper Mississippi from 1821 to 1879 

Importation of lead, 

Useful applications of lead. 

Manufacture of white lead, 

Location of white lead works, . 

Zinc, .... 

Where the ore is obtained, 

Metallurgic Treatment and Uses, 

European Manufacture, . 

Zinc paint, 

Imports and exports from 1859 to 1880, 

Platinum, 

Nature of the metal — where found, 

Iridium and osmium, 

Mercury, . ... 

How obtained, amount of production, where found, etc 

Metallurgic treatment and useful applications, . 

Silver, cobalt, nickel, chromium, tin, 

The Comstock lode and other productive mines, 

Cobalt in Connecticut, Maryland, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, 

and Lake Superior region, . 



PAGE. 

378 

395 

401 
«( 

412 
413 
414 
417 
418 
419 

420 

424 

429 

431 

434 

435 

440 

445 

447 

450 

457 

460 

461 

464 

466 

470 

474 

475 

475 

476 

477 

479 

481 

484 

485 
(i 

488 
« 

489 
492 
494 
495 

497 



Xll 



CONTENTS. 



1881, 



Nickel in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and North 

Carolina, .... 
Chrome — its use in paints, dyes, etc., 
Manganese, .... 

Tin — where obtained and useful applications, 
Coal, ..... 
Varieties of coal, 

Supposed origin, component parts, etc., . 
Geological and geographical distribution, 
Amount of available coal, 
Extent of coal fields in the several States, 
Relative amount of coal in the several great coal fields in 

Europe - and America, 
Anthracite coal — its production from 1819 to 
Transportation of coal to market, 
Coal-mining, .... 
Illuminating Gas, 
The number of gas companies and capital stock, the process of 

manufacture, 
Hydro-carbon gas, 

Gas for steamboats and railroad cars, 
Gas for fuel, .... 
Coal oil and petroleum, 
History and method of the manufacture, 
Petroleum or rock oil, 

Its existence in various foreign countries, 
Pennsylvania oil regions, 
Method of sinking the wells, 
Cost of boring oil wells, 
Conducting the oil to market through pipes, 
Oil production from 1862 to 1881, and exports 
Land settlement — internal trade, . 
Purchase of Louisiana, . 

Exports to New Orleans in four years before it was annexed, 
Sales of land and population of new states, 
Five routes from the Atlantic to Chicago in 1850, 
Miles and cost of railroad in eastern, middle, southern, and west 

em states from 1828 to 1880, 
Miles of railroad, population, bushels of corn, bushels of wheat 

in 1850, 1870, 1880, .... 

Annual sales of land by the government from 1821 to 1880, . 
Imports into Buffalo by lake and railroad from 1850 to 1870 
Imports and exports in 1881, .... 
Shipments of flour and wheat and other grains from 1838 to 

1880, ....... 



of the same, 



498 

it 

499 
500 
501 
502 

it 

509 

514 



514 

517 
it 

518 
529 

530 
536 

a 

537 
t< 

538 
543 
544 
547 
549 
550 
551 
553 
554 
(i 

555 
556 

558 



559 
560 
562 



563 



CONTENTS. 



Xlll 



Shipments of pork, provisions, cut meats, lard, beef, wool and 

lumber from 1861 to 1880, . . . .564 

Population, valuation, annual manufacturing products in 1860, 
1870, 1880, of Buffalo, Oswego, Cleveland, Detroit, Chi- 
cago, and Milwaukee, . . . . . " 
River cities — Atlantic cities, . . . . .566 
Population, value of manufactures of Pittsburg, at various peri- 
ods from 1816 to 1880, ....." 

Population, imports, manufactures, and exports of Cincinnati, 

at various dates from 1800 to 1880, . . . 567 

Dates of settlement, incorporation, population, valuation, 1840, 
1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Louisville, 
and St. Louis, ......" 

Table showing the progress of New Orleans from 1804 to 1881, 568 

Progress in population, imports, exports, from 1790 to 1880, of 

Charleston and Baltimore, . . . . .570 

Population, imports, exports, total valuation from 1684 to 1880, 

of Philadelphia, . . . . . .571 

Population, imports, exports, valuation from 1684 to 1881, of 

Boston, ....... 572 

New York, telegraph, express, gold, . . . « 

Population, imports, exports, valuation from 1684 to 1880, of 

New York, ....... 573 

Exports of the leading articles of domestic produce from five 

Atlantic cities, and from the whole Union, in 1880, . 574 

Wholesale and retail trade of prominent New York houses, . 582 

Imports of certain goods into the five great Atlantic ports, 

and also total imports into the Union, in 1880, . . 586 

The exchange per year in the New York 'clearing-house, 1S69- 

1880, ....... 589 

Imports, foreign exports, total imports and exports at various 

dates, from 1860 to 1881, . . . . .591 

Banks, . ....... 594 

Bills of credit — government issues — United States bank, . " 

Establishing the old United States bank — its business opera- 
tions, ....... 597 

State banks, Suffolk system, safety fund, free banks, New Eng- 
land banks, ....... 599 

New York banks, ...... 600 

Pennsylvania banks, 

Maryland banks, . . . . . .601 

New Jersey banks, 

Delaware banks, 

Ohio banks, 

Indiana banks, . . . . . . .602 

Illinois banks, 



XIV 



CONTENTS. 



Michigan banks, . 

Iowa banks, 

"Wisconsin banks, 

Minnesota banks, 

Nebraska banks, 

Kentucky banks, 

Tennessee banks, 

Arkansas banks, 

Mississippi banks, 

Missouri banks, . 

Louisiana banks, 

Alabama banks, . 

Virginia banks, . 

North Carolina banks, 

South Carolina banks, 

Georgia banks, . 

The District of Columbia banks 

Florida banks, . ■ . 

Banks of all the United States — total of imports and exports — 

population at various dates from IV 91 to 1863, 

Banks of the United States — clearing-houses — private banking, 

Table of national banks — the date of organization, number of 

banks, capital, circulation from October, 1863, to October, 

1881, ....... 

Comparative statement of national banks for eleven years, 

Amount of money in circulation on the first of November, 1881, 

Number of State banks and trust companies — private bankers 

— savings banks — with the average amount of their capital, 

deposits, and investments for the six months ending May 

31, 1881, ....... 

United States mint, ...... 

Proportion of alloy in gold coins in 1792, 1834, 1837, . 
United States coinage from 1793 to 1881, 
Gold and silver of domestic production deposited at the mints 
and assay offices from their organization to the year ending 
June 30, 1881, ...... 

Emigration, ....... 

Naturalization laws, ...... 

The number of alien passengers arrived in the United States 
from foreign countries, from the commencement of the 
government to the 31st of December, 1881, 
European migration — French and German — new trade, 
Efforts of Germany to suppress migration, 
Decrease of population in Ireland from 1821 to 1881, 
Ship regulations for emigrants, . 
Emigrants landing in New York, 



PAGE. 

602 



603 



604 



604 



605 



608 



609 
610 
612 
615 



617 
618 
620 



621 
622 
624 
625 
626 
630 



CONTENTS. 



XV 



Number of passengers that arrived in each year in the United 
States from England, Ireland, Scotland, Great Britain, 
Germany, Sweden, and Norway, with the total from all 
countries, ....... 634 

The foreign population in each State and Territory in 1850, 
1860, 1870, and 1880, with the ratio to 100,000 natives in 
each in 1870 and 1880, . . . . .635 

The number of native citizens and foreign visitors (not emi- 
grants) arriving from abroad, . . . .636 

Telegraphs — their origin and progress, . . . .638 

History of its invention, ..... 639 

Magnitude of its operations, ..... 645 

Telephones and phonographs, ..... 646 

Their invention and uses, . . . . .647 

The electric light, . . . . . . .651 

Its success, ....... 652 

Electric locomotion, . . . . . .655 

The signal service, ...... 657 

History of its operation, and practical use, . . .659 

Agriculture, ....... 666 

Hardships of the early settlers, . . . . .667 

The mode of Indian farming, ..... 668; 

They teach the settlers how to raise corn, . . " 

Their mode of storing corn, . . . . . " 

Their surprise at the first sight of a ship, . . .671 

Limited means of education and general information, . . 672 

Associative and legislative efforts, . . . .675 

Farm implements, . . . . . .677 

Their rude construction, ..... 678 

The value of the improvements in ploughs estimated to be 

$11,000,000 per year, ..... 681 

The harrows, cultivators, seed-sowers, mowers and reapers, • 687 
Trial threshing machine at the Paris exhibition, . . 693 

Progress in the raising of stock, .... 694 

Early importation of animals, . . . . " 

Importation of improved breeds — the Short horns, Herefords, 

Devons, Ayrshires, Jerseys, Holsteins, etc., . . 700 

The average number of pounds of butter per cow, in different 

States, ...... 708 

The average number of pounds of cheese per cow in different 

States, ....... ll 

Number of cows per head to population — average value of cows 

in the different States, . . . . " 

Horses, ........ 709 

Inferiority of the horses first imported, . . . .710 

Improved breeds of horses, adapted to various uses, . . 715 

2 



XVI 



CONTENTS. 



Number and value of horses, 

Sheep, .... 

First sheep imported, in 1609, destruction by wolves and dogs 

only sixteen sheep in the whole colony in 1 643, 
The magnitude of the sheep and wool interests in the various 

States, 

Swine — the pork business, 
The great improvement in breeds, 

Hogs packed in Cincinnati at various dates from 1848 to 1880 
Ditto in Chicago from 1853 to 1880, 
The number and value of stock in 1850, 1870, 1880, . 
Products of the soil, ..... 
Indian Corn — its cultivation and production in various States, 
Exports of Indian corn and meal in different years from 1851 

to 1880, 
Wheat, .... 
Its production in the colonies, 
Exports of wheat and flour from the United States at certain 

dates from 1791 to 1880, with values at the later dates 
The wheat-producing regions, transportation and commerce in 

the article, ...... 

Production of other grains, rye, oats, barley, and buckwheat, 

The potato, 

The grass and hay crop, 

The culture of fruit in great variety, 

Culture of tobacco, 

Culture of hops, . 

Culture of flax and hemp, 

Culture of silk, . 

Bee culture, 

Poultry and eggs, 

The lumber business, 

Description of the lumber business from the trees in the forest 

to the ultimate use of the lumber in its various applications 
Receipts of lumber at Chicago at various dates from 1847 to 1878. 
Progress of agricultural literature, 
Prospects of agriculture in this country, 
Population of cities, its ratio to the entire population, number 

of persons to the square mile, area of settlement, value of 

agricultural products, . 

Dates of admission of the States, population and valuation, area 

in square miles, etc., . . . . . 

Population of United States, general nativity and foreign 

parentage, . . . ... 

Cities of the United States having more than 10,000 inhabit- 
ants in 1880, ...... 



PAGE. 

716 



719 

720 

722 

724 
« 

729 
<( 

730 

732 
735 
736 

737 

739 
741 

742 

<< 

745 

751 

755 

796 

759 

760 
« 

767 

768 
776 
779 

784 



785 
787 
788 
788 



CONTENTS. 



XVU 



Cotton Culture, ....... 

First mention of cotton by Herodotus about 450 B. C. It is a 

native of the East Indies, and possibly also of Africa and 

America, . 

The early cultivation in this country, 
Invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney, 
Its cultivation in the days of slave labor, 
Its cultivation since the emancipation of the slaves, 
Sugar Cultivation and Consumption, 
The importation, production, and consumption of sugar and 

molasses in the United States from 1790 to 1880, . 
Sugar from other sources, .... 

Maple sugar, ...... 

Beet sugar, ...... 

Sugar from the canes or stalks of corn and sorghum, . 
Stewart's experiments with corn and sorghum, . 
Glucose and glucose sugar, .... 

Commerce of the United States, .... 

Colonial trade, imperial restrictions, emancipation of inhabitants, 
Amount and value of agricultural products and manufactures at 

different dates, ..... 
An account of the value of the exports in 1770, 
Exports to, imports from, Great Britain from 1784 to 1790, 
Imports and exports of the United States and tonnage in the 

foreign trade from 1790 to 1807, . 
Tonnage, domestic exports, foreign exports, total exports, total 

imports from 1808 to 1820, 
Changed interests, manufactures, course of trade, speculation 

revulsion, etc., ..... 

Exports and imports of specie, etc., from 1821 to 1830, . 
Course of trade from 1830 to 184 0, 
Imports and exports of silk, wines, spirits, sugar, flour, and 

provisions from 1831 to 1840, 
Bankrupt law, English free trade, 
Speculative years between 1850 and 1860, 
Annual value of agricultural products and manufacturing in 

dustry, ...... 

Corn, wheat, and pork exported to Great Britain, from 1840 to 

1880, ...... 

Exports of specified articles from 1790 to 1880, 
Slips, tonnage, navigation laws, .... 

Number and tonnage of vessels built in the several provinces 

in the year 1771, ..... 
Tonnage of the United States, at various dates from 1789 to 

1880, ...... 

Steamship line between the United States and Europe since 

1840, ...... 



PAGE. 

792 



793 

<< 

794 
795 
800 

802 

803 

(< 

804 



806 
807 



811 
813 

815 

817 

819 
820 
822 

823 
828 
830 

832 

833 
836 
837 
838 
839 



xvin 



CONTENTS. 



American vessels in the home trade, 

Comparison of the American and foreign tonnage entering 

the ports of the United States from 1856 to 1880, 
National exports, United States, Great Britain, France, at 

various dates from 1800 to 1880, 
Education and educational institutions. 
Educational development in the colonial period, 
Earliest efforts of King James the I to establish educational 

institutions, ..... 
Town action in behalf of schools in New England, 
Colonial legislation and action in the different colonies, 
Virginia, 
Massachusetts, 
Ehode Island, 
Connecticut, 
New Hampshire, 
New York, 
Maryland, 
New Jersey, 
Pennsylvania, 
Delaware, 
North Carolina, 
South Carolina, 
Georgia, . 

Results at the close of our colonial history, 

Revolutionary and transitional period, . 

The opinions of the following gentlemen on the importance of 

education — George Washington, John Adams, Thomas 

Jefferson, James Madison, John Quincy Adams, Benjamin 

Rush, John Jay, De Witt Clinton, Chancellor Kent, Daniel 

Webster, 

State and National action, about 1810, 

States New Hampshire, . 

" Vermont, . 

" Massachusetts, 

" Maine, 

" Rhode Island, 
Historical and statistical data of the United States, 
School-houses, studies, books, and teachers, as they were, 
Views of the following gentlemen in relation to schools of the 

period : 
Noah Webster, . 
Heman Humphrey, D.D., 
Hon. Joseph T. Buckingham, 
Rev. Eliphalet Nott, 
Peter Parley (S. G. Goodrich), 



PAGE. 

841 

843 



845 



847 

849 

a 

850 

852 
u 

853 

854 

855 

856 
n 

857 
it 

858 
t< 

u 

859 



860 
863 



866 

867 



867 
868 
871 
873 
875 



r 




CONTENTS. 


XIX 




PAGE. 


Horace Bushnell, D.D., ..... 


. 881 


Williani Darlington, M.D., LL.D., 


882 


Schools in Philadelphia, ..... 


. 883 


School holiday in Georgia, .... 


885 


Progressive development of schools and other institutions o. 


E 


public instruction, ..... 


895 


Elementary instruction in states, 


. 896 


Alabama, ...... 


u 


Arkansas, 






. 897 


California, 






. 898 


Connecticut, 






. 899 


Delaware, 






. 900 


Florida, . 






. 903 


Georgia, . 






U 


Illinois, . 






. 904 


Indiana, . 






. 906 


Iowa, 






. 907 


Kansas, 






. 908 


Kentucky, 






. 909 


Louisiana, 






. 910 


Maine, 






. 911 


Maryland, 






. 912 


Massachusetts, 






913 


Michigan, 






. 923 


Minnesota, 






924 


Mississippi, 






. 925 


Missouri, 






<< 


Nebraska, 






926 


Nevada, 






927 


New Hampshire, 






a 


New Jersey, 






929 


New York, 






930 


North Carolina, 






934 


Ohio, 






937 


Oregon, . 






938 


Pennsylvania, 






939 


Ehode Island, 






941 


South Carolina, 






944 


Tennessee, 






946 


Texas, 






<< 


Vermont, 






947 


Virginia, 






948 


"West Virginia, . 






949 


Wisconsin, 






950 


Table — population, taxable property, schools, illiteracy, etc., 


951 


Secondary instru< 


Jtion, 


. 


952 



XX 



CONTENTS. 



Academy life in Philadelphia about 1860, 

Public high schools — Endowed academies, 

'Academies out of New England, 

Female seminaries and colleges, 

Colleges of superior instruction, 

Condition of American colleges about 1800, 

Establishment of Dartmouth College, 

College studies and discipline about 1800, 

Professional and special education, 

Military academy at West Point, 

United States naval academy, . 

State, incorporated, and private schools, 

Military tactics in state scientific schools, 

Theological schools or seminaries, 

Law schools, 

Medical schools, . 

Normal schools and teachers' institutes. 

Teachers' institutes and associations, 

Schools of applied sciences, 

Agricultural schools and colleges, 

Commercial schools or business colleges, 

Scientific schools proper, 

Orphan asylums and schools, 

Schools and colleges for Indians, 

Schools for the Africans and freedmen, 

Church and denominational schools, 

Schools for deaf mutes, . 

Schools and institutions for the instruction of the blind, 

Institutions for the education and training of idiots and imbeciles 

Hospitals and asylums for the insane, 

Preventative and reformatory schools and instructions, . 

Supplementary instruction, .... 

The book — The living voice — Occupation and libraries, . 

Societies for the advancement of science, education, and literature 

Educational associations, 

Educational periodicals and reports, 

School books and school apparatus, 

American text books printed prior to 1800, 

School apparatus, 

School architecture, 

School houses as they were, 

School-houses as they should be, 

Benefactors of education, 

The Horn-book, 

The New England Primer, 

"Webster's Spelling Book, 



PAG?:. 

956 

959 

i. 

960 

962 

a 

971 
974 
980 
981 
982 

u 

983 
• it 

984 

a 

985 
987 



989 

990 

991 

992 

993 

996 

997 

1003 

1006 

1008 

1009 

1013 
ti 

1022 
1024 
1028 
1030 
1031 
1032 

1035 

n 

1037 
1046 
1046 
1048 
1049 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Portrait of Prof. Morse. 
(Steel Plate.) 



^ Frontispiece. 

Prof. Morse. 

Flat-boat, 

Steamboat, ..... 

First Locomotive, .... 

Modern Train, ..... 

Emigrating from Connecticut to Eastern Ohio in 1805, 

Emigrating at the present time from Connecticut to Iowa, 
"j* Map of the United States, 
4 Map of North America, . 

First Steamboat built to carry passengers, 

First Propeller ever built, 

Oliver Evans' Orukter Amphibolos, 

Second Experimental Boat of John Fitch, 

Machinery of Fulton's First Steamboat, . 

The North River of Clermont, . 

The Steamer Adriatic, . 

Marine Engine, .... 

Riveting the Boilers, 

Bending and Cutting Engines, . 

Cutting Engine, .... 

Casting the Cylinders, . 

Stationary Engine, 

Sections of Engine, 

Baxter Steam Engine, Front View, 

Sectional View, .... 

Portable Steam Engine, . 

The Amoskeag Double Plunger Steam Fire Engine, 

The Amoskeag Self-propelling Steam Fire Engine, 

Hamilton's Independent Air-pump and Condenser, 

The Colt Disc Engine, 

The Corliss Engine, 

The Horse Power, 

Hand Loom, 

Power Loom, 

Spinning by Hand, 

Mule Spinner, 

Lyall's Great Textile Exhibit at the Centennial, 

Williinantic Linen Company's Exhibit, . 



PAGE. 

42 
42 
54 

a 

56 
57 
60 
61 
99 



100 



101 

105 
it 

106 



117 
118 

123 

u 

124 
127 

140 
143 
146 
147 

159 

a 

160 

a 

167 
168 



XX11 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE. 

Making Paper by Hand, . . . • .185 

Fourdrinier Paper Machine, 

Engine, . 

Hand Carding, . . . . . . .188 

Iron Frame Finisher Card Machine, . . . .193 

Crompton's Improved Fancy Loom, . . . .194 

Marble's Gig or Cloth-napping Machine, 

Cotton -shearing Machine, . . . . .197 

Marble's Improved Perpetual Shearing Machine, . .198 

Iron Frame Double-acting Brusher, 

The Murkland Ingrain Carpet Loom, . . . .201 

Over the Beam, . . . • . . . 223 

Hide-Splitting Machine, 

Unhairing the Hide, 

Tan-Yard, 

"Wax-end Sewing Machine, ..... 224 

Pegging Machine, 

Pegging Boots by Hand, 

Colt's New Model Army Metallic Cartridge Revolving Pistol, . 229 

Colt's Army Pistol, 

Colt's New Breech-loaders, 30 Calibre, . . .230 

38 Calibre, 

The Krupp Gun, . . . . . .239 

The Gatling Gun, 

The Bison, or American Buffalo, . . . .255 

Polar Bear, ....... 256 

Black Bear, 

Fox, ........ 257 

Otter, 

Beavers. . 

Musk Rat, ....... 258 

American Sable, . 

Getting out Floor-boards by hand, . . . .271 

Wood worth Planing Machine, 

Wagon, 1810, ....... 279 

Wagon, 1820, . 

Thorough-brace, . 

First Elliptic Springs, 

Jagger, . 

Gazelle, . 

Cricket, . 

French Dog-cart, 

Doctor's Phaeton, . . . . . .280 

Full-top Carriage, 
Champion, 
Prince of Wales, 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



XX111 



PAGE. 


Amorican Sodable Rock-a-way, . . . . .280 


Sensible Buggy, . 






. 281 


Deep-side Box Buggy, . 






u 


Victoria Phaeton, 






<< 


York Wagon, 






. 282 


English Square Phaeton, 






u 


C Spring Victoria, 






tt 


First Clocks Used by Country People, 






. 287 


Hour Glass, 






a 


Sun Dial, 






tt 


Cheap House Clocks, 






it 


Mantel Clock, Glass Cover, 






. 288 


Mantel Clock, Bronze Case and Statuarj 


r , 




it 


Mantel Clock, 






a 


The Train Room, 






. 289 


Elgin Machine Shops, 






290 


Setting up the Watches, 






u 


The Caster, 






. 296 


Ice Pitcher, 






tt 


Combination Ice- Water Set, 






. 297 


Cod Fishery, 






, 303 


Whale Fishery, . 






304 


Food Fishes of the Sea, . 






309 


Trout Fishing, .... 






313 


Ice Harvesting, . 






317 


Marking and Cutting, 






tt 


Sawing and Barring-Off, 






tt 


Canaling to the Ice-House, 






318 


The Elevators, . 






u 


Packing away the Ice, . 






tt 


Silk-Spinning Frame, 






325 


Silk Reel Mill, . 






it 


Herring's Patent Triple Champion, Bankers' Safe, 




329 


Fire-proof Safe with Inside Bankers' Chest 




a 


Buffet Side- Board Safe, ..... 




330 


House Safe, Door Open, . 






K 


House Safe, Door Closed, 






a 


Manufacture of Glass Bottles, . 






337 


Goblet Makers, .... 






338 


Press for Moulding Goblets, 






tt 


Manufacture of Window Glass, . 






339 


The Great Calender Machine, 






349 


Cutting Rubber into Slabs, 






tt 


Ficus Elastica, . . 






tt 


Machine for Washing India Rubber, 






350 


India Rubber Grinding Mill, 
2 






a 



XXIV 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Sewing by Hand, 

Sewing by Machine, 

Overstrung Scale for Grand Pianos, 

Overstrung Scale for Square Grand Pianos 

The Centennial Organ, . 

Styles of Furniture Fifty to One Hundred Years Ago, 

Modern Styles of Furniture, 

Kitchen of 1770, 

Kitchen of 1870, 

Fashions of 1776, 

" " 1780, 

« " 1785, 

" « 1795, 

" " 1797, 

" " 1800, 

" " 1805, 

" '" 1812, 

» " 1815, 

« " 1818, 

" « 1820, 

" " 1825, 

« " 1828, 

" " 1833, 

" " 1840, 

" " 1844, 

" « 1850, 

" " 1860, 

" " 1868-9, 
Mining Camp, 
Chestnut Hill Mine, 
American Iron "Works, . 
Smelting Pig Iron, 
Forges at Chalons, 
Flattening Machine, 
The Rolling Mill, 
Forges and Trip Hammers, 
Steam Hammer, 
Puddling, 
Casting Pig Iron, 
Blast Furnace, . 
Casting Steel Ingots, 
Hydraulic Mining, 
Tunneling at Table Mountain, 
Larger Rocker, . 
Stamps for Crushing Gold, 
Yosemite VaJley, 



PAGE. 

352 
280 
366 
367 
371 
379 



379 
390 
397 
398 
399 
400 
409 
410 

415 



441 

442 
443 
444 
453 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



XXV 



Father of the Forest, 

Gold Mining in California, 

Prospecter in California Gold Mines, 

Chinese in California Gold Mines, 

Scotch Hearth Furnace, 

Process of Working Platinum, . 

New Almaden Quicksilver Mine, 

Baltimore Company's Mine, Wilkesbarre, Pa., 

Map of the Anthracite Regions of Pa., 

The Great Open Quarry of the Lehigh, 

Map Showing the Coal Strata, . 

Map Showing the Coal Veins, . 

Mount Pisgah Plain, Mauch Chunk, Pa., 

Colliery Slope and Breaker at Tuscarora, Pa., 

Descending into the Mine, 

Fire-damp Explosion, 

Inundation, 

Breaking of Props and Caving In, 

Undermining Coal, 

Breaking Off and Loading Coal, 

Drawing Out Coal, 

Oil Wells of Pa., 

Prospecting Drill, 

Prospecting Drill Without Boiler, 

Academy of Design, New York, 

Cooper Institute, 

New City Hall, New York, 

New York Stock Exchange, 

Governor Stuyvesant's Mansion, New York, 

First Class Dwelling in Exchange Place, 1690, 

A. T. Stewart's Residence, 

View of Broad Street, New York, 1796, 

Interior of a Carpet House, 

Interior of a Dry Goods House, . 

Interior View of United States Senate Chamber, 

Interior of the Mint, Philadelphia, 

Coining Room, . 

Interior View of the Mint, Philadelphia, Adjusting Room, 

Irish Emigrants, Just Arrived in New York, 

Irishmen in the Common Council, New York, 

Telegraph Illustrations, . 

Stock Reporting and Private Line Telegraph, 

Phonograph Instruments, 

Indian Encampment, 

The Farm, .... 

Life in New England in 1770, . 



PAGE. 

454 

455 

456 

<< 

467 
486 
491 
503 
E04-5 
506 
512 
513 
515 
516 
519 
520 
521 
522 
523 



548 

549 

(i 

577 

u 

578 
<< 

579 

K 

11 

580 
583 

« 

613 
(i 

614 

a 

631 

u 

641 
543 
649 
664 
665 
669 



XXVI 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



The Deer, 

Golden Plover . 

Partridges, 

Wild Turkeys, . 

Canvas-back Duck, 

Quail, 

Farming Tools in Use in 1790, . 

Farming Tools of the Present Time, 

Highlander Plow, 

King or Sulky Plow, 

The Deere Gang Plow, . 

Charter Oak Swivel Plow, 

Cider and Wind Mill, . 

Seed Drill, 

Well's Seed Sower, 

Common Side-hill or Swivel Plow, 

Eagle Self-sharpener, 

A Deep Tiller Plow, 

Threshing machine, 

Threshing by Hand, 

Hay-tedder, 

Wood's Harvester, Combined with Locke's Self 

Old-fashioned Way of Reaping, 

Excelsior Mower, 

Milch Cow, 

Short Horn Bull, 

Jenny, . 

Devon Bull, 

Ayrshire Bull, . 

Percheron Stallion, 

Perch eron Mare, 

Clydesdale Horses, 

Petersham Morgan, 

Trotting Childers, 

Cotswold Sheep, 

Improved Kentucky Southdowns, 

Southern Pine Woods Hog, 

Western Beech Nut Hog, 

Improved Essex, 

Improved Suffolk, 

Berkshire Hog, . 

Slaughtering Hogs, 



The Marsh Windmill with Graduating 
The Marsh Windmill, . 
Making Ready for Cultivation, . 



Crank, 



PAGE. 

673 
674 



Binder, 



679 

673 
679 

u 

680 



689 

a 

690 

691 
« 

692 
701 

a 

702 
703 
704 

711 

<< 

712 
713 
714 

717 

718 

725 

«< 

726 



727 
728 
733 
734 
747 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



XXV11 



Cultivation of Small Fruits, 

Gathering Hops, 

Fan-tail Pigeon, . 

"White Cochins, . 

Light Brahmas, . 

Black Hamhurgs, 

Dark Brahmas, . 

Buff Cochins, 

Partridge Cochins, 

S. P. Hamburgs, 

"White Leghorns, 

Brown Leghorns, 

Black Spanish, . 

Black Leghorns, 

Plymouth Rocks, 

Brown Red Games, 

B. B. Red Games, 

Silver and Yellow Duck Wing Games, 

S. S. Hamburgs, 

Golden or Silver S. Polish, 

Houdans, 

Bremen Geese, 

Pekin Ducks, 

Aylesbury Ducks 

Rouen Ducks, 

Guinea Fowl, 

Saw-mill, 

Bronze Turkeys, 

Hauling Logs, 

Sawing Off Logs 

Floating Logs, 

The Jam, 

Loading the Ship, 

Lumberman's Cabin, 

Products of the Forests, Turpentine and Rosin, 

a u << « << " " 

Sub-Tropical Trees of the United States, 

Illustrations from Thomas's Farmers' Almanac, 

Hauling Cotton to Market, 

Cotton Press, 

Cotton Picking, . 

Gathering the Cane, 

Clipper Ship, 

Emigrant Ship, . 

Chicago City University, 

Norwich Free Academy, 



PAGE. 

747 
757 
760 
761 



762 



763 



766 
767 
769 



770 



773 
774 
777 
781 
791 
792 
797 
798 
825 
826 
901 
902 



XXV111 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Was, 



Interior View of a School-house in 1770, 
Interior View of a School-house in 1870, 
Contraband Schools, .... 

Founding of Dartmouth College, 1769, . 

Yale College in 1764, . 

Alphabet of the Deaf and Dumb (26 engravings), 

Austin City Library, Exterior, . 

Interior, ...... 

First Map Engraved in the United States in Raised Letters 

Map of the Present Time in Raised Letters, 

Gentlemen Engaged in the Fine Arts, . 

Women Engaged in the Fine Arts, 

Apparatus and Equipment of the District School As It 

Specimens of the Apparatus of the School As It Is, 

Desk and Settee Combined, 

Desk and Settee Independent, 

Principal's Desk, 

Assistant Teacher's Desk, 

Timbey's Globe Time-piece, 

The Abacus or Numeral Frame, 

Eureka Wall Slates, 

Hammond Black-board Support, 

The New School Globe, . 

New Crayon Holder, 

The Assembly School Desk and 

School house — As They Were, 

School-house — As They Are, 

Brown School-house, Hartford, Conn., 

Packer Collegiate Institute, 

Garden Front, . 

Interior of Chapel, 

The Horn Book, 

Portrait of John Hancock, 

Burning of John Rogers at the Stake, 

New England Primer Illustrations, 

The Boy that Stole Apples, 

The Country Maid and Her Milk-pail, 

The Cat and the Rat, 

The Fox and the Swallow, . 

The Fox and the Bramble, 

The Partial Judge, 

The Bear and the Two Friends, 

The Two Dogs, . 



Settees, 



TACK. 

915 

916 
970 
975 
1001 
1015 
1016 
1025 

1026 

1033 
it 

1034 



1035 



1038 
1039 
1040 
1041 
1042 

1046 
1047 

1048 
1049 
1050 

1051 



1052 



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TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION. 



CHAPTER I. 

EARLY ROADS— POST ROADS— MACADAM- 
NATIONAL. 

Or all the marvels that have marked the 
present century, those which manifest them- 
selves in the development of the means of 
locomotion and transportation are among 
the most wonderful. With the emancipation 
of the states from their colonial condition, 
and the formation of a federal government, 
a most extraordinary activity seems to have 
been imparted to the inventive faculties 
of the American people, and to which side 
soever we direct our attention, we find 
that all the great and useful creations of 
genius take date from that auspicious event. 
The art of transportation has, as it were, 
been created. Not that our fathers were not 
possessed of the means of transportation by 
land or water, but those means were so im- 
measurably below those now in use, that it may 
be fairly claimed that a new art has been 
created. When our fathers landed on these 
shores, it is easily understood that they 
found no roads, or carriages, or other means 
of moving from one place to another. In- 
deed, the countries they had left were at 
that time but poorly provided with such 
means, as compared with what they have at 
present. 

The first attempts to exchange the prod- 
ucts of labor, which mark the nascent com- 
merce of a people emerging from barba- 
rism, are developed through manual labor, 
and the application of the strength of ani- 
mals in a rude and imperfect way. The 
peddler with his pack, and progressively his 
pack-horse, are the instruments of intercourse 
in an infant society. From village to vil- 
lage, pathways are formed, wheel -carriages 
are invented to gather the fruits of harvests, 
and they wear their own paths upon the sur- 
face of the soil, and finally the road is con- 
structed, more or less perfect, as a means of 
transport between places more or less dis- 



tant. In such a state of affairs the roads 
are very imperfect, and the carriages of the 
rudest description. It is conceivable that 
the first step from the pack-horse and its 
pathway, to the two-wheeled cart and a road 
was a very great advance — nearly as much 
as from the road to the railway. And this 
improvement has by no means been of so 
distant a date as at first we might imagine. 
Not only is the construction of good roads 
of very recent date, but up to 1860 a very 
large portion of the world called civilized 
was without them. Certain parts of Eu- 
rope, the French colony of Algiers, and 
the United States, alone possessed them. 
Until within the past twenty-five years, 
Russia, with more than 72 millions of in- 
habitants, Italy, with 27 millions, and 
Spain, with 23 millions, were almost wholly 
without any good roads. The diligences 
of Spain and Italy were dragged over the 
hills and through the valleys, by rough 
and detestable highways, while in Russia 
travel was only possible in winter on sledges. 
Now they have some good roads, and 
Russia has about 14,000 miles of railroad; 
Italy, 6,000, and Spain, 5,000. 

The condition of affairs in this country 
before the construction of roads is evident 
to the hardy pioneers of the western fron- 
tier, and has been at times common to every 
part of the country. The first settlers on 
arriving here, it is certain, found no roads, 
and were not skilled in following an Indian 
trail. They built their houses upon the 
summits of hills, as well to avoid the mias- 
mata of swamps as to get notice of the ap- 
proach of hostile savages. The connection 
between these houses was by foot-paths that 
became horse tracks, and with the progress 
of events were enlarged into wagon roads. 
These, ultimately fenced in, became the high- 
ways, running irregularly over the face of 
the country, as they were prolonged by settle- 
ments. The science of road making never 
iruided their direction, nor would farmers 



EARLY ROADS — POST ROADS MACADAM NATIONAL. 



33 



permit the squareness of their fields to give 
place to the straightness of roads. These 
highways were made in the general idea of 
making the passage of a vehicle between 
any two given points possible, and various 
expedients were resorted to, to overcome ob- 
stacles at the smallest expense. The plough 
turned up the sides, and the scraper drew the 
earth to the summit, which was levelled off 
to be hardened by travel. The reduction 
of hills or the filling in of swamps was not 
resorted to in new settlements, but the lat- 
ter were mostly made passable by laying 
down logs across the track, and parallel 
with each other. This (corduroy's road was 
better than a swamp, but offered so great 
resistance that a far less load could be 
drawn over it than over a smooth, level 
road. The roads of the whole country took 
their character from their location, and 
transportation in each district was more 
or less difficult, according to circumstan- 
ces. The best roads of the day were such 
as would now nowhere be tolerated; as a 
general thing, the water-courses, so abun- 
dant in this country, were the main arte- 
ries, and most roads were directed toward 
these, or in the neighborhood of a large city 
they converged upon it as a common centre. 
The number of even these roads at the 
date of the formation of the government 
was not large, nor was their quality to be 
admired. The streams and water-courses 
were well supplied with small craft, that 
delivered goods and produce between distant 
points, but where the route left the water, the 
transportation became difficult and expen- 
sive. The war and its success had deeply 
stirred the public mind, and imparted full 
activity to the independent genius and en- 
terprise of the people. Those 3,0u0,000 
of souis occupied, as it were, but a foothold 
on this immense continent, to the ultimate 
possession of the whole of which they al- 
ready looked forward. The means of trans- 
portation were the first object and desire 
that presented themselves to thinking men. 
Steam, as a power of locomotion, was un- 
known, and the science of road making- 
little developed. Canals, therefore, pre- 
sented themselves almost simultaneously to 
leading men in various sections. General 
Washington had, before he attained his 
twenty-first year, crossed the mountains and 
given his careful attention as an engineer to 
the subject of canals, more particularly the 
connection of the Chesapeake with the Ohio 



river. At a subsequent period he received 
the thanks of the Virginia House for his 
report on the results of his examination of 
the valley of the Ohio. And the war had no 
sooner closed than we find him, in 1784, pre- 
siding at a commission sitting at Annapolis, 
on behalf of Maryland and Virginia, to con- 
sider the improvement of the navigation of 
the Potomac, which improvement ultimate- 
ly, in after years, became a canal to Pittsburo-. 
General Washington, as an engineer, always 
took an active interest in works of internal 
improvement. When the Dismal Swamp 
canal, connecting the Chesapeake, at Nor- 
folk, Va., with Edenton, Albemarle Sound, 
North Carolina, a distance of 28 miles, 
through the vast Dismal Swamp, wasproject- 
ed and executed at the expense of individuals 
with some government aid, he took some 
of the stock. One certificate of this stock, 
originally issued to him for £300, or 81,000, 
was sold in 1825, at auction, in Alexandria, 
for $12,100, to Judge Washington. Penn- 
sylvania, nearly at the same time, appointed 
commissioners to explore routes for connect- 
ing the Delaware with the lakes. They 
reported in favor of the Juniata, partly by 
canal and partly by river. The result was a 
charter of the Schuylkill and Susquehanna 
Company, in 1789, and the Delaware and 
Schuylkill in the following year, with $400,- 
000 capital. In New York the active mind, 
of Gouverneur Morris had already projected 
the Erie canal. In Massachusetts, the Mid- 
dlesex canal, 30 miles, was authorized in 
1789, and completed in 1804. In South. 
Carolina the Santee canal was finished in 
1802. These, with many other events, show 
the activity of the public mind at the date 
of the birth of the Union, in relation tc 
means of transportation. It will be re- 
membered, however, that the people were 
then few in number. They were heavily in 
debt. Their productions were hjnall and 
trade limited. There was no surplus capital 
to carry out those magnificent ideas, which 
were in advance of the times. The natural 
watiT-courses of the country ran through 
the finest farms and delivered most of the 
produce upon noble bays, which were well 
provided with ships to transport it abroad 
for sale. This natural traffic absorbed all 
the commercial capital of the country, but 
it was so profitable that in the course of a 
few years it supplied accumulations for 
other objects, and it was left for a few years 
later to witness the prosecution of great en- 



34 



TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION. 



terprises. The roads of the country were in 
a terrible state, however, and since the new 
constitution had empowered Congress to 
establish post-offices and post-roads for the 
conveyance of the mails, it became its duty 
to look to the roads, and this was the first 
practical bond of union between the states. 



A systematic connection of every town in the 
whole thirteen states, by state routes under 
one organization, completed the means of 
communication and established passenger 
routes. The statistics of the post-office 
afford a very good indication of the progress 
of that kind of transportation : — 









MAIL SERVICE. 










No. of 


Miles 


By stupes. Sulkies and horses. Steam. 


Rail. 


Annual. 




post offices 


post roads. 


Miles. Miles. 


Miles. 


Miles. 


Miles. 


1791 . 


89 


1,905 


89,650 756,818 






846.468 


1811. . 


2,403 


37,031 


2,534,102 3,058,960 






5,592,652 


1833 


8.450 


115,176 


17,693,839 8,531,909 


628,737 




26,854,485 


1859 


27,977 


260,052 


23,448,398 27,021,658 


4,569,962 


27,268,384 


86,308,402 


1868 


26,481 


216,928 


45,540,587 


3,797,560 


34,886.178 


84,224,325 


1880 


42,989 


343,888 


76,070,995 


5,668,538 


96,497,46.3 


178,236,796 



This table gives the transportation of the 
mail in the first year of its operation; in 
1811, when steamboats began to run; in 
1833, when railroads began to claim a share ; 
and in the past year, when all these means 
have been more fully developed in all sec- 
tions of the country. There are thus three 
distinct periods of transportation: 1790 to 
1810 were 20 years of common roads and 
sail vessels; from 1810 to 1830 were 20 
years of canals and steamboat progress ; and 
since 1830 there have been 50 years of rail- 
road progress, which has produced immense 
results, throwing an entire net-work over the 
surface of the country between the Atlantic 
and the Mississippi, and superseding other 
means of transportation. It is to be ob- 
served that in the first year of the opera- 
tions of the post-office department, there 
were but 1,905 miles of post-roads, and 
■that on these, nine-tenths of the service was 
on horseback the stage service being very 
.small; but as the roads were improved up 
to 1811, the stage service came nearly to 
equal the horse service. From that date 
. steam began to take the mails that ran on or 
■near watercourses, and subsequently to 
1830 the railroads began to compete with 
the stages on land ; since that time the stage 
service has increased but six millions, while 
in the previous 20 years it had increased 
over fifteen millions of miles. The extension 
of post routes has "been in 90 years, it 
appears, nearly 342,000 miles in the whole 
country, and the federal government has 
taken an active part in the extension of 
roads. The most important work of this 
kind undertaken was the Cumberland or 
national route across Ohio, Indiana, and 
Illinois to St. Louis. For this purpose, 
lai'ge annual appropriations were made by 
Congress. Other roads in many directions 
were projected, particularly from Washing- 



ton to New Orleans ; and in the frontier 
states, numerous roads were constructed bv 
the troops under the direction of the war 
department. 

It was thus that the federal government 
imitated imperial Rome, which in the days 
of its power clearly understood that that 
power was to be maintained only by the rap- 
id march of its legions. From the " eternal 
city," noble causeways ran to the remotest 
corners of the then known world. These 
were military routes simply, and intelli- 
gence was conveyed upon them from sta- 
tion to station with great rapidity. On 
the fall of the empire, those noble works, 
instead of being preserved were de- 
molished by small states, as a means of 
preventing invasion. Nevertheless, those 
Roman roads remained the best roads 
in England down to the present century. 
What is called Ermine street connected Lon- 
don with Carlisle, in Cumberland. Another is 
known as Watling street. Apart from 
those old works, the roads of England were 
no better than those of this country up to 
the present century. In this respect there 
is great difference between the works of the 
Romans and those of the United States. 
Those old Roman roads had no competitors. 
During 1,400 years they continued the 
best means of conveyance. The United 
States roads, on the other hand, were hardly 
done before the inventive spirit of the age 
set up a successful rival in the giant railway, 
which has become the trunk road. The 
French government, under the empire, saw 
the necessity of roads, and began a system 
for Europe. The noble way over the Sim- 
plon was the first of these. With the fall 
of the empire that system became confined 
to France, but has since been vigorously 
pushed — 820,000,000 per annum was ex- 
pended for many years in their construction. 



EARLY ROADS POST ROAD8 MACADAM NATIONAL. 



35 



There were in 1815, 3,000 leagues of "roy- 
al" roads, and these had increased to 10,000 
in 1850. 2,000 leagues of departmental, or 
county roads had, in the same time, increas- 
ed to 12,100, and town roads were extended 
by 15,000 leagues. These extended means 
of communication have imparted to French 
prosperity much of its strength. 

In the United States the impulse given to 
road building by the federal government was 
taken up by the several states, if not direct- 
ly at the public expense, yet by laws which 
compel inhabitants to work on the local 
roads. These regulations are different in 
different states. The essential features of all 
the laws are nearly the same as in the state 
of New York, where the directing power is 
in " commissioners of highways," who are 
chosen in each town. Under these over- 
seers are also chosen. The commissioners 
direct as to the grade of the road, general 
shape, drainage, etc. The overseers sum- 
mon the persons who are to work, see that 
they do actually work, collect fines and com- 
mutation money. Every person owning land, 
and every male over twenty-one years, is as- 
sessed to work. The whole number of days' 
work shall be at least three times the num- 
ber of inhabitants in each town. Under this 
system the roads are never very good. The 
commissioners work gratuitously, and skill, 
labor, and time are never to be had for that 
price. The overseers, being changed every 
year, are never experienced in the undertak- 
ing. The men they summon go to it as a half 
holiday, and the work the overseer sets them 
at is pretty sure to be that which most bene- 
fits his own place. The money subscribed is 
not expended in the best manner. These 
are all circumstances which do not favor the 
construction of such roads as will greatly 
reduce the cost of transportation. In the 
laying out of the road in this way, a passa- 
ble track is the most aimed at. 

To admit vehicles, the track must be 
cleared of wood by the ax-men, swamps must 
be overlaid with materials, rivers bridged, 
and the route laid around hills in order 
to avoid the difficulties of ascent. These 
are the maiu points to make a road practica- 
ble. It is very soon discovered that trans- 
portation on a bad road is much more ex- 
pensive than on a good, and efforts are ac- 
cordingly made by the most enterprising to 
improve the bad roads. The first step is to 
make the- roads in such a manner as to ac- 
commodate the greatest number of people, 



and at the same time allow the largest loads 
to be drawn by horses. The better the road 
the larger will be the load that a team, or two 
horses, can draw at a given speed, and of 
course, the cheaper the transportation. It is 
to be understood, however, that the road 
must be equally good for the whole distance 
that a load is to be drawn, since if there is a 
space where great difficulties are to be en- 
countered, the load must be gauged to meet 
that difficulty, no matter how good may be 
the remainder of the road. If a highroad 
leading through one township is not kept up, 
it neutralizes the public spirit of those ad- 
joining ; hence the necessity of a general 
system to insure continuous cheap transpor- 
tation. To effect this, science has devoted its 
attention, but with little effect in the man- 
ner that country roads are made and kept in 
repair. The requisites of a road are: 1st, 
straightness, because straight lines are the 
shortest ; 2d, it should be as level as 
possible, because every ascent causes a loss 
of power. Thus, if a horse draws on an or- 
dinary level road two tons, and comes to an 
ascent of one foot in every twenty, he can- 
not ascend, because, in addition to the 
draught, he must lift up 200 pounds, or one- 
twentieth of the whole weight through the 
whole neight. To make the road level, and 
save this labor and expense, the road must 
wind round the hill. There is little lost by 
this, because generally it is no further round 
than over. To prove this, cut an egg in half 
longitudinally, and set it upon the table ; the 
line which goes round the base is the same 
as that which goes over the top. The half 
of an apple or any similar body will give the 
same result. Even if it were longer, it is 
better to go round, since the horse can do 
the last and not the other. The road should 
never be less than a rod wide, to allow two 
vehicles to pass. The surface of the road 
must be as smooth and hard as possible, in 
order to overcome as much as possible the 
resistance offered by sinking in, which is 
very serious, because the depression creates 
little hills before the wheels. Thus, if a 
wheel four feet in diameter sinks in one 
inch, to overcome the resistance thus offered 
one-seventh of the load would require to be 
lifted up over it. The harder the road, the 
less the resistance from this source. The 
greater the number of stones, hard substan- 
ces, and inequalities there are to be encoun- 
tered, the greater the resistance from colli- 
sion. The resistance of friction is propor- 



36 



TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION. 



tional to the roughness of the road, and the 
extremes of this may be illustrated by a car- 
riage wheel on gravel and a rail wheel. The 
loss of power on a road, or in other words, 
the cost of transportation, is increased in 
proportion to the increase of these resist- 
ances, and inversely as they are diminished. 
To overcome them many improvements have 
been gradually adopted, such as earth, gravel, 
broken stone, stone pavements, wood, and 
railroads. 

In marshy forests charcoal roads are 
made. Timber from 6 to 18 inches thick is 
cut, 24 feet long, and piled up lengthwise in 
the centre of the road in such a manner that 
the pile will be about 1 2 feet high. This is cov- 
ered with earth, taken from ditches on either 
side. When the wood is charred, the coal 
is raked down to the widthof 10 feet, with a 
depth of two feet in the centre and one at the 
side. Such a road becomes very compact, 
and free from dust. Such a one in Michigan 
cost $660 per mile. 

In the older states mostly plank roads 
were at one time favorites, and many hun- 
dreds of miles were constructed at a cost of 
$1,250 per mile. This plan has been gen- 
erally abandoned. The roads not kept up 
are a nuisance, and many have been com- 
plained of, and removed as such. 

Gravel roads have sometimes been made 
with the gravel from the shores of rivers, but 
the resistance offered by these roads is con- 
siderable. 

The modes of road making here alluded 
to, are those which are prevalent mostly in 
the country districts, and where the work is 
performed as a tax. These answer for cross 
roads ; but the great thoroughfares were 
taken in hand either by the state or by au- 
thorized companies. 

Turnpike companies were chartered by 
most of the states, with the intention that 
they should construct roads having all the 
requisites of the best routes, and they were 
authorized to make a charge to those who use 
them. These, like most corporations, were 
subject to abuse ; and the people were com- 
pelled to pay tolls when they had gained noth- 
ing in the way of easier transportation. New 
England, New York, Pennsylvania, and other 
states, authorized a number of companies 
which answered a purpose before railroads. 
The New York turnpike laws enact that ve- 
hicles having tires six inches wide shall pay 
half tolls, those with nine inches, one quar- 
ter, and those 12 inches, none at all. These 



enactments were designed to encourage the 
use of broad tires, as being less destructive 
to roads, but where the road is well made, as 
on the Macadam plan, the breadth of the 
tire has no effect ; on the other hand, the 
horses' feet do the most damage. It has 
been calculated that a set of tires will, in 
average weather, on a macadamized road, 
run 2,700 miles, but that a set of shoes will 
bear only 200 miles travel. 

The Macadam road, invented by a Scotch 
gentleman of that name, was introduced in 
1820. The principle is simply that stones 
broken into angular fragments not over a 
certain size, say that of a pigeon's egg, will, 
under the pressure of wheels, combine into 
a compact mass, excluding all water, and, 
therefore, not subject to the action of frost, 
and be as solid as the original stone. These 
have proved to be the best roads, an- 
swering most of the conditions, and, there- 
fore, allowing of transportation at the small- 
est cost. Good, well-made pavements, as 
used in cities, are better, since they give lit- 
tle resistance, and afford a foothold to the 
horses. In order to understand the differ- 
ence in value of these roads, it may be re- 
marked that a machine has been invented 
called a dynamometer. It resembles a spring 
balance ; one end is connected with the car- 
riage, and the other with the horses, and the 
power they exert is shown by the index. 
By such an instrument it was determined 
that, on a gravel and earth road, the resist- 
ance to draught of one ton was 147 lbs. ; on a 
Macadam road, 65 lbs. ; on a good pave- 
ment, 33 lbs. ; and on a rail track, 8 lbs. 
Whence it appears that a horse can draw 
three times as much on a Macadam road as 
on an earth road ; on a pavement, four and a 
half times as much ; on a railway, eighteen 
times as much. 

These figures indicate the gradual advance 
made in the power of transportation, since 
the roads, under the action of the state and 
federal government, and of the enterprising 
towns and cities, gradually improved from 
mere wagon ways to well-constructed roads 
in those sections where land carriage was 
most used. While individuals, companies, and 
states thus contributed to the improvement 
of roads, the federal government entered 
the field with greater vigor. 

There were two motives for the construc- 
tion of roads and internal improvements by 
the federal government. The first was to 
facilitate the mails ; and the second was to 



EARLY ROADS — POST ROADS MACADAM — NATIONAL. 



37 



facilitate communication. It was obvious 
that the new and infant states had little 
means to expend in the construction of 
roads that were to be more or less for the 
general benefit. The government, therefore, 
in organizing new states upon the national 
territory, made provision for the construc- 
tion of roads out of the proceeds of the pub- 
lic lands sold within each state. The gov- 
ernment everywhere constructed numerous 
roads, and after the war of 1812, when its 
finances began to be easy, it employed the 
French General Bernard and a corps of en- 
gineers in the construction of fortifications 
and roads. Among these engineers was Capt. 
Poussin. This gentleman went back to 
France, carrying with him the republican 
ideas here collected. He there propagated 
them with such effect that he was, in 1848, 
when the Revolution chased the last Bourbon 
from the throne, attached to the Paris Na- 
tional, the republican newspaper, and be- 
came, in consequence, ambassador of the 
provisional government to the United States 
in 1849. Thus, after the lapse of a quarter 
of a century, returning to the scene of his 
early labors. 

When the state of Ohio was admitted into 
the Union, there were very few roads there, 
and the federal government was the chief pro- 
prietor of the land. It was agreed, therefore, 
that two per cent, of the proceeds of the land 
sold should be applied to the making of a 
road leading to the state. The same condi- 
tion was made when Indiana, Illinois, Mis- 
souri, Mississippi, and Alabama were ad- 
mitted, and the road was commenced. A 
turnpike road from Baltimore, 170 miles to 
Wheeling, was laid out, and a similar road 
from Washington, 150 miles to Cumberland 
was constructed. From that point the Cum- 
berland road runs 135 miles to the cast bank 
of the Ohio ; of this distance, 85 miles are in 
Pennsylvania, 35 in Maryland, and 15 in Vir- 
ginia. This was extended west 80 miles to 
Zanesville, and so through the states of Ohio, 
Indiana, and Illinois, to St. Louis. The 
road has cost the government over $3,500,- 
000. Its effect upon transportation was 
very great. Before its construction it re- 
quired, to go from Baltimore to Wheeling, 
8 days. This was reduced to 3 days. The 
figures were the same for the length of 
travel from Washington to Wheeling. Its 
influence upon the country through which it 
ran was great. Villages multiplied in its 
neighborhood, and the value of property 



was much enhanced. The city of Wheeling 
was particularly influenced by it. In the year 
1828 it forwarded to Baltimore over that 
road 3,500,000 lbs. or 1,750 tons of prod- 
uce, by over 1,000 wagons. Anticipations 
were then indulged that a small reduction 
in the cost of transport would bring 100,000 
tons of Ohio produce over the road to Bal- 
timore. They did not then foresee that the 
reduction in cost would be brought about 
only by rails to Baltimore. 

The Cumberland road by no means monop- 
olized the attention of Congress, but roads 
were constructed in most of the states under 
the war department, and in the new states 
the army was employed in making them. 
Some 800 miles were thus made in Arkansas. 
We may allude to a few of these roads, as 
that to Mars Hill, Maine ; Detroit to Fort Gra- 
tiot, Michigan ; do. to Saginaw bay ; do. to 
Chicago ; Laplaisance bay to the Chicago 
road; Fort Howard and Fort Ciawford ; 
road to Chattahoochee ; canal survevs in 
Florida ; road to Apalachicola; Pensacola liav 
to Pittsburg, Miss.; road from Jackson to Ful- 
ton, Mississippi; Memphis to Little Rock; 
Green bay to Winnebago. These few names 
of roads spreading from Maine to Arkan- 
sas and Florida will give an idea of the ex- 
tended works of the government, which also 
embraced removing obstructions of rivers 
and improving river navigation. A grand 
system of internal improvements was thus 
developed, until its growing magnitude made 
it a political issue, and the whole system 
came to an end under the Maysville road 
veto of General Jackson. The principle was 
adopted by one party, that the federal gov- 
ernment had no power to construct any hut 
strictly national works, or not any that were 
entirely within a single state. The system 
thus came to a violent end, after an expendi- 
ture of some $30,000,000, but not until rail- 
roads had begun already to supersede canals 
and roa Is. The federal government had 
thus lent a powerful hand to the eztensiou 
of highways. The great thoroughfares that it 
had laid open had facilitated migration and 
settlement, and wherever these had taken 
place, local roads multiplied, until we find 
that in the year 1880 there were 343, 8S8 
miles of post-road in the Union. 

The mails of the government were given 
out by contract to the highest bidder for 
four years' service. The whole mail sen ice 
was divided into sections, north, east, west, 
and south, each being let for four years, but 



38 



TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION. 



every year one of those fell due. The 
contractors agreed to deliver the mails on 
certain routes in a given time, for a certain 
amount of money. The mail money was 
generally depended upon for the expenses of 
running the vehicles, and such passengers as 
could be carried by the same conveyance 
afforded a profit. Thus the system for the 
circulation of letters and newspapers became 
the machinery for the circulation of the peo- 
ple. These accommodations were, however, 
far from being luxurious at a distance from 
the great cities. In these, indeed, the staging 
was conducted in a style approaching the 
splendid. The eastern stages running into 
Boston, and penetrating into every part of 
New England, were celebrated for their 
quality and style, as were those of New 
York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and 
most other large cities that were the centres 
of traffic, as well as post service. The dif- 
ferent " lines" ran such opposition, as re- 
duced the fare and promoted speed. The 
dandy " turn-out" being ready at the hour, 
well dressed, polite, smart drivers received 
the "ribbons" with gloved hands, and the 
" team" went through with a skill that could 
get the best time out of the nature of the 
road. As the traveller receded from the great 
centres, he found the "teams" worse, and 
the roads to match. The mails ran fewer 
times in the week, the vehicle dwindled from 
the easy coach to the covered spring wagon, 
to the open wagon without springs, ultimately 
to the horse, and finally perhaps to a man's 
back, and the traveller's accommodation 
diminished in proportion. 



CHAPTER II. 

CO ASTERS— STE A MBO ATS— CANALS. 

In the neighborhood of the water-courses 
the traveller was better accommodated by 
the coasting vessels. The early settlements 
of the country had been, as a matter of 
course, upon the coast and on the numerous 
streams with which the country is supplied. 
The roads had extended back, more or less, 
into the country from these settlements, 
where the freights accumulated at the 
landings, whence they were carried by water 
for interchange with other towns, or, as the 
country grew, to be exported abroad. The 
wagon charge for freight was always so high 
as to absorb the value of the produce at 



moderate distances, and travelling was most- 
ly upon horses, unless water conveyances 
could be availed of. This was the common 
mode for long journeys on all the rivers. 
The following advertisement, from a New 
York paper early in the present century, 
gives an idea of the style of travelling in the 
youth of men now not old. 

" Sloop Experiment — for passengers 
only. — Elias Bunker informs his friends and 
the public, that he has commenced running 
a sloop of about 110 tons burthen, between 
the cities of Hudson and New York, for the 
purpose of carrying -passengers only. The 
owners of this vessel, being desirous to ren- 
der the passage as short, convenient, and 
agreeable as possible, have not only taken 
care to furnish her with the best Beds, Bed- 
ding, Liquors, Provisions, &c, but they have 
been at very great expense and trouble in 
procuring materials, and building her on the 
best construction for sailing, and for the ac- 
commodation of ladies and gentlemen travel- 
ling on business ox for pleasure. 

" Merchants and others residing in the 
northern, eastern, or western counties, will 
find a great convenience in being able to cal- 
culate (at home) the precise time they can 
sail from Hudson and New York, without be- 
ing under the necessity of taking tht ir beds 
and bedding, and those in New York may 
so calculate their business as to be certain 
of comfortable accommodations up the riv- 
er." 

This was evidently no common luxury that 
Capt. Bunker proffered to an admiring pub- 
lic. They were no longer required to "take 
up their beds and walk." Ladies and gen- 
tlemen travelling for pleasure could now be 
supplied with bedding, as well as other lux- 
uries, on board a hundred ton sloop, and 
depend upon the time of her leaving. The 
wary Elias did not commit himself to the 
time of her arrival, however. Long experi- 
ence had made him cautious on that point. 
However, to be certain of leaving was some- 
thing, since the taking of a passage had 
been only a preliminary step to a voyage. 
The completing of the freight, the waiting 
for a wind, and the notification by means of 
a black man to be on board at an appointed 
hour, were now to be dispensed with. This 
was a great blessing, a good way in advance 
of the navigation 150 years previous, when 
permission was granted to a sloop to go from 
New Amsterdam (New York) to Fort Or- 
ange (Albany), provided she did not carry 



COASTERS — STEAMBOATS — CANALS. 



39 



more than six passengers. This was the 
mode of reaching most of the large cities. 
From any point of the eastern coast the best 
mode of reaching Boston was by the lumber 
or other coasters. In these the passengers, 
male and female, were stowed away in a few 
berths in the cabin, or sprawled around upon 
the uncarpeted floor. Sometimes these ves- 
sels, when the freight earnings were eked out 
by a fair number of passengers, as from Ban- 
gor, Portland, or other cities, were raised to 
the dignity of a "packet," when a few ex- 
tra berths were decorated with a red bomba- 
zette frill of rather a scanty style. In the 
rainy seasons, spring and fall, these were al- 
most the only modes of travelling. It may 
be suppossd that passengers were not very 
abundant. The vessels, however, improved 
in size and accommodation, and the number 
of passengers even in the early railroad days 
conveyed by them was, perhaps, as large 
as ever. The speed of these vessels was not 
great, and the uncertainty of arrival such as 
now would by no means suit ideas of busi- 
ness. In those seasons of the year when the 
roads were generally good, the stages would 
make four miles per hour and arrive in fair 
time. Such arrangements did not permit 
frequent visits for the purchase of goods, 
and most business was done fall and spring, 
when the goods followed the water-courses 
as far as possible, and then paid from 15 to 
30 cents per ton per mile, according to the 
difficulties of the route. Even the mail 
charge was from §\ to 25 cents per single let- 
ter, or a letter on one piece of paper, being 
18£ cents for any distance between 150 and 
400 miles — envelopes, of course, were not 
used. Those charges were continued down 
to 1845, when the reduction took place. 

The tonnage employed in the coasting 
irade had increased from 68,607 in 1789, to 
420,362 in 1812. Inasmuch as but little 
change had taken place in the speed and 
build of the vessels, the increase indicates 
the progress of business. In 18u7 the en- 
terprising sloop owners who, like Captain 
Bunker, had conceived the idea of furnish- 
ed berths for the accommodation of the pub- 
lic, were struck aghast at the success of Ful- 
ton's "Clermont" — named after the country 
seat of Chancellor Livingston — steaming up 
the river at the rate of four miles an hour un- 
der all circumstances. The conservative inter- 
ests were loud in demonstrating the utter ruin 
that was to overtake river craft, the occupa- 
tion of boatmen, and, consequently, the na- 



vy, "the country's right arm of defence," 
by means of this great innovator. Never- 
theless, the spark of genius had kindled the 
flame of invention, and tne public were be- 
coming absorbed in it. Each new steamer ex- 
ceeded the previous ones in build and style, 
and the machinery underwent as rapid im- 
provement. As usual, however, the public 
were slow to be convinced. It was admit- 
ted, when it could no longer be denied, that 
steam would answer for the river, but it was 
held to be idle to attempt the Sound naviga- 
tion in those new-fangled concerns. This 
problem was decided in the Fulton by Capt. 
Bunker, possibly our enterprising friend of 
the sloop. The " Hell-gate" passage was, 
in those days, an object of terror. An Eng- 
lish frigate had been lost there in the old 
war, and there were not a few who still held 
the idea that " the devil only could beat 
those English who had beat the Dutch." 
The East River rushing up the Sound at par- 
ticular times of tide poured a tremendous 
t flood between Ward's and Long Islands. 
The passage narrowed to a few yards, and 
the tide rushed past the "hog's back " and 
the "gridiron," turned at right angles, and 
formed a foaming whirlpool around the 
"pot-rock," which, even with the surface 
of the water, was fatal to any vessel that 
touched it. Through that " gate of Hell " 
the steamer was to pass, and the operation 
was described by a passenger ao follows: — 
" I remember the long-agitated question, 
whether steamboats could be made capable 
of sea navigation, or so constructed as to trav- 
erse our sounds, bays, and coasts in safety. 
This question was put to rest by the enter- 
prise and skill of Capt. Bunker. In the Fulton, 
constructed, I am told, with a view to crossing 
the Atlantic, he undertook the navigation of 
Long Island Sound, an arm of the sea in 
which the most severe tempests are often 
encountered. During a season of no extra- 
ordinary moderation, including the two equi- 
noctial piles, ('apt. B. lost but a single trip. 
Another doubt remained to be removed. It 
was supposed impossible to pass the celebrat- 
ed passage of Hell-gate against the tide, at 
the strength of the current. This was re- 
served for Capt. Biroker to remove, and I 
happened to be on board at the time of the 
DOvel and interesting experiment, returning 
southward from New Hampshire. A num- 
ber of respectable passengers witnessed the 
performance. It was in the boat Connecti- 
cut, built with all the strength to be obtained 



40 



TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION. 



and careful workmanship. The machinist 
(McQueen) was accompanying his engine to 
prove its powers, with careful and ingenious 

assistants, ami some of the owners were on 
board also. The first attempt to pass the 
point of greatest pressure of the contracted 
stream was unsuccessful, and the boat was 
compelled to retreat into an eddy and in- 
crease her steam. With renovated power 
the effort was repeated, every man fixed im- 
movable at his post, the passengers properly 
stationed in different parts of the boat, the 
engineers employing their utmost diligence 
to force the passage. They were again de- 
feated by the supposed resistless stream, and 
again retreated, racked, strained, and shiver- 
ing, from the contest. After a short pause 
and fresh preparation,* it was resolved by the 
parties concerned to make a third endeavor, 
and test the strength of the machinery by 
the greatest trial it could ever be expected 
to bear. After a severe struggle, in which 
a weaker vessel would have been disjointed 
and torn to pieces, the headstrong current 
yielded to the giant power of steam, and the 
triumph of art over nature was effected. A 
few moments of greater breathless anxiety 
I scarcely ever witnessed. Mechanical sci- 
ence achieved a victory over elementary 
force, and overcame an obstacle heretofore 
deemed in this manner altogether insur- 
mountable. The courage and perseverance 
of Capt. B. were so conspicuous on this 
occasion, that I can never forget the impres- 
sion made on all present. We have since 
found it as easy to traverse our sea-board, 
navigate the Mississippi, and cross the At- 
lantic, as it was to find America after Colum- 
bus had broken the egg.^ 

To those who now so frequently make 
that dire passage without knowing it, this 
animated description must afford surprise as 
well as amusement. It is suggestive, not so 
much of the temerity of the " bold naviga- 
tors" of that day, as of the feeble nature 
of the boats then built. The passage, to be 
sure, has now been deprived of most of its 
" horrors" by the removal of the pot-rock, 
which has been broken by gunpowder 
blasts to a depth which leaves it no longer 
dangerous. The noble steamers of the pres- 
ent day pass through at all times of tide, 
without apparently feeling the current, in- 
stead of butting at it three times "strained 
and shivering." The steamboat-, after per- 
forming this feat, passed up the Connecticut 
nverfor the first time to Middletown. The 



North River boats continued to improve, 
and the time of the Clermont — .36 hours to 
Albany — was, in 1820, reduced by the Par- 
agon to 20 hours. In 1823, however, the 
time from New York to Providence, 200 
miles, was 20 hours, and the stage to Boston 
completed the route, 40 miles, in 6 hours 
more, making 26 hours. At that date steam- 
ers were multiplying on all the Atlantic rivers 
and bays, on the western rivers and the lakes. 
In 1819 the first steamer crossed the Atlantic 
from Savannah, Ga., to England. In 1825 
the Chief Justice Marshall reduced the time 
to Albany to 14 h. 30 m. The progress in 
speed may be seen by the following : — 

1811, Clermont's time to Albany, 4 ms. per h., 36 lis. 
1820, Paragon, " " 20 

L825, Chief Justice Marshall, " 14.30 

1840, Knickerbocker, " 9 'S3 

I860, average time 18 miles per hour, 8 

1870, " " 21 " " " 7 

With the opening of the Erie canal in 
1825, the quantity of goods going and com- 
ing much increased the demand for trans- 
portation, and barges in tow of steamers be- 
gan a new era in that business. That goods 
could be carried west on the canal, and so 
by continuous water-courses on the lakes 
and their affluents, induced more passengers 
by the same route. In 1841 the improved 
method of propelling by screw was introdu- 
ced by the patent of Capt. Ericsson. The iron 
screw steamer R. F. Stockton, of 72 tons, 
came from Liverpool under the command of 
Capt. Crane, ami became a tug on the liari- 
tan canal. Those steamers now gradually 
gained ground in public favor. The speed 
was long not so great as that of the paddle 
wheels. This has been gradually overcome 
by improved models ami forms of screw, 
until in the month of October, 1860, two 
propellers of 100 feet length were launched 
for the North River trade, and made time 
18 miles per hour, being the fastest boats 
for their length afloat. This class of vessels 
are now exclusively used in the European 
trade. 

The settlers who had crossed the moun- 
tains in the early times of the government 
had located mostly on the great streams, 
within easy reach of the means of conveying 
the surplus to points of sale. They were 
not provided with vessels of a very expensive 
construction ; and flat boats were the chief 
means of descending the streams. Theso 
vessels, designed only to go down stream, 
were composed of such material as, after 



COASTERS STEAMBOATS— CANALS. 



41 



having served the purpose of transporting 
produce, could be broken up at the place of 
destination, and sold as lumber. These 
were improved into keel boats, for the pur- 
pose of ascending the streams, and in either 
case were propelled by long poles in the 
hands of the boatmen. These, standing on 
the gunwale at the extreme bow of the 
boat, thrust the pole into the mud, and 
setting the shoulder against the top, push- 
ed the boat forward with the feet in 
walking toward the stern, which reached, they 
drew up the pole, walked back, and repeated 
the movement. In this laborious mode of 
travel, all the merchandise sent from the 
east, via New Orleans, reached its destina- 
tion. It required four months to travel thus 
from New Orleans to St. Louis — a distance of 
1,500 miles, and the cost of the goods, it may 
well be supposed, was enhanced by the proc- 
ess ; while, on the other hand, the produce 
sent down realized but little. Thus, between 
the cheapness of the produce and the clear- 
ness of merchandise received in exchange, 
the settler realized but little for his labor. 
It is easy to conceive how great a blessing 
was steam on those waters, to enable the 
weary men to stem the ceaseless, downward 
flow of the mighty currents. In 1811 that 
blessing made its appearance at Pittsburg in 
the shape of a steamboat, built by Fulton, 
and which had a considerable success. The 
general progress was, however, slow, for the 
reason, among others, that, as in all such 
cases, there was a large capital invested in 
river craft, which would depreciate in value 
in face of the new power, and there was not 
much capital to embark all at once in steam. 
It was aiso the case that ChancellorLiving- 
ston, the partner of Fulton, claimed a mo- 
nopoly of the lower Mississippi trade, and 
put a restraint for some years upon steam in 
that region. So great a power could not, how- 
ever, but force its way. With the construc- 
tion of the Enterprise, in 1815, St. Louis was 
reached in 25 days from New Orleans, and 
public enthusiasm was aroused. There were, 
however, up to 1817, still but twelve boats 
upon the western waters, of an aggregate ton- 
nage of 2,335 tons. The time to Pittsburg was 
54 days, of which 36 days was running time. 
These passages caused much excitement, and 
a bold merchant predicted that the rate of 
freight, between New Orleans and St. Louis 
would fall to $3.50 per 100 lbs., but he was 
regarded as visionary, or what they would 
now call in Wall-street language a " bear" 



in freights. His sanguine nature would 
probably have been surprised could the veil 
of time have been so lifted as to permit him 
to see 60 years ahead — the boats of the pres- 
ent day making money at 12 cts. per 100 
lbs., and carrying it in three days, instead 
of 25. The Monongahela and Ohio Steam- 
boat Company claimed patronage because 
their new crack boats could go nine miles 
an hour ! But they were in advance of 
the times ; that speed was thought to be 
dangerous, even if possible. Those people 
are now, however, not quite satisfied unless 
the speed is equal to 25 miles in still water. 
The war had given a new impulse to settle- 
ments west ; the more so that steam now 
so much facilitated travel, and freights multi- 
plied in proportion. Thus reciprocally the 
improved means of travel induced more lo- 
comotion, and increased traffic more de- 
mand for vessels. The multiplying boats 
and more rapid passages still found a suffi- 
ciency of business, and even the old river 
craft were kept in requisition for tow boats. 
Cincinnati began to build barges of 100 tons 
to go to New Orleans in tow of steamers ; 
and the Etna made the passage down in 
fifteen days, reflecting great glory on the com- 
mercial enterprise of that city, and its citizens 
became elated. A Cincinnati writer of 1817 
estimates the territory drained commercially 
by that city at 10,000 square miles, and re- 
marks : " Supposing this settled by 40,000 
families, and that each farm would give two 
tons annual surplus for exportation, there 
would be 80,000 tons to send to New Orleans, 
or freight for 800 boats of 100 tons each." 
The writer apologizes for the extravagance of 
this estimate. Commercial enterprise began 
to seek new routes. In 1823 three keel boats 
in tow passed 450 miles up the Wabash 
river. It was not until 1826 that the first 
steamer ran up the Alleghany river. In the 
same year the ship Illinois reached St. 
Louis from New York, via New Orleans, 
3,000 miles, in twenty-nine days and a half, 
and the first steamer ran up the Susquehanna 
to Tioga. The opening of the Erie canal, in 
1825, caused a great change in travel, Thus 
the journey from New York to Pittsburg was 
accomplished by canal, with only eight days 
staging, and thence down the river to New 
Orleans. In 1824 the passage up from New 
Orleans to New York, via Pittsburg, was 
made in 24 days, at an expense of §90. 
The passage from Natchez to Philadelphia, 
2,000 miles, was equal to 17 days. In 



42 





COASTERS — STEAMBOATS - CANALS. 



43 






the same year a remarkable voyage was pro- | 
jected from Charleston to Green Bay. It 
was a sloop of six tons, with six passengers, 
and it reached Rochester in 15 days from 
Charleston. The passage of a gentleman 
from Detroit to Washington and back in 16 
days was regarded as a miracle. 

The remarkable progress of steam upon 
che Mississippi may be estimated most 
readily by a table of the passages at different 
periods, as follows : — 

NEW ORLEANS TO ST. LOUIS— 1,300 MILES. 

Prior to steam , 120 days. 

1815, Steamer Enterprise 25 " 

1823, " average passages 12 " 

1826, " General Brown 9 " 12 hours. 

1828, " " 9 "4 " 

1860, " running time 3 " 

1880, " " " 2i " 

The time between New Orleans and St. 
Louis was thus diminished under the various 
improvements suggested by experience in 
the form and mode of running steamers. A 
boat of 350 tons when fitted out will 
now cost some $50,000, and will carry 500 
tons down stream, or 1,500 bales of cotton 
on deck. Twenty years ago the freight of 
cotton down from Memphis was $ 2 per bale, 
and below Natchez $1 per bale. The charge 
for freight up from New Orleans to Natchez 
was 75 cts. per 100 lbs. As the business 
increased, larger boats were built. Of these 
the Eclipse was the type. She car- 
ried 1,200 tons, but was too large to pay; 
and boats were then constructed of a less 
dimension. The Mississippi boats are large 
flat-bottomed boats, drawing from 15 to 50 
inches of water. The speed depends upon 
the circumstances of the channel. That of 
the Memphis, recently built for the St. 
Louis and Memphis trade, is 18 miles in 
still water per hour. With light draught and 
great pressure, a speed equal to 24 miles in 
still water has been attained. The Al- 
to oua ran between Alton and St. Louis, 25 
miles, in one hour and forty-five minutes, 
and in one hour down; average down and 
up, one hour and twenty -five minutes. 
Eighteen miles is said to be the time of the 
western boats. Those rivers flow with gen- 
tle currents in mostly shallow water; and 
there have been various changes in the 
fashion of the boats. The stern-wheel boat, 
we believe, is peculiar to those rivers. Instead 
of having two wheels paddling, one on each 
side, one wheel, 20 feet in diameter, is placed 
directly at the stern, athwart ships, and by 
its revolutions pushes the boat ahead. These 
boats are not remarkable for their speed, but 



answer in narrow and shallow streams. The 
regular steamers have their main decks 
within four or five feet of the water, and the 
guards overhanging the bow give them the 
appearance of a New York ferry-boat. The 
paddle wheels are generally much further aft 
than in the eastern steamers. The after 
part of the main deck is devoted to freight. 
Above the main deck from 10 to 18 feet is 
the saloon deck, which extends nearly over 
the whole of the main deck. The saloon is 
surrounded with state-rooms, which open 
into it, as well as on to a promenade which 
goes entirely round the outside of the boat. 
The saloon is from 150 to 250 feet long. 
Above this deck is a promenade deck, upon 
which is a long tier of state-rooms, and this, 
in its turn, is surmounted by another prome- 
nade deck, which has the pilot-house at its 
front, and which is usually 50 feet from the 
water. But formerly, when there was no 
restraint upon reckless steam pressure, or 
the explosive qualities of the boiler, its 
height, as well as that of the decks, was 
very uncertain. The " crack boats" ate 
now built from 300 to 400 feet, with 36 to 
40 feet beam, eight feet hold, and draught of 
water, light two feet, and loaded four feet. 
These steamers are now free from those 
reckless races which formerly so endangered 
life, when the safety-valve was fastened 
down, the furnace stuffed with tar and pitch, 
and the captain, rifle in hand, ready to 
shoot down the pilot of the opposing boat 
at the critical moment when the least devia 
tion in steering would lose him the race. 
Those barbarous times have passed with the 
frontier manners of the passengers. Their 
sporting, drinking, gambling, fighting, have 
given place to business, temperance, pru- 
dence, and refinement, while wealth rolls up 
in the cities as a result of the speedy and 
cheapened transportation which the steam- 
ers have effected. 

The increase of steam tonnage on those 
waters, has been as follows : — 

1842 1851 1860 1868 1880 

New Orleans ..28,153 34,736 70,072 68,085 30,113 

St. Louis 14,7>5 31.834 55.515 86,185 111. '.175 

Cincinnati 12,025 24,709 2-3.136 60.311 

Pittsburg 10,107 16,948 42.-174 63,768 189,088 

Louisville 4.618 15,181 29.037 28,lu6 17.750 

Nashville 3,810 3.578 5.263 .. 3,621 

Wheeling 2,595 7,191 11,545 20.717 48,419 

Vlckflburg 038 .. 8,896 3.-136 

Memphis 450 6,148 18,418 n».7so 

Oalena and above .. .. 5,849 25,708 14,748 

Evansville .. .. .. 6.404 

Cairo .. .. 7,888 

Omaha . . . . . . 6.8S7 

Total tons 76,033 135,560 249,039 351,671 405;600 



44 



TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION. 



It is a matter of course that while the 
speed of these vessels has increased in the 
manner indicated, their efficiency for traffic 
has progressed in the same ratio. In the 
25 days that were formerly required to go 
from New Orleans to St. Louis, a steamer 
of the present day will make eight passages, 
and will cany more freight. Hence, the 
number of tons does not indicate the growth 
of the trade. If the number of tons is three 
times greater, the business is 30 times 
larger. The effect of the great reduction in 
the freight on goods may be illustrated by 
a single example. Thus, in 1815 cotton 
cloth was 30 cts. per yard, and 100 yards 
weighed '25 lbs., which would consequently 
be worth $30. The transportation of this 
at that time from New Orleans to St. Louis 
would cost $5, or 17 per cent, of the cost. The 
same quantity of cloth is now worth $9.00, 
and the transportation from New Orleans to 
St. Louis 25 cents, or 2| per cent. Tiie re- 
ceipts and shipments by river, between St. 
Louis and New Orleans in 1879, were 1,366,- 
000 tons. The 1 8 or 2 other river ports sent 
and received at least twice as much more. 

The war of 1812, by interrupting trade on 
the Atlantic, had induced a large migration 
to the west, when steam was opportunely 
developed to facilitate trade and traffic at 
the same time. The return of peace found 
a large population west of the mountains in 
the full tide of prosperity, and in the Atlan- 
tic states great excitement in regard to 
steam, with multiplying manufactures, which 
sought a market in the growing west. Under 
such circumstances the old canal projects for 
opening up the communication were revived 
in full force, the more so that the war had 
nearly destroyed the usual water communica- 
tion. 

Instead of transporting merchandise in 
sloops and schooners along the coast, now 
no longer safe from the enemy, recourse was 
had t<> wagons over roads not the best in 
the world. This was necessarily very slow 
and costly. The traffic between New York 
and Philadelphia, for instance, was carried 
on in a Conestoga wagon, drawn by four 
horses, and that which covered the distance 
of 90 miles in three days was known as 
"the flying machine," and the value of 
goods at either end of the round showed 
great fluctuations, enhanced by the expense. 
This extra expense for the whole coast alone, 
it was asserted, would have paid the whole 
cost of a system of internal navigation from 



Maine to Georgia. It was then that the 
enterprises to which the great minds of the 
Revolution had given birth at the peace of 
1783 began to be realized, and two objects 
were sought, viz. : a safe inland water com- 
munication along the whole Atlantic border, 
to operate in case of war, and another 
to connect the waters of the west with 
the east, and the public began to regard 
with more favor the project of uniting the 
lakes to the Hudson river. Mr. Morris, who 
had suggested it at the close of the Revolu- 
tion, wrote an able report in its favor in 
1812, when the war gave new interest to it. 
The undertaking was formidable, and New 
York applied to the federal government 
and other states for aid, but her application 
was met with jeers and ridicule. The result 
was the determination of the state to under- 
take it alone, when the return of peace 
allowed of more facility for its execution ; 
accordingly, on the 4th of July, 1817, the 
Erie canal was commenced with great cere- 
mony, Governor De Witt Clinton turning 
the first earth, and it was completed Octo- 
ber, 1825. The event was celebrated with 
the greatest pomp along the whole line, and 
in the city of New York. The canal is 363 
miles long, 40 feet wide at top, 4 feet deep, 
and the capacity of boats, 80 tons. The 
original cost was $7,143,789, or $19,679 
per mile. This immense work gave the 
long-wished-for communication between 
the great lakes and the tide waters of the 
Atlantic. In the same year, viz., October, 
1817, a canal connecting the waters of Lake 
Champlain with the Erie canal some miles 
from Albany was commenced. This Erie 
and Lake Champlain or Northern canal is 
63 miles long, and was completed at the 
close of 1823, at a cost of $1,257,604, or 
$19,862 per mile. Both of these canals 
were subsequently enlarged (the Erie sev- 
eral times), and the cost was greatly en- 
hanced. Other canal projects, most of 
them under the plausible plea of being 
feeders of the Erie canal, were forced 
through the state legislature, and liberal 
appropriations made for their construction. 
Most of these were built between 1825 and 
1837. None of them have proved perma- 
nently successful, and they have been a 
constant drain upon the income of the Erie 
canal. The Chenango canal and several 
others have been abandoned, and the land 
which they held sold. 

The following table shows the original 



COASTERS — STEAMBOATS CANALS. 






Cost of construction and enlargement of all 
the state canals, as it stood in 1867. There 
has been no considerable enlargement since 
that time, though there have been some 
expenses charged to construction account. 

Canals. Cost. 

Erie and Cbaniplain $46,018,234.19 

Oswego 3,490,949 24 

Cayuga and Seneca 1,520,542.59 

Chemung 1,273,261.86 

Crooked Lake 333,277.27 

Chenango 2.782.12-1.19 

Black River 3,224.779.65 

Genesee Valley 5,827,813.72 

Oneida Lake 64,837.68 

Baldwinsville 23,566.14 

Oneida River Improvement 146,994 02 

Seneca River towing path 1,488.33 

Cayuga Inlet 2,968.16 

Total $64,710,836.94 

The great success of the Erie, as we have 
said, roused the emulation of other states, 
and during the five years succeeding the 
opening of the Erie the air was filled with 
canal projects, only to name which would 
occupy much space. We may mention some 
of the most extraordinary, however : a canal 
from Boston to Narragansett bay ; Long 
Island to Canada, via the Connecticut river ; 
Boston to the Connecticut river ; a canal 
over Cape Cod ; Providence to Worcester ; 
a ship canal across Central America. These 
projects only indicate the extraordinary ac- 
tivity that the Erie success had imparted to 
the public mind. Those which were evidently 
the most needed for present and future com- 
merce, were immediately undertaken. The 
Chesapeake and Ohio, to connect the waters 
that the name designates; the Ohio canal, to 
connect Lake Erie with the Ohio river ; the 
Farmington canal, in Connecticut, afterward 
used for a railroad site ; the Chesapeake and 
Delaware, to connect those waters, were all 
ready, and broke ground July 4, 1825, 
three months before the Erie was finally 
completed. These works, with many others, 
which we shall take up in their order, were 
pushed to completion, under various diffi- 
culties, inasmuch as that they required a 
large amount of money, but they had an 
immense influence upon traffic, and called 
into requisition an amount of engineering skill 
which had never before been demanded in 
the country, and various success has attend- 
ed the construction. The object of a canal 
is, of course, to float boats that contain 
merchandise, between two points, in order 
to reduce the expense of the transportation. 
The canal is therefore constructed with some 
regard to the amount of business that will 
be required of it. The channel must be 



excavated on the level soil, carried over gaps 
and rivers by embankments that will hold 
the water, and it must be fed by abundant 
streams. 

The channel is excavated with the two sides 
sloping at the same angle, which varies with 
the nature of the soil. The base of the 
slope is commonly to the height as 5 to 4. 
The bottom of the canal is generally the 
breadth of two boats upon the deck, in 
order that they may pass. The depth of 
water in the canal should be at least one foot 
more than the draught of the boats. The tow- 
path is about two feet above the level of the 
water, and about ten feet wide. When the 
canal runs through a sandy soil, or one that 
does not easily retain water, the bottom is 
"puddled." This process is to mix clay 
well with gravel and put it on in successive 
layers of two or three inches thick. When 
a new layer is put on, the old one is roughed 
up to make both adhere well. When re- 
pairs are needed, they are generally done at 
the time the water is let out for the winter. 
The bed of the canal is so laid as to give a 
gentle current to the water. The levels are 
the distances between the locks, and each 
level, proceeding downward, has a less 
elevation than the preceding one. In a 
hilly country these locks are frequent, and in 
some cases are continued for a distance, like 
steps up and down a declivity. Thus the 
Erie canal, on leaving Lake Erie at Lock- 
port, descends 60 feet to the Genesee river. 
To perform this, ten double locks built in 
masonry are required, but the canal has 
also one level of 63 miles without a lock. 
The lock is a chamber built of timber or 
masonry, as large as possible for the size of 
the canal. The boats must not exceed 
what can be admitted to the locks. The 
top of the lock is above the surface of the 
water, and its bottom is level with that of 
the next lower level. Each end of the 
chamber is closed by heavy swinging doors, 
which open in the middle against the direc- 
tion of the current. The doors being a little 
broader than the lock, they meet in the mid- 
dle at an angle, and the weight of the water 
presses them together. When a boat going 
up the canal comes to a lock, it passes be- 
tween the open gates, which close behind f 
it. The water is then let in from the upper 
gates, until the lock being full, the boat 
floats to the upper level, generally about 10 
feet rise, but sometimes 18 feet. It passes 
out, and another boat being ready to go 



46 



TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION. 



down takes its place, when, the upper 
gates being closed, the water is let off below 
and the boat lowers with it to the lower 
level. A lock full of water is thus dis- 
charged. It follows that a large supply of 
Water must be had to replace what thus 
passes off, in addition to leakage and evap- 
oration. The engineer of the Erie canal 
calculated the loss by leakage was 100 
cubic feet per minute. For supply, reser- 
voirs are often constructed. Canal branches, 
called feeders, are made to bring water from 
distant sources. Steam power is also used 
to raise water to the required level. This is 
the case with the Illinois and Michigan 
canal ; the waters of Lake Michigan being 
pumped up to the summit level. In some 
cases inclined planes are substituted for 
locks. In these cases the boats run upon 
trucks, which are then, by the power of 
steam, dragged up the plane to the higher 
level. In the Morris canal, of New Jersey, 
these have a slope of one in 21. These are 
the general features of all the canals, but the 
influence they have upon transportation de- 
pends, of course, in some degree, upon the 
localities and the capacities of the work. 
Boats are commonly towed upon a canal by 
horses. A single horse can draw upon a 
good road a ton at a speed of 2& or 3 
miles per hour, and can draw as easily 70 
tons upon a canal at the same speed. The 
difference in cost is immense. Instead of 
24 cents a ton for one mile land carriage, 
the Erie canal charges 6 mills per ton per 
mile, or one-fortieth part of the expense. 
The freights charged are distinct from the 
state tolls. It is obvious that where the 
boats are of greater capacity, allowing of a 
larger quantity to be passed down at the 
same passage, the cost of transportation 
is much diminished. Thus the Delaware 
and Hudson canal had a capacity for 50 
ton boats, and coal was carried 108 miles 
for $1. The enlargement of the canal so 
as to admit boats of 100 tons reduced the 
cost 65 cents, but some of the boats carry 
148 tons at proportionate rates. When the 
routes of the canals of other states threat- 
ened to affect the business of the New York 
canal, the reduction of the cost by means 
g of enlargement was the means resorted to 
to retain the trade, and the enlargement has 
been prosecuted at great expense. The 
principle of the enlargement was based upon 
the fact that as the canal is abundantly 
supplied with water, the only limit to its 



capacity would be the time required to pass 
boats at the locks. It was calculated that 
26,000 boats can be locked each way in a 
season. The old canal boats were about 
70 tons, hence the utmost capacity of the 
canal would be 3,640,000 tons; but by the 
enlargement the boats were to be of 224 
tons burden, hence the tonnage would be 
11,648,000 tons, if the quantity moving 
each way was the same, but the down 
freight is as four to one of the up, which 
reduces the capacity to Y,230,000 tons. 
Before the canal was built, the expense of 
transportation from Buffalo to New York 
was 1 100 per ton ! and the time 20 days. 
A ton of wheat in New York was then worth 
about $33, hence the transportation was three 
times the value of the wheat, six times the 
value of corn, and twelve times the value 
of oats. As a consequence, the wheat of 
western New York at that time went down 
the Susquehanna to Baltimore as the cheap- 
est and best market, as the lumber of the 
head waters of that river now goes. When 
the canal was opened, the freight down was 
about $14 per ton, more or less, according 
to the character of the freight. This has 
gradually been reduced, and in 1850, when 
the railroads for the first time were allowed 
to carry freight, it was $3 to $7 from Buffalo 
to New York. By the enlargement the 
rates have been reduced to $1.75 per ton 
between Albany and Buffalo. Since the 
permission of railroads to carry freight, 
however, the business of canals is more con- 
fined to those heavy freights furnished by 
the raw produce of the country, lumber par- 
ticularly. Those coarse and bulky articles 
that are of low money value as compared 
with their weight will continue to move up- 
on canals, but the lighter and more costly, 
as well as those pressed for time, will be 
carried exclusively by rails. These latter 
have some disadvantages, however, as in the 
case of flour, the motion of the railroad 
causing it to waste, an objection not urged 
against canal travel. 

The total length of the five great lakes is 
1,555 miles, and the area 98,000 square 
miles, and they are estimated to drain an area 
of 365,515 square miles. That vast tract of 
waters was a waste as far as transportation 
went until the year 1797, when the first 
American schooner was launched. The 
craft increased to some extent for the small 
commerce that engaged the settlers when 
there was no outlet either to the Atlantic 



COASTERS — STEAMBOATS CANALS. 



47 



or to the south. In 1816, however, a 
steamer was built on Lake Ontario, and in 
1819 the Walk-in-thc- Water, 340 tons, was 
launched at Buffalo. The most of the trade, 
However, consisted in the operations of the 
Indian traders, carrying westward supplies 
and trinkets for the trade, and returning 
with furs and peltries. On the opening of the 
Erie canal, in 1825, a new state of things 
presented itself. Western New York threw 
off" its frontier aspect, and put on an air of 
civilization, since it became a receiver of 
western produce and exporter of goods. The 
steam tonnage multiplied to transport the 
growing produce of the west. In 1822 the 
Superior was launched, another steamer in 
1824, two in 1825, and three in 1826. One 
of. these made the first voyage upon Lake 
Michigan, in 1826, on a pleasure excursion. 
It was not until 1832 that business called 
them thither, and then one reached Chicago, 
in the employ of the government, to carry 
supplies for the Black Hawk war. From 
that time the steamer tonnage has increased 
as follows: — 



Custom Distri cts. | 1841 



Now York Lake Ports. 

Erie, Pa 

Cuyahoga, Ohio — 

Sandusky 

Miami.. ." 

Detroit, Mich 

Huron 

Superior 

Michigan, &c 

Chicago 

Milwaukee 

Duluth 

Total 



6,773 

1,855 

' 887 
2,053 

2,813 



14,381 



1850 



25,090 

«,418 

1,745 
10,469 

1,746 

6,691 

652 



58,711 



1808 



50,-273 



10,100 



40,264 

432 

10.849 
10.939 



14 >,801 



05,170 
18,353 

29,473 



70,426 



9,950 

16,981 

155 



212.045 



The 11 boats running in 1833, carried to 
and from Buffalo 61,485 passengers, and 
the fares with the freight amounted to $229,- 
212. Those were the years of the great 
land speculations, and crowds of passengers 
went west on that errand. Three trips were 
made a year to the upper lakes. The 
trips to Chicago from Buffalo occupied 25 
days to go and return. In 1841 the time 
required for a first-class steamer was 10 
days from Buffalo to Detroit and back. 
This was reduced in 1851 to 3 days, 
and 5 for propellers. In 1834 the lake 
commerce was controlled by an association, 
owning 18 boats. This association was kept 
up to 1841, when the number of boats had 
increased to 48. The opening of the Ohio 
canals had poured upon the lakes a large 
amount of produce. The 50() miles of canal 
then completed, opened up the grain coun- 
try to the lakes. In 1835, Ohio exported 
by the lakes 543,815 bushels of wheat; 



in 1840, -8,800,000 bushels; and in 1850, 
12,193,202 bushels, which paid $500,000 
freight and charges. In 1860, the wheat 
received from lake ports was: — 

From Ohio 2.856.210 bushels. 

" Indiana 3.219,225 

«« Michigan, '. 2.117.9-.0 

" Illinois 12,195,195 " 

" Wisconsin, 6,447,766 

" New York, 130,667 

Total, 25,967,039 " 

In 1880, the amount of wheat exported 
from these lake ports, beside that retained 
for home consumption, was 156,977,669 
bushels. 

The successive opening of the Ohio canals 
in 1833, the Illinois canal in 1848, and the 
Indiana canal in 1851, all added constantly 
to the amount of produce to be transported, 
and since the last-mentioned date the rail 
roads have opened new regions of country, 
and increased the lake trade. It is to be borne 
in mind that the size of the vessels, their 
great speed when under way, and the great- 
er dispatch in loading and unloading by 
steam, not only for motion, but for labor at 
the dock, enable the same quantity of ton- 
nage to do ten times the business that it 
formerly could do. In the lake trade the 
sailing vessels and the large canal boats still 
exceed in tonnage the steamers, there be- 
ing 352,092 tons of the former to 253,01 1 
of the latter. The side or paddle wheel 
steamers, have, since 1855, been giving 
place to the propellers, and the latter are 
now generally preferred. In 1843 the first 
lake propeller, the Hercules, was launched 
-at Cleveland, 275 tons, the screw of Erics- 
son's patent. In 1851 the propellers had 
increased to 52, with a tonnage amounting 
to 15,729. In 1880 there were 910, tonnage 
205,045. These boats had, at first, far less 
speed than the paddles, but they have gained 
in public opinion, not only upon the lakes, 
but in the Atlantic bays and rivers, until re- 
cent improvements have made them equal to 
the paddle-wheels in speed. These vessels 
have already monopolized the European, as 
well as the internal trade. 

Previous to the opening of the Erie canal, 
in 1825, the commerce of the lakes was nec- 
essarily local, since there were no markets 
east or west. The produce raised in the coun- 
try bordering the lakes descended the streams 
that ran into them, and found interchange 
with other lake ports. The opening of the 
canal immediately gave an eastern current to 
produce of all descriptions, and much had ac- 



48 



TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION. 



cumulated in anticipation of the event, and 
goods returned in great quantities. In the 
month of May, 1825, 837 boats, carrying 
4, 1 22 tons of goods, left Albany for Buffalo, 
paying $22,000 tolls. 

The lumber from western New York and 
the lake borders being now marketable 
where before it was valueless, a motive for 
clearing land was imparted, and the new canal 
received on its bosom from all sections of the 
lake shore the lumber brought by multiply- 
ing vessels. The lumber that found tide 
water before had been that which in south- 
ern New York and in Pennsylvania skirted 
the natural water-courses, and being cut and 
hauled, was rafted down to Philadelphia and 
Baltimore. The New England streams de- 
livered the lumber in the same manner. 
The opening of the canal brought into com- 
petition the vast and hitherto untouched 
resources of the west, and the same remark 
applies to all farm produce. The fanners 
of New England were undersold at their own 
doors, by produce from western New York. 
The potatoes that had been quick of sale at 
75 cents, were supplanted by the best " che- 
nangos" at 374 cents, and the competition 
was felt in corn, flour, and most articles. 
The effect of this was to turn the attention 
of that hard-working and thrifty race of 
men, the farmers of New England, to the 
western country, where the soil was so much 
more profitable. At that date commenced 
the interchange of inhabitants, which has 
drawn off so many New England fanners, 
replacing them with manufacturers from 
abroad. In order to show the extent of this 
operation, we tate from the census of 1870 
the figures showing the nativities of the 
whole people of the United States. Thus 
there were in the whole Union 11,614,101 
persons who were born in the New Eng- 
land and Middle States. Of these, 8,800,- 
367 lived in the states where they were 
born. The remainder, 2,813,734 were liv- 
ing mostly west, but in their place there 
were living in the New England and Middle 
States, 3,628,182 persons who were born in 
foreign countries. These latter worked in 
the mills and manufactories, while as many 
northern persons who had migrated west 
were agriculturists attracted thither by the 
fertile lands made available by the means of 
transportation. The lakes were now con- 
nected with tide water, but the whole sys- 
tem of western rivers with a southern course 
bad no northern connection. The state of 



Ohio determined to make the connection, 
by means of a canal from Portsmouth, on 
the Ohio, to Cleveland, on Lake Erie. On 
the 4th July, 1825, the first spade was 
put into the ground, and in 1833 the first 
boat passed through from lake to river, 307 
miles. The whole interior of Ohio was thus 
opened to cither the northern or the south-« 
erii market ; and the state authorized turn- 
pikes and other roads to feed the canal, on 
the borders of which trade grew rapidly. 
There are several branches of the Ohio canal', 
one, the Hocking, goes to Athens, and an- 
other to Columbus. The highest level of 
the Ohio canal is 305 feet above the lake, 
and 499 feet above the Ohio river. Another 
canal, the Miami, was also commenced in 
1825 to connect Cincinnati with Lake Erie. 
In 1829 it had been opened to Dayton, 85 
miles, but it was not completed until 1843, 
when it connected, 130 miles, with the 
Wabash canal, which joins Lake Erie at 
Toledo, making 215 miles from Cincinnati 
to Lake Erie. All the Ohio canals are as 
follows : — 

L £"f th ' Cost. 

Miles. 

Ohiocanal 340 $4,695,202 69 

.Miami 85 1,020,000 00 

" extension 130 3,667,440 82 

Muskingum 92 1,628,028 29 

Hocking... 56 975,481 01 

Wabash and Erie 91 3,009.923 29 

Wallionding 25 607,268 99 

Total 819 $15,603,345 09 ' 

Subsequent additions and slackwatcr im- 
provements have made the whole number of 
miles of canal 996, and the cost over 20 mill- 
ion dollars. By these canals and others in In- 
diana, Illinois, and Kentucky, the states east 
of the Mississippi river have water communi- 
cation with New York city. The enlarge- 
ment of these canals to admit steamers of 
600 tons will greatly facilitate commerce. 

The state of Pennsylvania next under- 
took the great work of forming a connec- 
tion between the Delaware and the Ohio. 
The project which had been formed at the 
close of the last century was now resumed ; 
and in 1826 a law was passed to construct 
the work at the expense of the state, and, 
July 4th, 1826, the first earth was turned at 
Harrisburg, and in 1834 it was opened for 
use. The line consisted of a railroad, 82 
miles, from Philadelphia to Columbia, cost 
$3,330,127 ; a canal from Columbia, 172 
miles, to Hollidaysburg, cost $4,594,146; 



COASTERS STEAMBOATS CANALS. 



49 



a portage railroad across the mountain 
from Hollidaysburg to Johnstown, 36 miles, 
cost $1,634,357 ; and a canal from Johns- 
town to Pittsburg, 105 miles, cost $2,823,- 
192 — making 395 miles, at a cost of $12,- 
381,822. Thus the Ohio at Pittsburg was now 
connected with Philadelphia, by a route much 
less than from Buffalo to New York. There 
were seven branch canals made to feed this. 
The . aggregate length was 314 miles, and 
the cost $6,471,994. Every part of the 
state was now more or less in communica- 
tion with the great outlets east and west. 
There were, besides, three private canals, 
viz.: the Schuylkill, 108 miles; the Lehigh, 
85 miles ; and the Union, 82 miles, which 
connected the great coal fields with tide 
water. 

We have shown that Washington pre- 
sided, at the close of the Revolution, at a 
meeting for the improvement of the Poto- 
mac. The ideas then suggested ripened 
into a project for a canal. The cession of a 
portion of Maryland and of Virginia to fofm 
the District of Columbia as a seat of gov- 
ernment led to the national desire to connect 
it with the west. This was done, as we 
have seen, by the National or Cumberland 
road to Wheeling. But in 1820 the canal 
from Georgetown to Pittsburg was projected, 
Congress voting $1,000,000. Washington 
City issued bonds for a like sum. George- 
town and Alexandria each subscribed 
$250,000, Maryland $500,000, and Virginia 
$250,000, and 6,084 shares of $100 each 
were taken by individuals, making altogether 
$3,854,400. As the work was to run through 
four territories, it required a charter from Con- 
gress, Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, 
and July 4th (Fourth of July is a great 
day for canals), 1828, John Q. Adams and 
Charles Carroll turned the first earth. 
In 1834, 104 miles had been completed. 
The work was finally carried 191 miles 
to Cumberland in 1840, at an expense of 
some $1 6,000,000. It will not probably be 
carried further, never having answered ex- 
pectations, although of late it has had busi- 
ness from the Cumberland coal regions. 

Thus of the three great projects for con- 
necting the eastern and western waters, only 
two were carried out. But, following the 
example of Ohio, both Indiana and Illinois 
determined to make a connection across 
their respective states, between the rivers on 
the south and the lakes on the north. But 
they were some years later than Ohio, since 



they were younger and weaker states. In 
1836, under the spur of the speculative 
fever, Indiana enacted a bill authorizing 
a system of internal improvements. This 
embraced the Wabash and Erie canal, to run 
from Evansville on the Ohio to the Ohio 
state line, where it was to follow down the 
valley of the Maumee, taking up the Miami 
canal in its course, and entering the Erie 
Lake at Toledo. Second, the White Water 
canal, to connect the National or Cumberland 
road at Cambridge, with Lawrenceburg on 
the Ohio, 76 miles. Third, the White 
River canal, to connect Indianapolis with 
Evansville on the Ohio, 190 miles, and to^ 
prolong it from Indianapolis to Peru on the 
Wabash canal. There were also to be some 
Macadam roads and turnpikes. These works 
were to cost $10,000,000. The Wabash canal 
was begun in 1835, and in 1840, 90 miles 
were finished. The great revulsion then, 
brought all to a stand, and some ten years 
elapsed before the work was completed 
through the aid of a loan obtained on pledge 
of lands granted by Congress in aid of this 
work. 

The state of Illinois undertook a far more 
extensive system of public improvements. 
As early as 1810 a project was put forward, 
under the excitement of Fulton's great suc- 
cess, to connect New Orleans with Buffalo 
in 32 days by steam, by way of Chicago. 
The waters o 1 ' the Illinois and the lakes 
were in high floods nearly blended. In 1823 
a board of commissioners was appointed to 
report on the route and the cost. A grant 
of land was obtained from Congress in 1829 
in aid. This was every alternate section of 
land", 10 miles on each side of the canal, in 
its whole length. Not until 1835 was an 
act passed to authorize the canal, in common 
with many other works, railroads or others, 
in a general system of internal improvements, 
which were to cost $12,000,000, and there 
had been sold of the lands granted by Con- 
gress $1,395,911. 

The canal was to connect Chicago, at the 
foot of Lake Michigan, with the Illinois river, 
102 miles. It was prosecuted with more or 
less vigor until the finances and credit of the 
state were ruined by the revulsion of 1837-9. 
The work then lay unfinished until in 1843, 
by means of a pledge of the unsol I lands of 
the canal, a sum of $1,600,000 was oorrowed, 
and the work completed in 1852. The sales, 
of the laud sufficed to pay off the new loan- 
and some of the arrears. 



50 



TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION. 



We have thus sketched the great main tions, and may state their original cost as 
canal avenues that connect important sec- 1 follows : — 



Miles. Expenditure. 

Erie canal Hudson river to lakes 363 $7,143,789 

Pennsylvania canal . .Delaware and Ohio 395 12,381,822 

Ohio " ..Ohio river and Lake Erie 307 4,695,824 

" .. " " " 178 3,750,000 

" .. " " " 379 7,101,000 

" ..Lake Michigan with Illinois river. . .102 8,654,337 

Total. . 1,724 $43,726,772 



Miami 

Indiana 

Illinois 



"Width, 
feet. 
40 
40 
40 
40 
60 
60 



No. of 

Locks. 

84 

200 

152 

102 

102 

2 



The financial results of the New York 
canals may be thus stated in the aggregate 
of receipts and revenues from the com- 
mencement of the works to Sept. 30, 1870: 

Keceipts. Expenditures. 

Gross Tolls. ..$113,795,543.05 Construction.. $71,858,067.21 

Loans 56,331,755,29 Repairs 33,658,150.00 

Other Items. 46,969,815.84LoansandInt. 87,574,788.68 

Other Items... 21,262,667.01 

Total $217,097,114.78 

$214,353,672.91 

The change of policy in the canal man- 
agement has made a great change with- 
in the last six years in the canal receipts. 
In 1880, the net receipts from tolls 
were about $900,000. With the contem- 
plated enlargement and the use of steam to 
propel and tug the canal boats, a new and 
powerful impulse will be given to the trans- 
portation of heavy and bulky goods to and 
from the West. By their construction a vast 
capital was added to the national wealth, and 
a great value bestowed upon land not before 
very marketable. While this has been done 
by state means, a great number of other 
canals have been erected, jointly by public 
aid and private enterprise. The most impor- 
tant of these was the Delaware and Raritan 
canal, connecting those two rivers. The work 
was completed in 1827, shortening the dis- 
tance 16 miles between Philadelphia and New- 
York, and packet propellers run regularly 
through it between the two cities. It is also 
the main source of supply of coal for New 
York. The state of Virginia early embarked 



in improvements, particularly in the James 
river, which is navigable to Richmond for 
vessels of 120 tons, the tide reaching there; 
above Richmond a series of short canals in- 
tended to connect the river with the Kan- 
awha, where it is navigable 70 miles from its 
moutlr on the Ohio. This project was un- 
dertaken by the James River and Kanawha 
Company, and was completed in the form 
of a canal, 147 miles, at a cost of $5,020,050. 
There are many other works of public utility 
in Virginia, under the control of a board of 
pvfblic works, chartered in 1816. There are 
a number of other canals in several states, as 
the Blackstone, of Massachusetts ; the Ogee- 
chee, of South Carolina, connecting Charles- 
ton with the Santee, cost $650,667, and 
many other improvements in a number of 
states. The Morris and Essex canal, of New 
Jersey, 101 miles, was completed in 1831. 
It had banking powers connected with it, 
and of all the public works in the country 
was the basis of the most stupendous stock 
speculation. Its liabilities were at one time 
near $10,000,000, and it was sold out in 
1845 for a sum less than $3,000,000; its 
business is at present prosperous. It is one 
of the works that were erected to develop 
the great coal business of Pennsylvania. The 
discovery of that important mineral takes 
date about the year 1820, and the canals that 
were built to bring the coal down may be 
enumerated as follows : — 



Length. 
Miles. 
Schuvlkill navigation Pennsylvania 108 



Lehigh canal. 

Susquehanna 

North Branch " 

'• upper •. . " 

Union " 

Delaware and Hudson New York. 

Morris canal New Jersey. 



85 
, 41 
, 73 
, 94 
, 82 
,108 
.102 



Total canals 693 



Cost 
$2,500,196 
4,455,099 
897,160 
1,590,379 
4,500.000 
5,000,000 
9,100,000 
3,612,000 

$31,654,834 



"idth. Locks. 
36 120 



60 
40 
40 
40 
36 
75 
32 



81 
12 



90 
18 
29 



planes, 22 



The expenditure of large sums of money i struction promoted a local demand for prod- 
;a!ong the routes of these works for their con- 1 uce, and aided in the settlement of the 



RAILROADS LAND GRANTS — EXTENT AND COST. 



51 






country through which they ran, and from 
the improvement of which their future 
freightings were to be derived, and there 
is little matter of surprise that the first 
years of their operation should be of large 
promise. The cost of transporting a ton of 
merchandise from Buffalo to Albany, which 
had been $100, and the time twenty days, 
was at once reduced to $20, and the time to 
eight days. While yet they were being con- ! 
etructed, however, a new agent of transpor- 
tation had risen, which was to overshadow , 
their importance, and reduce them to a 
second rank. The rejoicing for the com- 
pletion of the Erie had hardly died away, be- 
fore the locomotive began to throw its 
shadow on the future. The " astonishing 
speed" of steamboats and stages was about 
to dwindle into an intolerable tedium. The 
capacities of railroads had begun to be dis- 
cussed, and the discussion rapidly elicited ' 
action, which did not cease to extend itself, 
until the whole country has become covered 
with rails. When railroads began to be con- 
structed, however, both vehicles, sailing- 
vessels, and steamers had made considerable 
progress in speed, and the connections of 
travel had come to be made with more 
regard to dispatch. It is amusing to look 
back at some of the accounts of the wonders 
of the canals after the opening. Thus, in 
1823 it is stated — 

" Canals ! A sloop, called the Gleaner, has 
arrived at New York from St. Albans, in the 
state of Vermont, with a cargo consisting of 
1,200 bushels of wheat and other articles. She 
will carry sixty tons of merchandise, and does 
not appear to have had any difficulty in 
passing through the northern canal. It is 
supposed that she will safely navigate the 
Hudson, and she is designed as a regular 
packet between St. Albans and the city of 
New York. Look at the map! An uninter- 
rupted sloop navigation from one place to 
the other ! 

" When the Green Mountain vessel arrived 
at New York, the veteran artillery were order- 
ed out, and she was saluted from the battery. " 

In 1824. " Internal Improvement. It 
is stated in one of the New York papers 
that a barrel of flour can be transported from 
Albany to New York, a distance of 150 
miles, for 12^ cents, and that one individual 
©ffers to do it for seven cents." 

In 1825. "March of Intellect with 
Tower. — It is no fairy tale, that flour, man- 
ufactured on Lake Erie, has been profitably 



sold in Ncwbern, North Carolina, for §5.50 
per barrel. This flour was transported from 
the lake to Albany, through the Grand 
canal ; thence down the North River to New 
York; and thence, by sea, t<> Xewbcrn. The 
cost of transportation from the lakes to New- 
bern was less than $1.50 per barrel, while 
that between Raleigh and Newbern (not more 
than 120 miles) is generally two dollars." 

In 1826. "The following, from the Pitts- 
burg Gazette, shows the importance of canals. 
Mr. Foster has published in the Greensburgh 
Gazette a statement furnished him by a 
merchant of Meadville, showing the amount 
which the merchant paid for the transpor- 
tation of his goods this fall from Philadelphia, 
by xoay of New York, the canal, and Erie, 
to the town of Meadville. The whole cost 
per hundred pounds was $1.20i! We ar° 
now paying three dollars per hundred for 
carriage in wagons from Philadelphia to this 
city /" 

These extracts afford — in contrasting not 
only the routes, but the prices, with those 
before their use and those which now exist — 
much room for reflection. It may be re- 
marked that the Caroline, burnt in the em- 
ploy of the Canada rebels in 1839, at Schlos- 
ser, and sent over the falls of Niagara, V» as 
built in South Carolina, and had passed up 
the canals to her destination. 



CHAPTER III. 

RAILROADS— LAND GRANTS— EXTENT 
AND COST. 

The excitement in relation to canals and 
steamboats was yet at its zenith, when the 
air began to be filled with rumors of the 
new application of steam to land carriages 
and to railroads. There were many inven- 
tions and patents at home and abroad in re- 
lation to carriages propelled upon common 
roads by steam, but these seem never to have 
attained much success, although attempts to 
perfect them are still made with great perse- 
verance. On the other hand, the use of rail- 
roads from small beginnings has reached a 
magnitude which overshadows the wildest 
imaginings of the most sanguine. In 1825 
descriptions came across the water of the 
great success of the Darlington railroad, 
which was opened to supply London with 
coal, and which had passenger cars moved 
by steam at the rate of seven miles per hour. 



52 



TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION. 



The most animated controversy sprang up in 
relation to the possibility of such roads in 
England, and was shared in to some extent 
on this side of the Atlantic. With the nat- 
ional energy of character, the idea had no 
sooner become disseminated than it was 
acted upon. The construction of railroads 
in America is usually ascribed to the emu- 
lation excited by the success of the Liverpool 
and Manchester railway. This appears not 
to have been the case, however, since some 
of the most 'important works in this country 
were projected and commenced before the 
Liverpool and Manchester road was built. 
The act of Parliament for the construction 
of that road was passed in 1826, and the road 
itself was finished and opened in September, 

1830, 31 miles long; but the Massachusetts 
Quincy road, three miles from Quincy to Ne- 
ponset, was opened in 1827, and a great 
celebration was held in consequence. The 
celebrated Mauch Chunk railroad of Penn- 
sylvania was begun in 1826, and finished in 
the following year. On that road the horses 
which draw up the empty coal wagons are 
sent down on the cars which descend by 
their own gravity. This contrivance was 
borrowed by the Mauch Chunk road from 
the Darlington road, similarly situated, in 
England. It is to be remarked that both 
the Quincy and the Mauch Chunk roads were 
horse roads ; the locomotive was not at first 
introduced. In 1S28, twelve miles of the 
Baltimore and Ohio railroad were completed, 
two years before the Manchester road was 
opened. In the same year, 1828, the South 
Carolina road, from Charleston to Hamburg, 
w r as surveyed, and in Massachusetts the city 
of Boston voted the construction of a road 
from that city to the Hudson at Albany. 
The first portion of that road, however, 
Boston to Worcester, 44 miles, was not 
opened until 1835. The second road finish- 
ed in the United States was the Richmond, 
Va., road, thirteen miles to Chesterfield, in 

1831, and in the same year that running 
from New Orleans, five miles to Lake Pont- 
chartrain, was opened. Thus roads were 
well adopted in public opinion here before 
the great success of the Manchester road 
was known, but which gave an undoubted 
impulse to the fever. During the excitement 
in relation to "rail" roads, a writer in a 
Providence paper thus satirized the condition 
of the Connecticut roads. He claimed the 
invention of the cheapest " rail" roads, and 
proved it thus : " Only one English engine 



alone costs $2,000, which sum the whole of 
our apparatus does not much exceed, as 
figures will prove ; for 700 good chestnut 
rails at $3, amounts to only $21, and it 
ought to be remembered that this is all the 
expense we are at, and the inference is con- 
clusive in our favor. We place our rails 
fifty to the mile by the side of the road, to 
pry out the wheels when they get stuck, and 
hoist behind when wanted." The public 
were, however, no longer to be satisfied 
with this kind of "rail" road. They em- 
barked in the new enterprise with such 
vigor, that in 1836 two hundred companies 
had been organized, and l,0l)3i miles were 
opened in eleven states. These were highly 
speculative years, however, and the revulsion 
brought matters to a stand. 

It was at once apparent to the commercial 
mind that if railroads would perform what 
was promised for them, geographical position 
was no longer important to a city. In other 
words, that railroads would bring Boston 
into as intimate connection with every part 
of the interior as New York could be. The 
large water communication that enabled New 
York by means of steamboats to concentrate 
trade from all quarters, could not now com- 
pete with the rails that would confer as 
great advantages upon Boston. Indeed, Bos- 
ton had now availed herself of steam power. 
Up to 1828 she owned no steamers. The 
Benjamin Franklin, built in that year, was 
the first, and her steam tonnage is now 
but 9,998 tons. When she bought her first 
steamboat, however, she was laying out those 
railroad connections that she has since push- 
ed so vigorously, and they have paid an 
enormous interest, if not directly to the 
builders, at least to the general interests of 
the city. 

It is to be remarked that the national 
government expended, as we have seen, 
largely in the construction of highways, the 
clearing out of rivers, and the improvement 
of harbors. The. people have by individual 
taxes mostly constructed the earth roads of 
this country. The canals have, however, 
with a few exceptions, been state works, 
built by the proceeds of state loans, with the 
aid of lands donated by the federal govern- 
ment. These lands were made marketable 
and valuable by the action of the canals in 
aid of which they were granted. The rail- 
roads of the country have been, as a whole, 
built on a different plan, viz., by corporations, 
or chartered companies of individuals. These 



RAILROADS LAND GRANTS EXTENT AND COST. 



53 



associations have not, however, themselves 
subscribed the whole of the money, probably 
not more than half, but they have found it to 
their interest to borrow the money on mort- 
gage of the works. The great object of the 
companies has not been so much to derive a 
direct profit from the investment, as to cause 
the construction of a highway, which should 
by its operation increase business, enhance 
the value of property, and swell the floating 
capital of the country by making available con- 
siderable productions of industry, which before 
were not marketable, since the influence of a 
railroad in a new district is perhaps, if not 
to create, at least to bring into the general 
stock more capital than is absorbed in its 
construction. 

Thus in the last forty years, four thou- 
sand millions of dollars have been spent in the 
construction of roads, and yet capital is pro- 
portionally more abundant now than before 
this vast expenditure, and land has, in railroad 
localities, increased by a money value greater 
than the cost of the roads ! We have seen 
that before the operation of canals, land 
transportation was, and is now remote from 
^these works, one cent per mile per hundred. 
If a barrel of flour is then worth in market 
five dollars, a transportation of 300 miles 
would cost more than its whole value ; but 
by rail it may be carried from Chicago to 
New York for sixty cents. Thus railroads 
give circulation to all the surplus capital that 
is created by labor within their circle. It is 
on this principle that may be explained the 
immense prosperity that has been seen to at- 
tend the enormous expenditure for railroads, 
particularly during the last ten years. 

The construction of the Massachusetts 
Western railway, from Boston to the Hudson 
river, was one of the most important and fi- 
nancially successful of all the railroads of the 
country. New York had constructed her 
great canal, as it were making Albany basin 
a part of Lake Erie. Boston now grasped 
the idea of a railroad that should make Al- 
bany basin with its affluents a part of Boston 
harbor. It is to be borne in mind, however, 
that when that road was undertaken, railroad 
building was a new art ; the mode of laying 
the track, the form, and even the model 
of rails were problems. The form of wheels 
to run on the rails, the mode of setting the 
car on the wheels, were all unknown com- 
pared with the knowledge on the subject 
which the construction of 90,000 miles of 
roads in this country has since accumulated. 



The state of knowledge at that time may be 
seen in the following extract from " Wood 
on Railroads" in 1825 : — 

" Nothing can do more harm to the adop- 
tion of railroads than the promulgation of 
such nonsense as that we shall see locomotive 
engines travelling at the rate of twelve miles 
per hour." 

Such was engineering knowledge at the 
time Boston voted to build a connection 200 
miles to Albany. Since that day how much 
has been learned in relation to the charac- 
teristics of roads 1 

The great advantage of railroads is that they 
practically diminish distances between places 
in proportion to the speed attained. The 
rapidity of motion and power of traction de- 
pend upon the diminution of friction. This 
was sought in common roads, Macadam roads, 
and canals, but has approached perfection in 
railroads. The essential attributes are two 
smooth surfaces for wheels to run on. 
These being made of iron or steel are narrow 
as possible to lessen the cost; and to keep 
the wheels upon the rails, have flanges upon 
the inner rim of the wheel. The form of iron 
or steel rails has undergone many changes, 
as experience suggested improvements. 
The mode of laying these has also varied. 
The building of a railroad includes " the road 
bed," somewhat like a common road, and 
the superstructure, which embraces rails, sup- 
ports, ties, etc. The main operations in the 
construction of the road bed consist in the 
" excavations, tunnels, embankments, ballast- 
ing, bridges, and viaducts." 

These operations are required to give the 
necessary levelness and straightness to roads, 
both of which are requisite, not only as ele- 
ments of speed, but of economy. The 
straightest road is the shortest; but when 
the road is done, the expense of keeping up 
the earth-work is nearly nothing, while, on 
the other hand, the annual expense required 
to keep up the perishable superstructure is 
very great and proportionate to the length 
of the road. Hence true economy requires 
a greater outlay to make the road straight, 
in order to avoid permanent cause of ex- 
pense. Common roads may be lengthened 
to advantage, in order to avoid an ascent. 
In railroads this is avoided by tunnels 
through the obstacle when it is too high to 
excavate at what it would cost to tunnel. 
This is not, however, the only reason for 
straightening, since the frequency of curves 
greatly increases the danger of railroads. 



RAILROADS LAND GRANTS— EXTENT AND COST. 



55 






When a car in motion enters upon a curve, 
it has a tendency to continue its straight 
course, and this is overcome by the resist- 
ance of the flanges of the wheel against the 
rail, and by the firmness of the outer rail. 
This resistance is always felt in the rocking 
motion of the cars, and is increased by the 
shortness of the curve. A pair of wheels is 
fastened to an axle and turns with it, the 
outer wheel moving on a curve much faster 
than the inner one, which would slide, under 
such circumstances, if both were of the same 
diameter, sufficiently to make up the differ- 
ence. This is obviated by making the 
wheels conical, or of a larger diameter next 
to the flange than on the outside. The ef- 
fect of this is that the wheels having some 
play between the rails, the outer wheel, 
forced against the rail, runs on a larger di- 
ameter than the inner one, thus compensat- 
ing the speed. Further, to overcome the 
centrifugal force, the outer rail is made 
higher than the inner one, so that the weight 
of the car gives it a tendency to slide toward 
the inner one in opposition to the centrif- 
ugal force. The excavations in loose earth 
require to be supported at the sides by re- 
taining walls, and to be drained by ditches and 
cross drains. In making a tunnel the centre of 
the road is set with great accuracy on the sur- 
face of the ground by an instrument, and shafts 
are sunk at proper levels along this line. The 
excavations are then made by " drifts" from 
shaft to shaft, and to the open ends of the 
tunnel. The material excavated is raised 
through the shafts, which serve for ventila- 
tion when the tunnel is finished. The em- 
bankments require great care to insure their 
solidity. "When the materials for filling are 
at hand, they are usually made at their full 
height at one end, and then temporary rails 
permit the approach of wagons to be emptied 
over the head of the embankment. The 
progress of the work depends upon the 
speed with which these succeed each other. 
When the track passes through a country 
like a wooded swamp, where the materials 
for filling are not at hand, resort is had to 
trusses. Piles of a diameter of 1 5 inches are 
driven, so as to form lines of the width of 
the railroad ; transverse ties are fastened 
across the tops, and, with proper supports, 
longitudinal timbers arc laid across the piles 
to carry the rails. The tops of embank- 
ments and the bottoms of excavations are 
made about two feet below the intended or 
" formation level" of the road, and have there 



a convex surface like an. ordinary road. 
This space of two feet is filled up with por- 
ous material, broken stones, gravel, etc. 
This is called " ballast," and through it the 
rains pass freely, and the frosts of winter do 
not so much affect it. On this " ballast" the 
sleepers are laid. Many roads are not prop- 
erly ballasted, and are, therefore, unsafe. 
Bridges are difficult of construction, and have 
sometimes been made of iron. This was the 
case with the Erie railroad, when an accident 
occurred, because the iron, resting upon 
stone piers, contracted by the cold so as to 
drop off its support. 

When the road bed is complete, the su- 
perstructure is put on. This is now done by 
cross sleepers. The best of these are second- 
growth chestnut, 7 feet long, and 8 by 12 
inches. These are laid upon the ballast. 
The iron rails are laid upon these, but in 
some cases longitudinal timbers are first laid 
down, and upon these the iron rails are laid. 
The iron rails have undergone many im- 
provements. At first, a simple flat iron rail 
was spiked down to these timbers. These 
rails would often get loose, and the end ris- 
ing form a " snake head," and the wheel 
catching under, throw it up with great force' 
and danger to passengers. These roads were 
ridiculed as " hoops tacked to a lath." Va- 
rious forms and weights of rail were adopted 
as experience directed ; that now the favorite 
is called the T rail ; the shape is like that 
letter inverted. There must be a certain 
breadth of rail for the wheel to run on, and 
depth for strength. The smallest rails will 
weigh 36 lbs. to the running yard. The 
Massachusetts roads use 60 lbs. to the yard ; 
the New York roads, 70 to 75 lbs. to the 
yard. The rail is not fastened directly to 
the timber, but is held in chairs, which are 
spiked to the cross sleepers. The chair is 
of cast or wrought iron, and will weigh 20 
to 30 lbs. They are made in one piece, so 
as to receive the ends of two rails, which are 
fastened by wedges of iron or wood, driven 
between them and the chair, without inter- 
fering with the longitudinal expansion and 
contraction of the rails. 

The proper breadth of rails apart, or the 
width of the track, has been matter of much 
discussion. There were three gauges in 
use, to which a fourth has been added of 
late years. The common gauge on the 
eastern roads was 4 ft. 84 in., on the west- 
ern roads, 4 ft. 10 in. The Erie road and 
some others, in imitation of it, were of a 



hi. * n 




58 



TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION. 



six-foot gauge, and were very pleasant; but 
the expense of their maintenance of this 
gauge was so great that most roads have 
abandoned it, and the main line of the Erie 
is now 4 ft. 81 in. Many of the western 
roads recently built, or now building, in 
Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, 
and Mexico, are built on what is known as 
the narrow gauge, three feet between the 
rails. Most of these are single track roads. 
The power on railroads is mostly steam, 
but horses, stationary engines, condensed 
air and electricity are sometimes used. The 
first really successful locomotive was built in 
1814, which drew 30 tons 6 miles per hour; 
improvements have since been made until 90 
miles per hour is attained. The power of an 
engine depends upon the quantity of steam 
it can generate in a given time. Each 
revolution of the wheels corresponds to a 
double stroke of each piston, or four cylin- 
derfuls of steam. The utmost heating surface 
is therefore required, and this is obtained by 
tubular boilers. Wheels, 7 feet in diameter, 
pass over 22 feet in each complete revolu- 
tion. To go 25 miles per hour, therefore, 
they must revolve five times in a second, 
and each piston must make 10 strokes in the 
same time. This minute division of time is 
accurately made by this ponderous machine. 
This rapid exhaustion of steam causes a 
greater demand for fuel in proportion to the 
speed. The power of an engine to draw 
loads depends upon the pressure of steam, 
which is usually 50 to 60 lbs. to the square 
inch ; but the adhesion of the engine to the 
rails must be great, otherwise the wheel 
would slip round. For this reason the 
wheels were first made with cogs to hold in 
the rail, but it was found that the weight of 
the engine was sufficient on level roads. 
The adhesion of iron upon iron is one-eighth 
of the weight, but in wet and freezing weath- 
er it is greatly reduced, and it lessens with 
the increase of the slope of the road, or 
ascending grade. Thus, if an engine will 
draw 389 tons on a level, it will draw but 
one-fourth of the amount up a grade 50 ft. 
to the mile. The average cost of locomotive 
power is not far from 50 cents per mile run, 
which includes fuel, oil, wages, repairs, wear 
and tear, etc. These expenses are, of course, 
lessened by levelness and straightness, since 
where these are perfect, more is carried for 
the same money, than on common roads. A 
great draw-back upon the cheapness of rail 
transportation is the weight of the rolling 



stock. The cars and engines usually are to 
the paying freight as 10 to 6. Various means 
have been proposed to lessen the burden 
of this expense, and recently with some 
success. It is evident from this slight sketch 
of the principles of railroad construction that 
the characteristics of a road, in relation to 
curves, grades, etc., have much to do with the 
economy with which it can be run, and its ca- 
pacity to compete successfully with rival lines. 

The city of Bdston was, as we have said, 
one of the earliest to understand the advan- 
tages that were to be drawn from railroads 
in overcoming the disadvantages of its posi- 
tion in relation to the west, and the Western 
railroad has been the instrument by which 
she made the great states west of New York 
subservient to her interests. The charter of 
that road is dated March 15, 1833. The 
road runs from Worcester, 44 miles west of 
Boston, to the Massachusetts state line, and 
thence 38^ miles over the Albany and West 
Stockbridge railroad, leased and operated by 
the Western road, into Albany, 200 miles 
from Boston. The first train of passengers 
that left Boston was on April 7, 1834, for 
Davis' Tavern, Newton, to which place the 
Worcester road was then opened. It was 
completed to Worcester July 3, 1835. The 
Western road, in continuation, was opened to 
Springfield Oct. 1, 1839, ten days before 
the United States Bank finally failed, and it 
reached Greenbush Dec. 21, 1841, thus es- 
tablishing the route from Boston to the Al- 
bany basin in seven hours. It there con- 
nects with the New York Central road, 
which carries the line 229 miles to Roches- 
ter, whence, by the Lockport division of 
the Central road, 77 miles, it connects at 
Suspension bridge with the Great Western 
Canada road, and thence with the Michigan 
Central, the Illinois Central, and the Ohio 
and Mississippi roads to New. Orleans. By 
this route Boston and St. Louis, 1,365 miles 
distant, are connected in 64 hours. From 
Buffalo the line connects south of the lakes 
with all the net-work of Ohio and other 
roads. Every portion of the country is thus 
brought into connection with Boston. 

The Boston and Albany road has a double 
track for its entire length, of very heavy 
iron. Its length, including branches, is 241 
miles. It crosses the Connecticut at Spring- 
field by a fine bridge, 1,264 feet long, and 
has run a track across the Hudson river 
bridge at Albany, so passengers can go to 
Chicago or Omaha from Boston without 



RAILROADS LAND GRANTS EXTENT AND COST. 



59 



changing cars. The grades on this road in 
western Massachusetts are very steep for 
more than 18 miles, ranging from 60 to 80 
feet to the mile. For some years after its 
completion no road in the United States, 
except the Pennsylvania and Baltimore and 
Ohio, had such heavy grades; some of the 
western roads have a grade of 1 86 feet to the 
mile. The cost of the road and equip- 
ment was $15,750,960, but its property, in- 
cluding lands, is now valued at $22,636,- 
550, its shares, in 1870, being held above 
140 dollars. Its capital stock outstanding 
is $14,934,100 at par value, and its out- 
standing bonds $3,442,520. Its gross earn- 
ings, in 1869, were $6,074,605, and the 
net earnings, $1,198,432. The distance be- 
tween Boston and Albany, in a direct line, 
is about 150 miles, and but for the passage 
of the Hoosic mountains the railroad pas- 
sage between the two cities might be short- 
ened to at least 160 miles by railroads now 
in progress. To accomplish this, the state 
was for many years engaged in boring a 
gigantic tunnel through these mountains. 
This tunnel passes through the Hoosic 
mountains; it is about 4| miles in length, 
wide enough for two trains to pass each 
other without any danger of collision, and 
is driven through very hard and dense 
rock. It has a shaft near the center rising 
to the top of the mountain, 1,028 feet, 
which aids in ventilating it. It was 22 
years in building, and cost about $13,000,- 
000. Its western portal is about 37 miles 
east of Albany, but the route from the 
western exit to Troy is very circuitous and 
is 54 miles in length. It has now come un- 
der the substantial control of the N. Y. 
Central and Hudson River railway, and 
the project of running a line direct from 
Albany to North Adams has been aban- 

Idoned for the present at least. The road 
and the tunnel have not realized the hopes 
of their projectors, and have not materially 
shortened the line between Boston and the 
West. 
Boston is now connected with the Hud- 
son River by numerous lines, some of them 
all rail, others part rail and part steamer. 
Like all the rest of New England, Massa- 
chusetts is now gridironed with railroads, 
and the 6,031 miles which traverse that 
section have greatly fostered the industry 
and wealth of the eastern states. While, not- 
withstanding the competition, the immense 
traffic has made most of the routes profitable. 



In New York the question of railroads 
had been very early discussed. A publica- 
tion of Colonel Stevens, of Hoboken, in 
1812, advocated a railway instead of a canal 
to the lakes ; but his proposition was op- 
posed by Chancellor Livingston on grounds 
which indicate very odd ideas of the nature 
of the works. The first regular application 
to the legislature for a railroad charter 
seems to have been made by Stephen Van 
Rensselaer and others in 1826, for power to 
construct one between the Hudson and the 
Mohawk, and they received the grant for 
the reason that no railroads were then in the 
country at all, and that, as the petitioners 
were willing to make the experiment at their 
own cost, it was a good opportunity to per- 
mit it. The surveys for the road were not 
made until 1830, and the road was opened 
in September, 1831, and three cars, with 
twenty passengers in each, were drawn to 
Schenectady in 46 minutes by an American 
engine of 3^ tons. Meantime, the charters 
of the Harlem and the Saratoga and Schen- 
ectady had been granted. The opening of 
the Mohawk road caused much excitement. 
A road from the Hudson to the lakes was 
agitated, and applications were made to the 
legislature of 1832 for 49 roads, of which 
27 charters were granted, and of these six 
have been constructed, viz. : the Brooklyn 
and Jamaica, Hudson and Berkshire, Erie, 
Rensselaer and Saratoga, Tonawanda, Water- 
town and Rome. In 1833, six railroads 
were chartered ; of these the F/tica and 
Schenectady, Whitehall and Rutland, and 
Buffalo and Black Rock were constructed. 
In 1834, ten railroads were chartered, and 
of these five were constructed : the Auburn 
and Syracuse, Buffalo and Niagara Falls, 
Long Island, Lockport and Niagara, and the 
Saratoga and Washington. In 1836, 43 
railroads were chartered, seven of which 
were built : the Albany and West Stock- 
bridge, Attica and Buffalo, Auburn and Koch- 
ester, Lewiston, Schenectady and Troy, Skan- 
eateles, and Syracuse and Utica. In 1837, 
14 railroads were chartered, but none of them 
have been constructed. In 1838, the state 
authorized a loan of its credit to the extent 
of $3,000,000 to the Erie railroad, and of 
$100,000 to the Catskill and Canajoharie, 
and of $250,000 to the Ithaca and Owego ; 
also, $200,000 to the Auburn and Syracuse. 
In 1839, the Oswego and Syracuse railroad 
was chartered; and the city of Albany lent 
$400,000 to the Albany and West Stock- 



62 



TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION. 



bridge road. In 1840, acts were passed in 
the legislature to loan the credit of the state 
to the extent of $3, 478, 000 to six roads, and 
provision was made for a sinking fund to he 
paid into the treasury by the railroad com- 
panies, except the Erie. In 1841, the city 
of Albany was authorized to invest $350,- 
000 in the Albany and West Stockbridge 
road. The Erie railroad, having defaulted 
on its interest, was advertised for sale by the 
comptroller, but the sale did not take place. 
This was not the case with the Ithaca 
and Owego, which was sold for $4,500, and 
the Catskill and Canajoharie for $11,600. 
The loss to the state was $1,026,327. In 
1844, the several railroads from Albany to 
Buffalo were, for the first time, permitted to 
transport freight on the closing of the canal, 
by paying the state the same toll as the 
canal would have paid. In 1846, the Hud- 
son River and the New York and New Ha- 
ven were chartered. In 1847, the seven 
roads making the line from Albany to the 
lakes were required to lay down an iron 
rail of 56 lbs. to the yard. They were like- 
wise authorized to carry freight all the year 
by paying canal tolls ; and all the railroads 
were made liable for damages in case of 
death by neglect of the companies' agents. 
In 1848, the general railroad law was passed. 
The law provides, however, that the legisla- 
ture shall decide whether the " public utility " 
of the road justifies the taking of private prop- 
erty. This was removed in 1849. Thus, 
from 1826 to 1850, 151 charters were grant- 
ed, and of these 30 have been carried into 
effect. "We observe that the line from 
Albany to Buffalo was composed of seven 
distinct companies, finished at different 
times. Most of these were restricted as to 
fares. The Mohawk and Hudson — or Al- 
bany and Schenectady — was not restrained. 
The others were, as in the following table 
composing the line now known as the Cen- 
tral railroad : — 

Maxi- 
mum _a . 

Char- Open- fare %°S Cost, 
tered. ed. per g^ 
mile. ,j" 

Albany and Schenectady .1826 1SS1 .. IT $1,711,412 

Utica and Schenectady... .1833 1836 .4 TS 4.143.918 

Syracuse and Utica 1836 1S39 .4 53 2,490,083 

Auburn and Syracuse 1834 1839 .5 26 1.011,000 

Auburn and Rochester 1336 1841 .4 78 4,210.101 

Tonawanda 1832 1S42 .4 43* 1,216.820 

Attica and Buffalo 1836 1842 .3 81* 906,918 

Total 327 $15,690,249 

These companies were in 1850 allowed 
to carry freight without the imposition of 



the canal tolls, and in ] 853 were all con- 
solidated in a single company — the New 
York Central. When this project of con- 
solidating was under consideration, the stocks 
rose rapidly to high premiums, and the prin- 
ciple of consolidation was to create scrip 
stock to the amount of the aggregate pre- 
miums, and divide this pro rata among the 
stockholders of all the companies. That 
scrip, to the amount of about $8,100,000, 
now figures as a part of the cost of the rosd. 
The road was straightened so that the di- 
rect line was only 298 miles from Albany to 
Buffalo, but the other lines and routes added 
to it make the whole 594 miles. The capital 
stock of the company, Sept. 30, 1868, was $28,- 
780,000 and there was an indebtedness of 
$1 1,526,000, mostly in bonds. The total earn- 
ings of the road in 1854, the year of the con- 
solidation, were $5,918,332. From this sum 
they had risen, in 1857, to $8,027,259, but re- 
ceded to $6,200,000 in 1859. From 1865 to 
1868 inclusive, they averaged $14,350,000 
per annum. 

In 1869 it was consolidated with the 
Hudson River railroad, declaring the same 
year a stock dividend (watering the stock) 
to the amount of nearly 24 millions, and 
the capital of the consolidated road was 
called 75 million dollars, though its cost 
had been less than 45 millions. Eleven 
years later, the capital was further watered 
so as to be stated at $89,428,300, and the 
funded debt at $40,418,508 more, while 
the cost of road and equipment was stated 
at $137,757,152. The New York Central 
(from Albany to Buffalo), has four tracks, 
and the whole line is laid with steel rails. 
Its gross receipts are from 28 to 30 millions 
of dollars, and its net earnings from 10 to 
11 millions, enabling it to pay an 8 per 
cent, dividend on its enormously watered 
stock. The stock is quoted at about 145. 

The great southern tier of counties bor- 
dering on northern Pennsylvania, were for 
ten years after the completion of the N. Y. 
Central without means of communication 
with markets, except by common roads. The 
face of the country was too rugged to per- 
mit of a canal, but in 1825 the state legis- 
lature ordered the survey of a state road 
from Lake Erie to the Hudson river. Sev- 
eral conventions were held during the four 
years ending with 1830 in relation to the 
road. The railroad fever had gained 
ground meantime, and finally, in 1832, 
a charter for a railroad was granted, 



RAILROADS LAND GRANTS EXTENT AND COST. 



63 



with a capital of $10,000,000. The survey 
■was made by De Witt Clinton, Jr., but the 
legislature required that 11,000,000 of the 
capital should be subscribed before the work 
was commenced. This was subscribed, and 
E. Lord chosen president in 1833. A new 
survey was made at the expense of the state, 
and the report made on it in 1835, when a 
reorganization of the company took place, 
with J. G. King president. The subscrip- 
tion of capital now reached $2,362,100. 
The work was commenced by putting 40 
miles along the Delaware river under con- 
tract. The great fire of December, 1835, 
incapacitated many of the subscribers from 
paying up, and work was suspended. In 
January, 1836, the legislature loaned its 
credit for $3,000,000, but the stock could 
not then be negotiated. Some work was 
done along the line, however, by local sub- 
scription. In 1840 — Mr. Lord again presi- 
dent — the loan act was amended so as to be 
available, and the company purchased its 
iron. The terms of the loan permitted 
the state officer to deliver to the com- 
pany $100,000 of state stock whenever he 
should have evidence that the company had 
expended an equal amount; the state stock 
not to be sold under par. The company 
then paid its contractors with time drafts. 
The receipts for these drafts furnished the 
evidence of the company's expenditure, on 
which the state officer issued the stock to 
the company, which then borrowed on it 
the money to take up the drafts, and the 
lenders of the money sold the state stock in 
the state for what it would bring — some lots 
as low as 80. The work thus done was in 
detached lots, as the interest of certain par- 
ties prompted the expenditure. As soon as 
the last issue was made by the state the 
company stopped, and the state assumed 
the interest on the $3,000,000 issued to it. 
In 1842 the company assigned, and its af- 
fairs fluctuated until 1844, when Mr. Loder 
was elected president. In 1845 the state 
surrendered its lien of $3,000,000 upon the 
road, and authorized the individual stock to 
be cut down one-half by holders giving up 
two shares and taking one new one. A 
new subscription of $3,000,000 was obtained, 
and the work commenced anew. Much of 
the old work was useless ; and at this day, 
when the passenger approaches Dunkirk, he 
sees, stretching out far away to the right, 
like an immense army of grim warriors, the 
piles that were driven originally for the road, 



at great expense, and then abandoned. From 
the year 1 845 the road began to grow. Start- 
ing from Piermont, on the North River, 20 
miles above the city, it reached Otisville, 
62 miles, in October, 1846. The route was 
altered, and reached Binghamton, 139 
miles, in December, 1848, at a cost of $9,- 
802,433, allowing $1,458,000 for half the 
old stock, after the release of the state lien. 
In June, 1849, 22 miles more to Owego 
were opened ; in October 364; miles were 
added to Elmira ; and it finally reached the 
lake at Dunkirk, May, 1851. This was a 
single track, and it was found almost impos- 
sible to work it ; consequently they put a 
second track under contract on portions of 
the road. It was now found that the loca- 
tion of the road at Piermont, to be reached 
by ste*amboat, would not answer. The com- 
pany then made an arrangement with the 
Paterson and Ramapo road to allow the 
Erie to come into Jersey City. The Erie 
railroad being a wide gauge, 6 feet, and the 
Paterson road 4 feet 8 inches, it became 
necessary to lay another rail outside the 
track, to permit the Erie cars to come over 
that road, and the Erie cars reached Jer- 
sey City in November, 1853. It is remark- 
able in relation to this road, that it has de- 
pended upon the telegraph to such an extent 
that it could scarcely be operated without it. 
It gives constant information of the where- 
abouts of the trains and the condition of the 
track, so that the superintendent, wherever 
he may be, keeps up a constant communica- 
tion with all the stations. The whole length 
of the road is 460 miles ; 486 miles double 
track and sidings. The maximum grade of 
the road is 60 feet to the mile for 8 miles, 
and there is one of 57 feet to the mile. The 
cost of the road was greatly enhanced by the 
mode of raising money for its construction, 
by a constant series of loans, for which were 
issued first mortgage bonds, second mort- 
gage bonds, bonds convertible in stock in 
1862, bonds convertible in 1871, income 
bonds, unsecured bonds, and other debts, 
for very few of which the face was obtained, 
many of them being disposed of at a large 
discount. By these means the debts of the 
company ran iip to $25,260,000, and the cap- 
ital, $10,000,000, was in February, 1857, by 
a dividend of 10 per cent, in stock, money 
alleged to have been earned and sunk in the 
Long Dock, raised to the sum of $1 1,000,000. 
This load of debt exceeded the ability of the 
company, and it went finally into the hands 



64 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



of a receiver. The length of the road at 
that time was 446 miles, with a branch of 
19 miles from Chester Junction to New- 
burgh, 460 miles in all. It leased of other 
companies, 95 miles, consequently operated 
560 miles. It had in 1868, 371 locomo- 
tives, 187 passenger cars, 300 emigrant and 
baggage cars, and 5,856 freight cars. 

The management of the road was never 
characterized by any marked financial abil- 
ity, and in August, 1857, in consequence of 
the great cost of constructing the Bergen 
tunnel, and other financial blunders, it de- 
faulted on its interest, and its stock was 
wiped out. The unsecured bonds and the 
later mortgages were capitalized into a 
stock known thenceforth as the Erie rail- 
way, and the coupons of the first, second, 
and third mortgages were extended. For 
a time it seemed likely to prosper, as its 
business was large and apparently profit- 
able ; but it had fallen into the hands of 
reckless and dishonest speculators, who 
sought only their own profit. Previous to 
the reorganization in 1859 its stock was 
sold at $5 or less per share. The stock of 
the new organization was, at first, nearly 
par, but under the management of Fisk 
and Gould it was down till it was as low or 
lower than the first stock, and passed into 
the hands of receivers in 1873, and after 
some years was reorganized in 1879, as the 
N. Y., Lake Erie and Western Railroad 
Co. Its common stock now stands at about 
45 or 46; its preferred stock at 61 or 62. 
Previous to the completion of the reorgani- 
zation its capital stock was stated (Jan. 1, 
1880) at $83,247,000; its funded and float- 
ing debt was $75,391,973. The total cost 
of road and equipment was stated at $158,- 
035,707, a very large portion of which had 
been squandered. It does not as yet pay 
any dividends. Its receipts in 1879 were 
$18,613,109, and its expenses $10,644,000, 
showing net earnings of $7,049,084. It 
operated 1,829| miles of track in New 
York. 

The Camden and Amboy railroad and 
Delaware and Raritan Canal Co., of New 
Jersey, is one of the oldest passenger roads, 
having been chartered in February, 1830, 
with the canal privilege. The last is 43 
miles from Bordentown to New Brunswick; 
and the former, South Amboy to Camden, 
New Jersey, 63 miles. The Camden and 
Amboy road was opened to Camden in 
1834. In 1831 the company gave the state 



1,000 shares of stock, and a new act was 
passed, consolidating the canal and railroad 
companies; fares not to exceed $3 between 
New York and Philadelphia. In the fol- 
lowing year 1,000 shares more were convey- 
ed to the state. In 1837 the road was per- 
mitted to extend to New Brunswick; fares 
limited to 5 cents per mile. In 1842 the 
transit duties on the road were fixed at ten 
cents per ton for freight, and one-half of all 
above $3 charged for passengers. In 1843 
a quasi union was effected between this 
road and the New Jersey railroad, extend- 
ing from New York to New Brunswick, 
by which a through line was established. 
Both roads have been very profitable. On 
the expiration of the contract between the 
State of New Jersey and these railroads, 
they were leased as the United Railroad 
Companies of New Jersey, on long time, 
by the Pennsylvania Central Railroad Co. 
These roads constitute the New Jersey Di- 
vision of the Penn. Central R. R. Co. 

The New Jersey Central road extends 
from the foot of Liberty street, New York 
city, to Easton, on the Delaware; and 
by its close connections with the Baltimore 
and Ohio, the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne and 
Chicago,the Lehigh Valley (a coairoad) etc., 
it forms one of the best through routes 
to the West. Its cost was reported in 
1874, including its branches and leased lines, 
as $56,000,000 in stocks and bonds, but in 
that year it defaulted on its interest and was 
put into the hands of a receiver. During 
the present year, 1881, it has resumed its 
position as a sound and valuable road. 

The great Pennsylvania line of improve- 
ments, from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, com- 
menced 4th July, 1826, and completed in 
March, 1830, comprised 82 miles of railroad 
from Philadelphia to Columbia, and 36 
miles of portage road from Hollidayburgto 
Johnstown; this consisted of a series of in- 
clined planes, which were worked by sta- 
tionary engines. This 118 miles of railroad 
was prolonged by 278 miles of canal, and 
the cost of the whole to the state was over 
$12,000,000. The citizens of Philadelphia 
felt the need of works better adapted to the 
growing wants of that great city; and a 
new railroad was proposed from Harris- 
burg to Pittsburg, 250 miles. The route is fa- 
vorable, except for the mountain division, 
where the summit is crossed 2, 200 feet above 
tide water, requiring gradients 95 feet to the 
mile. These are but little in excess of those 



RAILROADS — LAND GRANTS EXTENT AND COST. 



65 



of the Massachusetts lines, which are worked 
to advantage. This work was opened through, 
November 15, 18-32, at a cost of $7,978,000, 
It proved very successful, and up to Novem- 
ber, 1855, its profits, over interest on capital, 
were, in accordance with its charter, credited 
to construction account, and it has since paid 
6 per cent The state line of public works 
did not succeed financially, and the state de- 
termined to sell it. After repeated offerings 
it was finally purchased by and transferred 
to the Pennsylvania railrord in 1857 for 
17,500,000, which was met by an issue of 
the 5 per cent, bonds of the company to the 
state, payable, $100,000 per annum until 1890, 
and the balance, $4,300,000, in four equal 
instalments annually thereafter. When the 
road took possession of the state works, 
the canals were found to be in a dilapidated 
condition, and the railroad needed repairs, 
which required assessments. The route then 
became continuous by rail from Philadelphia 
to Pittsburg, 366 miles. It had 486 miles 
of double track and sidings. The original 
cost of the road was $29,761,533, but aid 
granted to other lines which are subsidiary to 
it, made its capital, Jan., 1880, $68,890,200, 
its bonds, $80,267,756, and its floating debt, 
$14,631,161. A part of the cost is com- 
posed of $8,816,050 advanced to the Pitts- 
burg, Fort "Wayne, and Chicago railroad, 
which prolongs the Pennsylvania road to the 
latter city. That road was composed of 
three roads, viz: the Ohio and Pennsylva- 
nia, the Ohio and Indiana, and the Port 
Wayne and Chicago roads. These were con- 
solidated into one company in 1856, and the 
line completed from Pittsburg to Chicago in 
1859, 468 miles, at a cost of $39,553,586, of 
which $27,043,586 was capital, and $15,- 
510,000 bonds. To assist the completion of 
this road, the Pennsylvania Railroad Com- 
pany took up the rails on the 36 miles of port- 
age road, which it had bought of the state, 
and which was of no use, as it run parallel to 
its own road, and gave them to the Pittsburg 
road to complete its extension from Ply- 
mouth into Chicago. For this iron and the 
expense of taking up and moving, the Pitts- 
burg road gave its first mortgage bonds for 
$650,000. The business of the Pennsylva- 
nia road, connecting Philadelphia with Chi- 
cago and the whole net- work of railroads be- 
tween and beyond those cities is very profit- 
able. Its gross earnings, in 1879 were $21,- 
743,628, and its net earnings $9,992,008. 
We have stated that a portion of the great 
5 



Baltimore and Ohio railroad was finished two 
years before the opening of the Manchester 
road in England. The company received 
two charters : one from the state of Mary- 
land, February, 1827, and the other from the 
state of Virginia in the following March, 
with authority to construct a road from Bal- 
timore to the Ohio river. The capital au- 
thorized was $5,000,000, and the company 
entitled to organize on the payment of 
$1,000,000. The company was so organized 
in April of the same year, and with the aid 
of several officers of the United States top- 
ographical corps, the road was partly located 
in the same summer. July 4th, ground was 
broken by Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, and 
the portion of the road to Ellicott's Mills 
was put under contract. The capital of the 
company, at the close of 1828, reached 
$4,000,000, of which three-fourths was taken 
by individuals, $500,000 by the city of Bal- 
timore, and $500,000 by the state of Mary- 
land. The road was gradually extended to 
the Point of Rocks in 1832. Here arose an 
obstacle of right of way. The Chesapeake 
canal had appropriated the narrow gorge 
through the mountain, and several years of 
negotiation elapsed before the difficulty was 
finally settled by the legislature. In 1833 
the Washington branch was chartered, on 
the condition that at least 25 cents per pas- 
senger should be paid to the state. The 
Baltimore and Ohio Company contributed 
$1,016,800 toward the construction, and it 
was opened 30 miles to Washington, August 
25, 1 835. The road had then no locomotives, 
horse power being used. The company of- 
fered $4,000 for a locomotive of American 
manufacture to burn coal. One was invented 
by Phineas Davis and accepted. It ran 15 
miles per hour on short curves and 30 miles 
on a straight line. The rails were fiat bars 
laid on stone foundations, which soon gave 
way to longitudinal timbers with improved 
rails. The road reached Harper's Ferry in 
1834, and the state subscribed $3,200,000 
for the extension to Wheeling. In 1888 the 
state of Virginia extended the time for con- 
struction through its territory and subscribed 
$1,058,420. The road was then completed to 
Cumberland in 1842, but nothing further 
was done until 1847. Virginia again ex- 
tended the time, and in 1^49 state bonds 
granted to the company furnished means for 
pushing the road to completion in 1853. The 
city of Baltimore then furnished $5,000,000, 
which was expended in protecting tunnels, 



66 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



double track, etc. There is one tunnel of 
4,137 feet, and the length of all the tunnels 
is 12,804 feet. 

A charter for the Parkersburg branch 
was granted in 1851. The work began De- 
cember, 1852, and was completed May 1, 
1857. The road was built jointly by the city 
of Baltimore and the Baltimore and Ohio 
Company. The former gave $1,500,000 
first mortgage bonds, and the latter $1,- 
000,000 of its second mortgage bonds, and 
has since advanced $1,795,326. The road 
is operated by the Baltimore Company 
under a contract for five } r ears, at a rent of 
40 per cent, of the gross earnings. 

The capital of the main line of the Bal- 
timore and Ohio Railroad was originally 
$17,802,000, and its funded debt $9,343,- 
681. In Jan., 18S0, the capital had been 
increased to $19,792,566, the bonds to 
$29,386,875, and the floating debt to $1,- 
421,260, a total of $50,600,701. Its two 
branches, the "Washington and the Park- 
ersburg, cost together, $10,018,000 more, 
making in all over $60,000,000. Recently 
it has leased and formed connections with 
several other roads which give it access to 
Cincinnati, Chicago, St. Louis and the Pa- 
cific States, and also to New York city. 
It has always been largely engaged in the 
coal traffic, carrying from 525,000 to 550,- 
000 tons annually. It has also developed 
within the past few years a vast trade in 
breadstuffs, especially corn and provisions. 
As the great centre of canned goods of all 
kinds, fish, oysters, meats, and fruits, its 
west bound traffic is always very heavy. 
It pays regularly an 8 per cent, dividend. 
Its gross earnings in 1879 were $9,809,533, 
and the net earnings $4,750,909. 

The Virginia Central railroad (195 miles), 
was originally chartered, in 1836, as the 
Louisa railroad, with a capital of $300,000, 
and in 1837 the board of public works was 
authorized to subscribe on behalf of the 
state $120,000. In December, 1837, twenty- 
three miles of the road were opened. It was 
further extended in the following year, and 
in 1S40 the road reached Gordonsville. 
Under new privileges, granted in 1848, the 
work was resumed, and reached Charlottes- 
ville in May, 1850, but in that year the 
name of the road was changed to the Vir- 
ginia Central railroad. There were then 
seventy miles in operation, and extensions 
at both ends were proceeded with ; of these, 
in 1851, twenty -three miles were completed, 



bringing the road into Richmond. In 1857 
the road was opened to Jackson's river, 195 
miles, at a cost of $5,372,910, of which $3,- 
132,445 was paid up stock, $1,878,493 state 
aid, and $351,972 floating debt. It was one 
of the best built roads in the state, and for 
three years did a good business. During 
the war it was greatly injured, but in 1866 
was thoroughly repaired and put in good 
running order at a heavy expense. In IS 68 
the facilities which it offered for becoming 
a trunk road from Norfolk to the west, at- 
tracted attention, its name was changed to 
the "Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad," and 
northern capital intei'ested in it. Hunting- 
ton, on the Ohio, is its western terminus, 
and from thence it has connections now 
nearly completed with Cincinnati and Lou- 
isville, which will make it one of the trunk 
roads ; its connections with the Norfolk, now 
in rapid progress, will enable it to ship 
freight direct to Europe to great advantage. 
The road has cost about 22 millions. In 
1873 it failed and was put into the hands 
of a receiver, but it has been reorganized 
(in 1879), and is now prospering. Its 
stock, bonds, and debts are $51,805, 1 13. 

In the summer of 1881 its managers se- 
cured a connection for this road with Mem- 
phis, and west of the Mississippi with the 
Texas and Southern Pacific. It thus be- 
comes one of the great trunk roads to the 
Pacific, and has the advantage of a nearly 
direct route never obstructed by snow. It 
will doubtless secure a large share of the 
Southern traffic. 

In casting the eye upon a railroad map, 
the line from Bangor, Maine, to New Or- 
leans, 1,996 miles, is found to be composed 
of eighteen grand links; one of the largest 
of these is that which connects Lynchburg, 
Va., with Bristol, Tenn., 204 miles. This 
was called the Virginia and Tennessee. It 
was opened in 1854. In 1870 this road was 
consolidated with the Naples and Peters- 
burg and South Side railroads, under the 
name of the Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio 
Railroad, with authority to complete the 
Virginia and Kentucky division from Bris- 
tol to Cumberland Gap. This road has now 
formed such connections with other roads 
as to form the most direct route to Knox- 
ville, Tenn.. to Mobile, and New Orleans. 
Its stock, bonds, and debts are about $21,- 
581,006. 

The South Carolina road was one of the 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



67 



first projected in the country. The city of 
Charleston early saw the advantage and 
importance of the work, which was com- 
menced in 1830, and opened in 1833. Its 
main trunk extends from Charleston to 
Hamburg, on the Savannah river opposite 
Augusta, Ga., 136 miles, with branches to 
Columbia and Camden, S. C. The track 
was originally a trestle-work, on which was 
laid a thin fiat rail. Some of the swamps 
and rivers were crossed at an elevation of 
fifty feet. On this road the first successful 
American locomotive was run. It was 
called the " Best Friend," and was built 
under the supervision of E. L. Miller, of 
South Carolina. It was introduced by Ho- 
ratio Allen, and ran in 1830, when there 
were but eight miles of road out of Charles- 
ton. The South Carolina road cost $11,- 
526,231, of which $5,819,265 is capital, and 
the remainder bonded debt. The road 
owes most of its business to the transporta- 
tion of cotton, and it pays 1 per cent, reg- 
ularly. Its stock is above par. The pro- 
ject of connecting Charleston with Cincin- 
nati was early entertained, and in 1836 a 
grant was obtained from South Carolina, 
North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky, 
for the purpose of constructing a road 
thi*ough Columbia, Knoxville, and Danville 
to Covington, opposite Cincinnati. This 
enterprise was swamped in 1837 by the 
crisis, when the road was partially con- 
structed to Columbia. This has since been 
completed by means of the Spartansburg 
and Union, and the Cumberland Gap and 
Charleston railroads, except a short gap 
between Asheville, N. C, and Wolf Creek, 
which is now in course of construction. 

Georgia has more miles of railroad com- 
pleted, and more in progress, than any 
other southern state. Atlanta, Macon, 
Augusta, Savannah, and Millen are all im- 
portant railroad centers. There were, in 
Jan., 1880, 2,516 miles of completed rail- 
way in the state, and at least 600 miles more 
in progress. The most important roads are: 
The Georgia, extending from Atlanta to 
Augusta, having a length, with its three 
branches, of 257 miles, and costing $5,- 
808,000; the Georgia Central, from Macon 
to Savannah, with leased lines, 660 miles, 
costing $12,126,827 ; the Macon and 
Augusta, and Macon and Brunswick, which 
are severally 62 miles, and 1 74 miles, and 
together cost $8,491,541; the Atlantic and 
Gulf, with the Florida branch, 347 miles 



in length, and costing §8,181,000 ; the 
Western and Atlantic, 138 miles in length, 
from Atlanta to Chattanooga, costing $5,- 
000,000, and the Southwestern and its 
branches, 325 miles in length, now perma- 
nently leased to the Georgia Central, which 
has assumed all its liabilities. Several of 
the lately finished railways are also of con- 
siderable importance, especially the Georgia 
Air Line, from Atlanta toward Richmond, 
the Brunswick and Albany, and the Athens 
and Clayton, intended to connect Savan- 
nah with Cincinnati. The entire cost of 
railroads already built in Georgia, up to 
Jan. 1, 1880, was about $80,000,000. 

In Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas, their 
fine rivers, navigable for steamboats, have 
made railroads almost unnecessary. But 
whenever they are built, and can obtain a 
freight of cotton, they are sure to pay. This 
product is not like corn, or wheat, or even 
flour, worth one, two, or three cents a pound, 
but eight, ten, or twelve cents, and can there- 
fore afford to pay the cost of transportation. 

Up to the period of the completion of the 
Union and Central Pacific railroad, the Illi- 
nois Central railway was the most remarka- 
ble of American roads in the extent of 
its line, and its mode of construction, 
under a single corporation. In 1837, 
when the population of the state of Illinois 
was less than 200,000 souls, and these agri- 
culturists scattered over the great state, they 
undertook with singular boldness a system 
of internal improvement by canal and railroad, 
which would involve an expenditure of at least 
$15,000,000. Among these was the Central 
railroad, which was to extend from Cairo, at 
the junction of theOhioand Mississippi rivers, 
longitudinally through the state, to Galena, at 
its northern extremity on the Mississippi river, 
making a line of 457^ miles, which should be 
the base of a triangle of which the great river 
formed the other two sides. This road was to 
cross the Illinois river at the commencement of 
navigation, or where it meets the canal coming 
from Chicago. Other roads were projected 
to cross the state, intersecting the Central 
road. The Central road was undertaken, 
and about 83,500,000 spent upon it, when 
bankruptcy overtook the state, and the road 
rapidly deteriorated. The progress of the 
work on the canal, with the funds borrow- 
ed on pledge of the land granted by the 
federal government, had been of great benefit 
to the state, and had enabled the federal gov- 
ernment to sell most of its lands on the 
canal and irreat water-courses, in fact, all 
within reacii of market. There remained, 



68 



TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION. 



however, some 15,000,000 acres of the rich- 
est land in the heart of the state, for which 
there was no sale, because it was not acces- 
sible to market. Experiencing, however, the 
great results from the canal grant, which not 
only laid open great tracts to market, but 
by local expenditure in construction, brought 
settlers and money upon the vacant lands, 
it decided upon a similar grant to the 
state in aid of the Central railroad. Accord- 
ingly, in September, 1850, Congress made a 
grant of lands to the state of Illinois of every 
alternate section, six sections in width, on 
each side of the road and its branches, and 
if any land so situated should be taken up, 
then any vacant land elsewhere might be 
selected in room of it, within fifteen miles of 
the line of the road. The same law con- 
ferred upon the states of Alabama and Mis- 
sissippi similar grants for the extension of 
the road from Cairo to Mobile city. In 
the following February the state of Illinois 
incorporated the Illinois Central Railroad 
Company, with a capital of $1,000,000, to 
be extended to an amount not exceeding the 
cost of the road. The company on its 
organization was to pay over to the state 
treasury $200,000, and receive from the state 
the entire grant of lands made by the federal 
government, together with all that remained 
of the old Central road, right of way, eto. 
The company was to have fifty miles com- 
pleted within two years, under forfeit of the 
$200,000 deposited, and which was 'to be re- 
turned to the company on the completion of 
the fifty miles within the time. The road was 
to run from Cairo to the western end of 
the Illinois canal, and thence branch to 
Galena on the river, and to Chicago on the 
lake. The company was to pay to the state 
annually five per cent, on the gross income 
of the road. These were the leading items 
of the grant, and the conditions were all 
carried out. The location and survey of the 
route showed the company entitled to 
2,595,000 acres of land to be selected by the 
company. This vast tract of land, amount- 
ing to an area larger than the whole state of 
Connecticut, was all to be selected from 
good farming lands, not an acre of waste in 
the whole, but all of the richest prairie soil, 
of the same character as that in the neigh- 
borhood of St. Louis, which for two hundred 
years had given to fresh settlers annual crops, 
without in any degree deteriorating appar- 
ently. These lands of the company were 
appropriated, 2,000,000 acres, valued at 



$18,150,000, as a security for $17,000,000 
of construction bonds; 250,000 acres were 
added to the interest fund to meet any de- 
ficiency of means from other sources ap- 
propriated to interest on the construction 
bonds ; and 345,000 acres were held in 
reserve, but were finally the basis of$3,000,- 
000 " free land bonds," issued and redeemed 
by conversion into company stock. The 
2,000,000 acres were placed in the hands of 
trustees, who alone have power to give title 
to purchasers, and wdio are required, when- 
ever the funds accumulate to the amount of 
a bond, to buy and cancel it. No land can 
be sold, unless bonds to the same amount 
are cancelled. It was estimated that the 
bonds thus issued would build the road, and 
leave the entire work free of cost to the 
stockholders. It was found requisite, how- 
ever, to create 170,000 shares, representing 
$17,000,000 capital. On this instalments 
have from time to time been called in. The 
$200,000 deposited with the state was as- 
sessed $20 on 10,000 shares, and the amount 
has since been increased to $25,277,270, on 
which 80 per cent, has been called, making 
$20,800,000. In April, 1852, $4,000,000 of 
the 7 per cent, construction bonds were is- 
sued at par, and the subscribers to this loan 
had the privilege of subscribing ten shares of 
stock for each $1,000 bond. The company 
purchased their iron, 72,000 tons, in 1852, 
when it was very low, or less than half the 
price to which it rose soon after, when the 
railroad fever developed itself. In October, 
1852, the whole line was put under contract, 
in divisions, and 10,000 men were employed 
at an expense of $3,700,000 per annum, at 
work along the line, twelve hours per day, 
stretching a great highway through fertile 
plains never before opened, conferring value 
on them, wealth to the farmers, and strength 
to the state. As the work progressed, it en- 
countered difficulties from cholera, and the 
demand for labor which the growing railroad 
mania caused. The road was opened in 
1854, and its earnings for its first year, 1855, 
were $1,532,118. It had sold, in 1872, 
2,215,000 acres of its lands for 24,540,090 
dollars, leaving 379,210 acres unsold, most- 
ly desirable lands, in the Central and 
Southern parts of the State. Most of these 
have since been sold, and the entire amount 
reached from its land sales, exceeds $30,- 
000,000. Its main line is 707 miles in 
length, and it has over 400 miles of leased 
lines in Iowa, all of which it has since pur- 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



GO 



chased. Its capital stock is $29,000,000, 
and its bonds in 1880, most of them since 
redeemed from its land sales, were $12,- 
100,000. In 1880 and in 1881 it was ex- 
tending its Sioux City line into Dakota and 
up the James or Dakota River Valley. Its 
financial condition is excellent. 

At Cairo, the southern terminus of the 
road, the cars make direct connections with 
the Mobile and Ohio, and New Orleans, St. 
Louis and Chicago railroads for Memphis, 
Natchez, Vicksburg, New Orleans, Mobile, 
and other southern cities. In Chicago the 
company's facilities for receiving and for- 
warding freight are unsurpassed. Sleep- 
ing cars are run on all its night passenger 
trains. 



State or Corpora- 
tion. 






Ohio 

Indiana 

Illinois 

Missouri 

Alabama 

Mississippi 

Louisiana 

Michigan 

Arkansas 

Florida 

Iowa 

Wisconsin 

California 

Minnesota 

Oregon 

Kansas 

Nevada 

Nebraska 

Pacific R. Rs. &c. 

Wajjon Roads. 

Wisconsin 

Michigan 

Oregon 



Total. 



Grants for 
Internal Im 
provem'tln- 
cludi'gState 

Canals 



1,243,001.77 

1,609,861.61 

533.2H3.73 

500,000.00 

500,000.0(1 

£00,000.00 

500,000.00 

1,250,000.00 

500,000.00 

5O0,00i).(K) 

1,333,079.90 

1,183,728.42 

500,000.00 

500.000.00 

500,000.00 

500,000.00 

500,000.00 

500,000.00 



Acres Certi- 
fied up to 
1880. 



1,828,005.02 
2.830,571.76 
935.158.13 
1,072,405.49 
3,229,033 09 
2.381,650.63 
1,760,468.39 
4,623,173.46 
2,807,783.88 



7.279,484.15 
3,872,191.21 



Acres Grant- 
ed. 



2,595,053.00 
3,745,16,1.21 
3,729,120.00 
2.062.240.00 
3,178,720.00 
4,931,361.16 
4,804,871.14 
2,360,114.00 
7.207.S37.98 
3.758 436.07 
3.520,000.00 
9,913,495.95 
4,700,000.00 
6,870,000.00 



10,435,048.08151,144,766.00 



302,930.36 
221,013.35 
777,096.76 



13,153,155.43;46,951,066f 



214,031.807.07 



The most marvelous result of this great 
work was manifest in the report of the 
United States land commissioner. The lands 
through which the road ran had been offered 
on an average of 15 years at $1.25 per 
acre, without finding a buyer. All those 
lands were withdrawn while the company 
made its selections. When that was done, 
the lands were again brought into market, 
in June, 1852, and these in the next twelve 
months sold in Illinois 298,861 acres for 
cash, at $2.50 per acre, and $2,509,120 for 
land warrants. The sales were double the 
quantity sold in all the states in the pre- 
vious year. The whole interest of the gov- 
ernment in Illinois was speedily closed out. 
For lands which had been valueless to it 
before the completion of the road, it real- 
ized over $9,000,000. This was the effect 
of transportation upon those lands. 



The first land grants of the government 
were in aid of canals (included in the grants 
for internal improvements.) We give 
above, also, the grants to railroads up to 
July, 1880. Of these 607,741.76 acre shave 
been declared forfeited by Congress. 

The land grant of the federal government 
to Alabama for the Mobile and Ohio road 
was to the extent of 1,1 20,000 acres, and it 
became the basis of a sinking fund for the 
aid granted to the states of Tennessee, Mis- 
sissippi, and Alabama. The road extends 
from Mobile bay, in a line nearly due north, 
to the mouth of the Ohio river, opposite 
Cairo, a distance of 506 miles. Thence by 
the Illinois Central it connects with Dun- 
leith, on the upper Mississippi, 928 miles, 
and also with Chicago and the eastern lines. 
The road was commenced in 1851, and 
was nearly completed before the war. It is 
now doing a prosperous business and has 
cost $21,730,715. 

The Mobile and Ohio is not by any means 
the only railroad line to the Gulf and to 
the S. E., as well as S. W. portion of the 
United States. East of the Mississippi 
there are three rival routes to the Gulf, viz., 
the combination of several railways known 
as the New Orleans, St. Louis and Chicago, 
which is, on the whole, the most direct to 
New Orleans; the combination known as 
the Louisville, Nashville, and Great South- 
ern, whose direct termini are Chicago and 
Pensacola, but which, through branch rail- 
roads reaches Mobile and New Orleans on 
the S. West, and Atlanta, Jacksonville, 
Savannah and Charleston in the S. E., and 
later still, the Cincinnati Southern, which 
is connected to the north with Michigan, 
and by other roads, with Chicago, and has 
formed connections southward from Chat- 
tanooga with Brunswick, Ga., Savannah, 
and Charleston. These combination roads 
are only in alliance for the purposes of 
traffic and not a consolidation under a sin- 
gle head. West of the Mississippi there 
are two principal lines, the St. Louis, Iron 
Mountain and Southern, and the Missouri, 
Kansas and Texas, both connecting with 
the Gulf as well as with other points by 
other roads, of which the International and 
Great Northern, and the Houston and Texas 
Central were the principal. Recently it is 
reported that all of these roads have been 
consolidated with others in the grand 
scheme which Jay Gould and his associates 



70 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



have been arranging for the control of the 
railroads of the southwest, and of Mexico. 
What are to be the amounts of stock and 
bonded indebtedness of the consolidated 
roads, have not yet transpired, but they 
must be very large, as the reports of the 
cost of the four roads named, Jan. 1, 1880, 
were as follows: 

International and Great Northern $18,489,202 

Houston and Texas Central 80,919.687 

Missouri , Kansas and Texas 47,210,332 

St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern 51,043,893 

Totals $147,663,014 

It should be observed that the Interna- 
tional and Great Northern, and perhaps 
also the Houston and Texas Central are ex- 
pected to make close connection with the 
Mexican railways extending to the City of 
Mexico and the Pacific Coast in Mexico. 

Still farther west, in Arizona, the Atchi- 
son, Topeka, and Santa Fe, and the Denver 
and Rio Grande are finding access to the 
Pacific Ocean at Guaymas and other ports 
on the Gulf of California, and at San Diego, 
Los Angeles and other ports on the Pacific. 

The State of Michigan, in 1836, con- 
templated the construction of three railroads 
to cross the state: the Southern, from 
Monroe to New Buffalo; the Central, from 
Detroit to St. Joseph; and the Northern, 
from Huron to Grand River. For these 
roads a state debt of $5,000,000 was con- 
tracted; and, in 1838, 28 miles of the Cen- 
tral road had been put in operation, which 
was extended to 146 miles, at a cost of $2,- 
238,289, and the Southern road, 68 miles, 
at a cost of $1,125,590, when the state 
failed and repudiated its debt. As a step 
toward recovery, a bill was passed, at the 
suggestion of Mr. Charles Butler, of New 
York, called the "Butler act," by which 
the state sold the Central road to a Boston 
company for $2,000,000 of its own bonds, 
and the Southern road for $5,000,000 to 
another company. Little was done, how- 
ever, until 1849, when Mr. Butler and oth- 
ers reorganized the Southern company, and 
the road was pushed to completion. As it 
approached the Indiana line, an old Indi- 
ana state charter was purchased, enabling 
the company to carry their work through 
that state to the Illinois line, whence, under 
the general law of that state, it was pushed 
on to Chicago. The distance from Monroe, 
on Lake Michigan, to Chicago, is 246 miles, 
and the work was completed for $50,000,- 
000, or $20,000 per mile in running order, 
the level nature of the country being very 



favorable to the construction of railroads. 
The work was eminently successful, but be- 
came involved through its connection with 
lateral jobs, which covered it with liabili- 
ties greater than its business, large as it 
was, could carry. In 1857 it became so 
much embarrassed, as to bo obliged to re- 
organize, and was subsequently consolidat- 
ed with the Lake Shore railroad. It has 
now a length, including one branch of 
1,176.8 miles; its cost for road and equip- 
ment is set down at $89,926,308 of which 
$50,000,000 is represented by stock and 
$39,926,308 by debt. Its gross earnings 
for the year ending Dec. 31, 1879, were 
$15,271,492, and the net earnings $6,- 
336,968. It is now run in close connection 
with the N. Y. Central railroad, and its 
stock is about par. It has, for two or three 
years past, made from 6^ to 8 per cent, 
dividends. 

The Michigan Central reached the lake 
in May, 1849, and was also pushed to com- 
pletion, going around the head of Lake 
Michigan, where the Illinois Central put 
out a hand to meet it. The length of the 
line is 803.7 miles, Detroit to Chicago. 
The cost of this road was $35,350, 0S3. 
The road was laid with T rail, and is very 
prosperous. The capital of the company 
is $18,738,204 and the debt $13,691,000. 
The road is an important link in the line 
of connection between Boston and the 
western country. 

The state of Tennessee has an important 
system of railroads extending to aU sec- 
tions of the state. The state guarantees 
$8,000 per mile for the purchase of iron 
and equipment, upon the condition that the 
companies prepare the road-bed and defray 
the charges of construction. The state re- 
tains a lien upon the whole property. The 
roads were well built, and for a time pros- 
perous, but since the war have fallen into 
difficulties, and the state has attempted to 
scale and repudiate its indebtedness for 
them. 

The state of Missouri had done little to- 
ward the construction of roads until the 
session of 1851, when it was agreed to lend 
its aid to two great lines; the Pacific road, 
commencing at St. Louis and running across 
the state, on the south side of the Missouri 
river, and the Hannibal and St. Joseph 
road, extending 206 miles across the state 
from river to river, connecting the two 
cities named. This last had also a land 



RAILROADS LAND GRANTS EXTENT AND COST. 



71 



grant of 600,000 acres, made the basis for 
$5,000,000 of the company's bonds. The 
state subsequently enlarged its plan, and 
agreed to issue $24,000,000 of its bonds in 
aid of the railroads. The panic of 1857 
and the war troubles prevented the pay- 
ment of interest on these bonds, either by 
the railroads or the state, for some years. 
In 1867, the state resumed payment and 
the railroads began a new career of pros- 
perity. The most important roads are the 
Hannibal and St. Joseph, and branches, 
292 miles long; the Pacific of Missouri, 
421.6 miles long; the St. Louis and San 
Francisco, 392.4 miles in length; the St. 
Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern, 684 
miles in length, and the Kansas City, St. 
Joseph, &c, 254 miles in length. The 
state has 3,998 miles of completed road, 
and 450 more in progress. Over $133,- 
121,871 was expended on these roads up to 
Jan., 1880. The Pacific road had cost $16,- 
595,048, of which $15,123,000 was bonded 
debt. The great railroad bridge over the 
Mississippi at St. Louis has materially ben- 
efited the railroad lines. 



The Michigan Central reached the lake 
in May, 1849, and was also pushed to com- 
pletion, going round the foot of Lake Michi- 
gan, where the Illinois Central put out a 
hand to meet it. The connection is thus 
284 miles, Detroit to Chicago. The cost of 
this road was $15,951,936. The road was 
laid with T rail, and was very prosperous. 
The capital of the company is $11,197,348, 
and the debt $5,153,489. The road is an 
important Hide in the line of connection 
between Boston and the western country. 

The state of Tennessee has an important 
system of railroads extending to all sec- 
tions of the state. The state guarantees 
$8,000 per mile for the purchase of iron and 
equipment, upon the condition that the com- 
panies prepare the road-bed and defray the 



charges of construction. The state retains 
a lien upon the whole property. The roads 
have been well built. 

The state of Missouri had done little 
toward the construction of roads until the 
session of 1851, when it agreed to lend its 
aid to two great lines ; the Pacific road, 
commencing at St. Louis and running across 
the state, on the south side of the Missouri 
river, and the Hannibal and St. Joseph road, 
extending 206 miles across the state from 
river to river, connecting the two cities 
named. This last had also a land grant of 
600,000 acres, made the basis for $5,000,- 
000 of the company's bonds. The state 
subsequently enlarged its plan, and agreed 
to issue $24,000,000 of its bonds in aid of 
the railroads. The panic of 1857 and the 
war troubles prevented the payment of in- 
terest on these bonds, either by the railroads 
or the state, for some years. In 1867, the 
state resumed payment and the railroads be- 
gan a new career of prosperity. The most 
important roads are the Hannibal and St. 
Joseph, and branches, 278 miles long; the 
Pacific of Missouri, 283 miles long, and the 
Southwest Pacific, 327 miles in length. The 
state has 1,827 miles of completed road, and 
1,450 more in progress. Over $88,000,- 
000 have been expended on these roads 
thus far. The Pacific road has cost $13,- 
906,000, of which $7,550,375 is bonded 
debt. The great railroad bridge over the 
Mississippi at St. Louis will materially ben- 
efit the railroad lines. 



RAILROADS MILEAGE LIABILITIES. 



RAILWAYS OF THE WORLD, Jan. 1, 1877. 



Continent and Country. 



Nortii America. 
United States of America,* 
Dominion of Canada, 1877, 
Uniled States of Mexico,. 

Total North America,.. 

Central America and 
West Indies. 

Honduras, 

Costa Rica, 

t oloinbia (Panama), 

Cuba, 

Porto Rico, 

Jamaica, 

Barbadoes, 

Total C. A. and W. I.,.. 

Soutii America. 

Colombia 

Venezuela, 

Guiana (British), 

Brazil 

Paraguay, 

Uruguay, 

Argentine Republic, 

Peru, 

Bolivia, 

Chili, 

Total South America,. 



EuRors. 
Great Britain and Ireland 

France, 

Spain, 

Portugal, 

Italy,. 

Switzerland 

Austria-Hungary, 

Germany, 

Belgium, 

Holland and Luxembourg, 

Denmark, 

Sweden and Norway, 

Russia, 

Roumania, 

Turkey, 

Greece 

Total Europe, 

Asia. 

Turkey (Asia Minor), 

India (British), 

Ceylon, 

Philippine Islande, 

Java 

China, 

Japan, 

Total Asia 

Africa. 

Egypt 

Tunis, 

Algeria 

Cape Colony, 

Mauritius, 

Total Africa, 

Australasia. 

Victoria, 

New South Wales, 

Queensland 

South Australia , 

Western Australia, 

Tasmania, 

New Zealand, 

Tahiti, 

Total Australasia 



Area. 



Sq. miles 

3,580.24; 

3,483,955 

829,91(5 



7,891,110 



47.090 

26,040 

27,346 

48.489 

3,860 

6,400 

166 



159.396 



320,750 

403.276 

76,000 

3,288,000 

56.700 

73,538 

838.600 

503,380 

473,560 

126,060 



6,159,864 




3,924,641 



660,870 
909.834 

24.454 
120.000 

51.336 

1,531,953 

156,604 



3,458,051 



606.340 
43 500 
258.306 
181, 9-} 

708 



1.089,416 



88.198 
323.437 
669,520 
383,328 
978.000 

26.215 

102.000 

2,000 



2,572,698 



Population. 



50,152,866 
5.169,789 

8,133,719 



63,456,374 



351,800 
165,000 
226,000 
1,370,211 
452,916 
401,317 
31.719 

2,998,963 



2,851,858 

1,784.194 

152,700 

10,196,328 

300,000 

440,000 

1,877,500 

3.374,000 

1,600,000 

2,300,000 



24,876,580 



33,895,023 

36.905,788 

16,681,719 

4.367,882 

27.769,465 

2,776,035 

37,739,407 

42,727,260 

5.253.821 

3,940,024 

2.013,257 

6,303.395 

78.281.447 

3.621,749 

8,315,000 

1,461,201 



312,052 493 



16,050,000 

191,065,445 

2,401,066 

5,000.000 

18.125 269 

405 213,152 

32,794,89' 



670.649,S29 



6 252,000 
2,000,000 

2,416,22-. 

496.381 
316 012 



11.480.648 



2,400,458 



Miles 
of K'y 
in op- 
erate. 



94.622 

5,219 

378 

100,219 



66 
29 
49 
459 
21 
34 
6 

664 



43 

39 

68 

1,357 

47 

231 

1,466 

1,238 

38 

691 



5,218 



16.872 

12,722 

4,112 

902 

5,028 

1,211 

10,954 

18.229 

2.278 

1,260 

893 

2,966 

13,702 

891 

997 

7 



93,024 



279 

7.152 

209 

279 

290 

10 

41 



8,266 



1,013 

92 

401 

136 

66 



1. 



697 

501 

452 

301 

69 

45 

412 

21 

2.498 



RECAPITULATION. 



North America, 

Cen. Am. and W. Indies., 

South America, 

Europe, 

Asia, 

Africa, 

Australasia, 

Railroads of the World, 

Count ties wholly without 

Railroads, ., 

The World with Rail- 
roads and without, 



,894,110 
109,396 
,159,864 
924,641 
,458,051 
,089,446 
,572,698 



258,206 
077,304 



1,335,510 



63,456,374 
8,998,963 

24,876,580 
312,052.493 
670,<i49,829 

11,480,648 

2,400,458 



,0S7,915,345 
401,719,205 



1,489,634,550 



100.219 
664 
5,218 
93.U24 
8,266 
1.7f8 
2,-198 



210,596 



210,596 



STATEMENT 
Showing the amount an character of the various claetes 
of the Public Debt of the United States as exist- 
ing on the 30th day June, 1881. 
Interest bearing Debt. 

Bonds at 6 per cent. ,* $196,378,000 

Bonds at 5 per cent.,* 439,841 ,350 

Bonds at 4J4 per cent 250,000,000 

Bonds at 4 per cent., 738.659,000 

Helunding Cert ificates, 688.500 

Navy Pension Fund, 14.u00.000 

Principal, $1,639,567,750 

Interest 20,223,225 

Debt on which Interest has ceased since Maturity. 

Principal, $6,723 865 

Interest 718,686 

Debt bearing no Interest. 

Old Demand Legal-Tender Notes, $346,741,551 

Certificates of Deposit 11 925.000 

Fractional Currency, t .. 7.105.9."3 

Gold and Silver Certificates 50,949,450 

Principal $422,721,954 

Unclaimed Pacific Railroad Interest, 6,716 

Amount of Fractional Currency estimated 

as lost or destroyed,t 8,375,934 

Total Debt. 

Principal, $2,069,013,569 

Interest, 20.948.658 

Total, $2,089,962,227 

Cash in the Treasury. 

Available Assets $240,363,415 

Debt less Cash in the Treasury 1,840,598.812 

Bonds issued to the Pacific Railroad Companies, 
interest payable in lawful money. 

Principal outstanding $64,623,512 

Interest accrued and not vet paid, 1.938.71 "5 

Interest paid by the United States 49.528.566 

Interest repaid by transportation of Mails... 14, 426,136 
By Cash Payments, 5 per cent. Net Earnings, 655.199 

Balance of Interest paid by United States,. 34,447.241 

*These 6 per cent, and 5 per cent, bonds were due this 
year. Almost 95 millions of them will be paid in August 
and September, and the remainder, f576.88l.800, has been 
extended by the plan of Secretary Windom at 3J/, per ct.; 
the«e bonds are payable at the" pleasure of the Govern- 
ment. On the 1st of October, 1881, the interest-bearing 
bonds will stand as follows: 

Four and a half per cents., $250,000,000 

Four per cents 739,347 800 

Three and a half per cents , 576.881 .800 

Total $1,566,229,600 

Navy Pension Fund, 14,0>i0,000 

Total $1,580,229,600 

The debt hearing no interest will probably 

beabout 422,000.000 

$2,002,229,600 
Less probably more than 

of cash in the Treasury 200.00il.000 

So that we may reasonably expect the debt 
on the 1st "of Octoberto be below 1,800 
millions. 
The Annual Interest March 1. 1881, was.. . .$76,845,937.50 
The Annual Interest Oct. 1, 1881, will be .. . 61,434.775.00 

Making an annual saving of interest of $15,411,164.50 



RAILROADS MILEAGE. 



73 



The earliest of the larger railroads in 
the East had, for the utmost limit of their 
ambition, at first, the idea of reaching Lake 
Erie, the Ohio Kiver, or in the Southern 
Atlantic States the Alleghany range. It 
was a long time before they attained these 
points — and meantime, though other roads, 
some of them built, it is true, with eastern 
capital, had stretched across the prairies 
to Chicago and St. Louis, they were run 
in connection with the Eastern roads, but 
apparently without any thought of consol- 
idation. In 1850, twenty miles of railroad, 
extending from Chicago toward Milwaukee 
were built, but there was not a mile of 
railroad then or till five years later beyond 
the Mississippi except 38 miles along the 
west bank of that river from St. Louis 
northward. In 1860 "Wisconsin had 905 
miles of railroad extending northward, 
northwestward, and westward from the 
lake. Iowa and Missouri had begun to 
build railways westward to the Missouri 
river, the former having 655 miles built 
but only a part of it in operation that year, 
and the latter 817 miles built but not more 
than 500 miles in operation. Not much 
progress was made in these two states till 
the close of the war, and there was none 
elsewhere beyond the Mississippi. In July, 
1862, in the midst of the great civil war, 
the feeling which had led to the sending 
out of several exploring expeditions to find 
a practicable railroad to bind California 
and the Pacific states and territories more 
closely to the Union, culminated in an act 
of Congress chartering the Pacific railroad. 
There were some defects in the charter and 
no company was formed till October, 1863, 
when the Union Pacific and soon after the 
Central Pacific was organized. By the 
charter the capital stock of the entire route 
was to be $100,000,000, and the govern- 
ment granted them a roadway of 200 feet 
on each side of the track, and alternate 
sections of land for twenty miles on each 
side of the road; and in addition its bonds, 
maturing in 30 years, bearing six percent, 
payable in gold, for $16,000 per mile for 
the plain, $32,000 per mile for the steeper 
grades, and $48,000 per mile for the deep 
cuttings and tunneling. They were, more- 
over, authorized to issue their own bonds 
to an equal amount with these government 
bonds, at the same rate, and these lands 
were to be a first mortgage (the govern- 
ment bonds being a second mortgage) on 



the road. With these ample resources 
the two companies began at their respective 
ends to build the road in 1865; the Union 
Pacific commencing at Omaha, Nebraska, 
and the Central Pacific, at Sacramento, 
California. The Central Pacific built 742 
miles, much of it through the mountains, 
and the Union Pacific 1,032 miles. The 
junction of the two reads was effected May 
15, 1869, and regular daily passenger trains 
were run each way, as well as numerous 
freight trains. Since that date the two 
roads have built several branches — the 
Union Pacific in Nebraska, Wyoming, and 
Colorado, and has obtained the control of 
the Kansas Pacific and Central branch of 
the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific 
of the Utah and Northern and Utah 
Southern, several short lines in Nevada, 
the Western, Oregon and Pacific, and South- 
ern Pacific, and some of the Pacific coast 
lines. The mileage of the Union Pacific 
Jan. 1, 1880, aside from branches, was 
1,042.4 miles; and of the Central Pacific at 
the same date, including some of its 
branches, 1,213.1 miles. Both roads have 
greatly extended their mileage since that 
date. It is difficult to say exactly what 
has been the cost of these two roads. 
They were built under great difficulties at 
a time when everything was high and when 
men who took great risks expected to be 
well paid for it; it was moreover a time of 
gigantic frauds, and it is more than sus- 
pected that these two roads had their share 
of them. The Credit Molilier and other 
speculations were a disgrace to the nation 
and especially to those men in high station 
who participated in them. The reports of 
these roads for the year ending Jan. 1, 
1880, give the following figures: 

Union Pacific, cost of road and equipments. $114,403,812 
Central Pacific and branches, cost of road 

and equipments • 168,2 8 5.681 

Together $267,779,848 

This is far too much; but the roads were 
needed, and are now honestly managed. 
The Government loans to them have been 
to June 30, 1881, about $63,000,000 of 
principal, and $36,300,000 unpaid interest 
Both roads are doing well. The gross 
earnings of the Union Pacific in the calen- 
dar year 1879, were $13,201,077; of the 
Central Pacific, for the same year, $17,- 
153,163. The latter has now. in its South- 
ern Pacific road, owned by the Central Pa- 
cific, recrossed the continent and provided 
a second Trans-Continental road, not only 



74 



RAILROADS MILEAGE. 



to Galveston and other Gulf ports, but 
through its connections to the Mississippi 
river and the Atlantic. The rapid con- 
struction of the Union and Central Pacific 
railroads led to three great results: 1. The 
closer union and eventual consolidation of 
the eastern lines with the roads leading to 
Chicago and St. Louis. 2. The construc- 
tion and consolidation of roads from those 
cities to points further west, and in the 
first instance to a concentration of different 
routes from those cities and others of the 
Mississippi Valley upon Omaha and Coun- 
cil Bluffs, and a little later upon St. Joseph 
and Kansas City, which also became ter- 
mini of the Union and Kansas Pacific; and 
3, to the projection and speedy construc- 
tion of other lines to the Pacific Coast. 

Let us take up these results in their or- 
der. The great trunk roads of the eastern 
states in 1869 were: 1. The Portland and 
Boston lines, which, while maintaining a 
quas j'-connection with the New York Cen- 
tral and the Lake Shore, had also a more 
northern and somewhat shorter route by 
the Portland and Ogdensburgh, the Grand 
Trunk, Kome, Watertown and Ogdens- 
burgh, Great Western, and Canada South- 
ern to Detroit and thence by the Michigan 
Central to Chicago. These lines are mostly 
owned and controlled now in Boston. 2. 
The N. Y. Central and Hudson Biver, 
which had also its choice of two routes, 
viz., by Niagara Palls to the Canada 
Southern and Michigan Central, and by 
Buffalo, the Lake Shore and Michigan 
Southern road to Chicago. Circumstances 
led it to prefer the latter, and the Lake 
Shore road is now virtually owned by the 
New York Central. 3. The Erie (now N. 
Y. Lake Erie and Western) which travers- 
ing New York by several routes had two 
lines of connection with Cincinnati, Chicago 
and St. Louis, viz., by the Atlantic and 
Great Western either to Cleveland and To- 
ledo, and thence by other roads or by the 
same road to Dayton and thence to Cin- 
cinnati, or to Indianapolis and St. Louis, 
and by Hornellsville and Buffalo, and by 
Dunkirk, and by rail or steamer, thence to 
Cleveland or Cincinnati. The Erie railway 
makes close connections with these roads, 
but we believe does not own all of them. 4. 
The Pennsylvania road, which very early 
acquired the exclusive control of the Pitts- 
burgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago, and now 
owns it. This railway has also control of 



other lines from Fort Wayne to St. Louis. 
5. The Baltimore and Ohio, which has 
built and owns a very direct line to Chi- 
cago, and through the Mississippi and Ohio 
and other roads which it controls has a 
very direct and short route to Cincinnati 
and St. Louis. 

Two other roads are now nearly prepar- 
ed to enter the lists with those already 
mentioned as trunk lines; viz., the Chesa- 
peake and Ohio, already mentioned, which 
having its eastern terminus at Norfolk has 
nearly completed its lines to Cincinnati and 
Louisville, from which points there will be 
ready and close communication with both 
Chicago and St. Louis; and the new routes 
now constructing via the N. J. Central, and 
Delaware, Lackawana and Western, from 
Binghamton to Buffalo, and that on the 
west side of the Hudson and parallel with 
the N. Y. Central to the same point to be 
connected with Boston on the east and with 
Jay Gould's Wabash system on the west. 

The second result to be noticed was the 
consolidation and concentration of differ- 
ent routes from Chicago, St. Louis and 
other cities of the Mississippi Valley upon 
points farther west, and primarily upon 
Council Bluffs or Omaha, and a little later 
upon St. Joseph and Kansas City, all three 
being in some sense eastern termini of the 
Union Pacific railroad. Some of these 
consolidations are gigantic in their extent. 
The "Chicago and Northwestern" railway 
owns and operates more miles of railroad 
than the Union and Central Pacific com- 
bined. In March, 1881, it had 2,974.5 
miles of its own road in operation, and was 
building with great rapidity 445 miles 
more. It has now (August, 1881,) over 
3,000 miles in operation besides leased 
lines. Its business is enormous. Its rail- 
way lines cost in May, 1880, over $82,000,- 

000. They have almost doubled since. Its 
gross earnings for the year ending May 31, 
1880, were $17,349,349. They have great- 
ly increased within the past year; more- 
over, it pays a six per cent, dividend which 
is more than some of those gigantic con- 
cerns are able to do. 

Two of its rivals are nearly equal to the 
Chicago and Northwestern in the extent 
and magnitude of their operations; the 
Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul had, Jan. 

1, 1880, 2,231 miles of railway which it 
owned and operated, and has since largely 
increased the number. The cost of its 



RAILBOADS MILEAGE. 



75 



lines and equipment, at that time, was 
$72,748,873; its gross earnings were $10,- 
012,820 for the year 1879. It makes a 
dividend of 7 per cent, on its preferred 
stock. The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy 
railway had, Jan. 1, 1880, 1,857.3 miles of 
its own track, and partly owned railroads 
having over GOO miles more. This road 
(the C, B. & Q. of the stock market a few 
years ago), cost, with its equipment, $78,- 
361,721. Its gross earnings for the year 
1879 were $14,817,105, and it pays an 
8 per cent, dividend. Another of these gi- 
gantic combinations is the "Wabash," 
whose present title is, we believe, '" The 
Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific." A year 
and a half ago it had 1,302 miles of track 
which it owned and operated ; its cost was 
reckoned at $75,000,000. Its extent and 
cost, its stocks and bonds, and its gross 
earnings, to-day, no man knoweth, not even 
Jay Gould. It may yet absorb half the 
railway property on the continent, and 
having overrun Mexico as well as the Unit- 
ed States, may fling a suspension bridge to 
the Sandwich Islands or even to Australia. 
Who knows ? 

The third result we proposed to notice 
was the projection and construction of 
other railways to the Pacific Coast. The 
Northern Pacific was projected before the 
completion of the Union and Central Pa- 
cific, and made good progress until 1873, 
when it went down in the financial disaster 
of that year. In 1878 it began to recover 
and had fully regained its position in 1880. 
It has been constructing its road from both 
ends with great rapidity, and a syndicate 
of bankers took its bonds to the extent of 
$50,000,000 to secure its completion, in 
the winter of 1880-81. In May or June, 
1881, it passed into the control of the Or- 
egon Railway and Navigation Company, a 
wealthy and powerful corporation who 
owned the steamship lines between San 
Francisco and the ports of Oregon and 
Washington Territory, and who were al- 
ready constructing railway lines along the 
Columbia river and at other points. The 
1,004 miles already completed in June, 1881, 
cost, for road and equipment, about $120,- 
000,000, and were represented by $91,- 
312.588 capital stock, $21,586,800 of bond- 
ed and $1,446,038 of floating debt. The 
railway is rich in valuable lands. Its earn- 
ings in its unfinished state are, of course, 
not large, $2,994,519 in 1880-81; but they 



will be much larger now, and when com- 
pleted the road cannot fail of becoming ex- 
cellent property. 

The Missouri Pacific, with which the 
Kansas Pacific has recently been consol- 
idated, extends from St. Louis to Denver, 
Colorado, but will probably eventually go 
west to the Pacific Coast in connection 
with some of the Colorado roads — possibly 
the Denver and Rio Grande. Its line to 
Denver is very direct. 

The Atchison, Topexa and Santa Fe 
railway is one of the most remarkable rail- 
way enterprises of our time. It had a con- 
siderable land grant in Kansas, but at a 
time when most railway enterprises were 
at a stand still, its stockholders and man- 
agers, most of them Boston men, moved 
forward directly into the desert, with no 
considerable town in prospect till they 
should reach Santa Fe, a thousand miles 
away. Population followed them and their 
lands sold well. In Colorado they found 
a fast increasing population, but they turn- 
ed southward and having reached Santa 
Fe, they started for the Pacific. They pro- 
pose to reach the Ocean by several differ- 
ent routes. One branch has reached El 
Paso and will perhaps be continued to the 
City of Mexico, or possibly reach the Gulf 
of Mexico through Texas. Another has 
already reached Tucson, Arizona, and is 
going to Guaymas, Mexico, on the Gulf of 
California. At Tucson the railway con- 
nects at present with the Southern Pacific 
and conveys passengers to Southern Cali- 
fornia to Los Angeles, or for that matter 
to San Francisco. Still another branch 
strikes due west from Santa Fc under the 
charter of the old Atlantic and Pacific rail- 
way, crosses Arizona a little north of the 
35th parallel, and spanning the Colorado 
river by a bridge 400 feet above the stream, 
will strike the Pacific coast probably at 
Santa Barbara. The railway will prob- 
ably complete 1,200 miles of railway in the 
two year's 1880-1882. The Texas Pacific 
after a long and hard fought struggle will 
probably unite with the Southern Pacific 
at or near El Paso, and thus reach the Pa- 
cific coast. 

There are yet other proposed railways to 
the Pacific coast, two or three of them 
traversing Mexico — and the Denver and 
Rio Grande and the St. Louis and San 
Francisco may eventually find their way 
thither. That there is danger in multiply- 



78 



RAILROADS MILEAGE. 



ing too rapidly these expensive investments 
where there is no local traffic to support 
them is evident. Within the last two years 
more than two thousand millions of dol- 
lars, a sum larger than our national debt 
has been locked up permanently in road 
bed, timbers, track, and buildings and 
equipments, for railroads, mostly in the 
extreme west. We are a young nation to 
stand such an enormous drain. It is true 
that nearly 750 millions of it is European 
capital; but when capitalists abroad find, 
as many of them will, that these invest- 
ments yield no dividend, they will be bit- 
terly disappointed and hostile to us as a 
nation; and meantime our own losses will 
be greater than we can endure.' 

Within the past four or five years, and 
still more strikingly since 1879, there have 
been attempted, and partly, at least, con- 
summated the most gigantic railway com- 
binations known to human history. Men 
of unbounded ambition and audacity have 
sought, not only to control and consolidate 
routes across the continent, a distance of 
perhaps 3,000 miles, or, with the feeders 
which pour traffic into them, of perhaps 
6,000 or 8,000 miles, but have engaged in 
a strife with each other for the control 
under a single leadership of all the routes 
to the Pacific, and the steamship lines with 
which they are connected. At the present 
time, of the ten or eleven routes to the Pa- 
cific, completed or in progress, (including 
the Canadian Pacific and three or four 
traversing the Republic of Mexico,) one 
man — Jay Gould — virtually controls five, 
and makes his power felt on all the subsi- 
diary and ancillary lines connected with 
them. Another man has just obtained the 
control of one, and that one destined to 
be the most powerful of the whole. An- 
other, a Californian railway king, controls 
two and possibly three; while Boston cap- 
ital, in the person of one of its most enter- 
prizing citizens, owns and energizes a rail- 
way which, erelong, will touch the Pacific 
at five or six points, and probably the Gulf 
of Mexico at one or two. If human life 
were longer and human vigor and energy 



capable of being extended into a second 
century of existence, we might be warrant- 
ed in expecting that some Napoleon or 
Alexander of the railway would succeed in 
bringing under his control not only the 
100,000 miles of completed railway, but 
all that is projected on our continent, and 
wielding the 7,000 or 8,000 millions which 
are represented in its construction and 
equipment, make himself the owner and 
controller of our Congresses, the Dictator 
to our Presidents, the absolute autocrat of 
all the nationalities which inhabit the new 
world. Such things might be, had not 
God in his mercy put a limit now, as in 
the time of the deluge, to individual hu- 
man activities. 

Still, among the potencies for evil, which 
are within the reach of these railway po- 
tentates, is a joining of their forces, and a 
combination of their capacities for oppres- 
sion in one gigantic, colossal association, a 
monopoly such as had never before been 
dreamed of, but one which could make its 
power felt, and felt oppressively, by every 
inhabitant of our land. Not only would 
all commerce and all travel be at its mercy, 
but the grain, the flour, the provisions we 
consume, the raw material of the clothing 
we wear, whether of cotton, linen, wool or 
silk, and the manufactures of these as well, 
the gold and silver, the copper, lead, zinc 
and iron, which enter into all the business 
of life; all we eat, drink, or wear, all our 
books and newspapers, all our public and 
private edifices, and worse still, all our 
legislation would be at the mercy, and by 
the grace of this vast monopoly, with which 
there could be no hope of competition, and 
from which there could be no escape. The 
rich and poor alike would be its slaves, and 
writhe as they might, under its iron grasp, 
their fate would be as inexorable as the 
forces of nature. From such a monopoly, 
there may be now a way of escape. Twenty 
years hence there will not be. The peril 
is imminent, the danger is real, and should 
be considered by every wise and thought- 
ful man, ere it is too late. 



RAILROADS GRANTS MILEAGE. 



77 



We have not included in this brief re- 
sume of the railroads of the country the 
following classes: 1st. Those extensive 
lines now in course of construction in Mex- 
ico, by American companies and with 
American capital; there are nearly 6,000 
miles of these now in progress, mostly nar- 
row gauge roads, but it is impossible at 
present to form any estimate of their cost 
or mileage, or of their prospects of success. 
2. The city or horse railroads. These are 
now in operation in every city or large town 
in the United States, but we have found it 
utterly impossible to obtain any satisfactory 
recent reports in regard to them. Those 
of the State of New York exceed one hun- 
dred in number, and their stock and fund- 
ed and floating debts amount to over $60,- 
000,000. A very moderate estimate of the 
stock and debts of all these roads in the 
country would be $250,000,000. 3. The 
elevated and rapid transit railways. But 
a very few of these are yet in operation; 
but these few have been financially success- 
ful and are but the precursors of many 
more. There may be $50,000,000 or $60,- 
000,000 invested in them up to Aug., 1881. 
But leaving these three classes of railroads 
out of the account altogether, the expendi- 
ture of $5,450,795,963 for railways and 
their equipment in the short space of fifty 
years, and more than half of it within the 
last ten — a sum equal to the united public 
debts of Great Britain and the United 
States at the present time, and one whose 
vastness exceeds our power of computation 
— is a fact without a precedent in the 
world's financial history. That some of 
these roads are not worth, to-day, half what 
they cost, is probably true; but even the 
poorest of them has much more than paid 
for itself in bringing the products of agri- 
culture and manufactures to market at rates 
far below those which were necessary when 
there were no means of transit except by 
poor wagon or country roads, or trails 
which could only be traversed by pack- 
horses or mules. The usual price for car- 
rying grain to market by wagon was 40 
cents a ton per mile traveled. (They 
charge a higher rate than that, over the 
rough wagon roads of Colorado, now.) At 
that rate, when the price of Indian corn 
was 75 cents at the nearest market, 125 
miles distant, the farmer was obliged to 
pay 50 cents a bushel to the teamster, and 
from ten to fifteen cents a bushel for charges 



for handling and commissions. The bushel 
of corn brought him from ten to fifteen 
cents, not nearly enough to pay the cost of 
cultivation. At a distance exceeding 125 
miles, he could not afford to send it to mar- 
ket, and must either feed it. (though with 
almost the same difficulty in regard to his 
swine and cattle) or burn it in the place of 
coal. Wheat, which, in favorable years, 
if of the best quality, brought $1.50 per 
bushel, could be transported 250 miles and 
leave him from 22 to 25 cents a bushel for 
his wheat. How is it now ? The farmer 
in Northern Montana and Dakota can send 
his wheat four hundred miles to the steamer 
at Duluth, on Lake Superior, for fifteen 
cents a bushel, or 750 miles to Chicago or 
Milwaukee for thirteen cents, or to New 
York, 1,500 miles, for 35 cents, or a bar- 
rel of flour for 75 cents, and though the 
price of the wheat is now not more than 
$1.25 to $1.35 in New York, it nets him 
90 cents to a dollar a bushel 1,500 miles 
away. The same proportion exists with 
regard to other grains, provisions, mining 
products, &c, &c, and thus the railroad 
accomplishes three beneficent results; it 
enables the merchant to draw his supplies 
from a much larger area than was possible 
with wagon roads only; it cheapens the 
price of food products by competition, yet 
it enables the producer to receive a better 
remuneration for his labor. 

The railroads of the country may be gen- 
erally classified, as to their freight, under 
four heads: coal roads, that is, those which 
bring principally coal to the sea board, tak- 
ing miscellaneous freight on their return 
westward ; cotton roads, mostly in the south, 
whose principal outward bound freight is 
cotton; grain or, as they are sometimes 
called, granger roads, which carry eastward 
grain, farm products, provisions, and live 
cattle and sheep, and return laden with 
manufactured goods, machinery, &c, &c, 
and mining roads, which bring ores, iron, 
zinc, lead, copper, and the precious metals 
and their ores eastward for reduction or 
manufacture. 

The principal coal roads in the east are 
the Philadelphia and Reading, the Schuyl- 
kill Canal, Lehigh Valley, Delaware, Lack- 
awanna and Western, Shamnkin Valley, 
Central New Jersey, United R. R. of New 
Jersey, Pennsylvania coal, Delaware and 
Hudson Canal R. R., Huntington and Broad 
Top Mountain, Pennsylvania, and Clear- 



78 



RAILROADS GRANTS MILEAGE. 



field, Pa. These roads have capital, stocks 
and bonds to the amount of over 450 mil- 
lion dollars — and transport annually about 
45 million tons of coal. The Baltimore 
and Ohio Kailway, the Chesapeake and 
Ohio, and many of the Ohio, Indiana, Illi- 
nois, Kentucky, Missouri, and Iowa roads 
are also to a great extent coal roads. The 
entire amount of coal marketed in 1880 was 
69,200,934 tons of 2,240 pounds each. The 
following table shows the rapid increase in 
the production and demand for coal in the 
past 60 years, and especially in the last de- 
cade: 

Coal of all descriptions sent to Tons. 

market from 1820 to 1830, 636,903 

From 1830 to 1840 5,377,540 

From 1840 to 1850 15,094,132 

From 1850 to 1860, 46,139,090 

From 1860 to 1870, 161,050,916 

From 1870-to 1880, 502,460,000 



Total, 730, 759,256 

The production of the last decade was 
considerably more than double that of the 
whole previous fifty years. During most 
of the last decade the prices of coal have 
ruled low, though in the early part of it 
and previously they were high enough. 
Perhaps for the whole sixty years $4 per 
ton as the price at the receiving ports 
would not be more than the average rate. 
This would make the value of the coal pro- 
duction of the sixty years $2,923,037,024. 

So large a portion of the cotton produced 
is partly or wholly transported by water 
carriage, that it is not possible to give with 
any approach to accuracy the amount car- 
ried by railroads in any given year. The 
following table is, however, of interest as 
showing the relation of the multiplication 
of railroads to the increase of the cotton 
crop during the last forty years. The 
number of miles of road was that in opera- 
tion each year in the ten principal cotton 
states : 

Cotton Crops, 
Bales. 

1,634,945 
1,683,574 

2,378,875 
2,030,401 
2,394,503 
2,100,537 
1,778,651 
2,347,634 
2,728,596 
2,096,706 
2,355,257 
3,015,029 
3,262,882 



Miles of 
Road. 

662 
791 
848 
932 



1841, 

1842, 

1843 

1844 

1845, 1,109 

1846 1,169 

1847, 1,303 

1848, 1,319 

1849, 1,415 

1850, 1,415 

1851 1,560 

1852 2,010 

1853, 2,515 



1854, 
1855, 
1856, 
1857, 
1858, 
1859, 
1860, 
1861- 
1871, 
1872, 
1873, 
1874, 
1875, 
1876, 
1877, 
1878, 
1879, 
1880, 



3,040 

3,362 

3,809 

4,165 

4,751 

5,552 

5,914 

70, 9,693 

10,833 

11,309 

12,460 

12,638 

12,778 

13,335 

13,645 

14,136 

14.685 

15,720 



2,930,027 
2,847,339 
a, 527,845 
2,939,519 
3,113,962 
3,851,481 
4,675,770 
16,301,063 
4,352,317 
2,974,351 
3,930,508 
4,170,388 
3,832,991 
4,609,288 
4,485,423 
4,811,265 
5,073,531 
5,761,252 



Totals 15,720 149,465,910 

The cost of these 15,720 miles of railroad 
did not probably exceed 786 million dol- 
lars; while the value of the cotton trans- 
ported for greater or less distances on the 
railroads, and much of which could not 
probably have been brought to market ex- 
cept at a loss had not these railroads been 
built — was, reckoning the price at $50 per 
bale, which is a low average for the 40 
years — $7,473,295,500, or nearly ten times 
the cost of the railroads. 

So large a portion of our grain and pro- 
vision products are transported by water 
that it is not easy to make any estimate or 
comparison between the cost of the grain 
or granger roads and the amount of these 
products which they transport. And yet, 
when we consider the great number of the 
roads, and the number and length of the 
trains, and know that when the greater 
part of the grain crop is coming into the 
markets, every depot and warehouse is fill- 
ed almost to bursting with the grain and 
flour, and notwithstanding the utmost ef- 
forts of the railroad trains to reduce the 
quantity by the shipment of long and heavily 
laden extra trains, these receptacles con- 
tinue to be filled to overflowing for many 
months, we shall find that the magnitude 
of their business is even greater than that 
of the coal or cotton roads. 

The influence of these roads in develop- 
ing the agriculture of tfce new states and 
territories is great, almost beyond belief. 
Of the 1,773 million bushels of Indian 
corn, the 460 million bushels of wheat, the 
407 million bushels of oats, and the other 
cereals produced in 1 880, it is within bounds 
to say that not one fourth would have been 
grown had not the railroads pushed their 



RAILROADS GRANTS MILEAGE. 



way everywhere, often in advance of the 
population, and in order to induce settle- 
ment, had furnished the people from the 
first crop with such cheap and easy trans- 
portation, thus bringing the market to 
their very doors. It is not yet twenty-five 
years since on the prairies of eastern Kan- 
sas and Nebraska, corn was worth so much 
less than ten cents a bushel that it could 
not be sent to market, and after the swine 
had consumed all they could the residue 
was burned instead of coal as being much 
the cheaper fuel. In western Kansas and 
Nebraska, where railroad transportation is 
not so easy, corn is still low, worth from 
18 to 25 cts. a bushel, but at this price it 
pays when used for fattening swine. The 
advance in its price to 25, 35, and 40 cents 
a bushel is due wholly to the facilities of 
transportation furnished by the railroads. 
The same thing is true to a still greater 
extent of the live stock and provision trade. 
For centuries the boast of England has 
been, 

" The roast heef of Old England, 
And the Old English roast beef." 

But our vast pasture grounds of the 
most succulent and nutritious grasses, and 
the low price of grain has enabled us to 
put live steers on the Liverpool and Glas- 
gow markets, well fatted, weighing from 
1,600 to 1,800 pounds for $100 and make 
a handsome profit on them. The quality 
of the beef is equal if not superior to any 
in their markets, and the price altogether 
below what is the cost of production of 
similar animals there. We have sent also 
to them in refrigerator steamers immense 
quantities of fresh beef and other meats of 
excellent quality and at low prices, and 
provisions in the ordinary meaning of the 
word, mess pork, mess beef, hams, bacon, 
canned meats, lard, butter, cheese, etc., at 
such prices as have almost annihilated 
farming there, and this very year (1881) 
many thousands of English, Scotch, and 
Irish farmers are emigrating to this coun- 
try to raise grain and keep live stock where 
these products can be raised at a profit and 
not at a loss. 

There are now many centers of this 
grain and provision trade; foremost among 
them is Chicago, but St. Louis, Milwaukee, 
Minneapolis, St. Paul, Detroit, Toledo, 
Cleveland, Dubuque, Davenport, Peoria, 
and farther south, Cincinnati. Louisville, 
Indianapolis, and in New York, Buffalo, 



Rochester, and Oswego are also largely en- 
gaged in the business. Milwaukee con- 
tests with Chicago the supremacy in the 
grain trade. 

The growth of this business in Chicago 
is shown comparatively, so far as railroad 
traffic is concerned. In 1860 the entire 
gross earnings of the railroads centering 
at Chicago were $15,297,155 ; in 1868, 
they were $73,952,838. In 1879, many of 
these roads had consolidated, so that the 
number of trunk roads centering in the 
city was less than in 1868, but they were 
connected through a wider territory and 
brought a larger tribute to the city, though 
Milwaukee and St. Louis had drawn off 
what they could, yet on the 31st of De- 
cember, 1879, the gross earnings of the 
trunk railroads having their termini in 
Chicago (not counting the smaller roads) 
was $120,656,185, eight times as much as 
it was nineteen years before. 

The mining or mineral roads have in- 
creased in their business perhaps more rap- 
idly than any others. They have to a very 
large extent penetrated into regions here- 
tofore wholly uninhabited, and in many 
cases the miner has only preceded them by 
a few weeks or months, and sometimes has 
actually followed their trail. The Atchi- 
son, Topeka and Santa Fe, the Denver and 
Kio Grande, and the Denver, South Park 
and Pacific have been the most adventur- 
ous roads in this pioneer work, though 
the Union and Central Pacific, the South- 
ern Pacific, the Western Pacific, the Utah 
and Northern, the Utah Central, the L^tah 
Southern, The Northern Pacific, in its 
Rocky Mountain and Yellowstone Divi- 
sions, and some of the Oregon and Califor- 
nia, and Oregon Railway and Navigation 
Company's lines, the Northwestern and the 
Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul in their 
lines penetrating across Dakota to the 
Black Hills, have engaged in it with great 
zeal. Most of these lines are so recently 
constructed, and the country they have 
opened is so new that it is yet too soon to 
give any definite statistics of their business, 
but they are already finding ample employ- 
ment in transporting refractory ores of 
gold, silver, copper, zinc, and rarer metals 
to the reduction works, and iron and coal 
from those western mines to all sections of 
the west, and their return freights of tim- 
ber, lumber, machinery, provisions, dry 
goods, and miners' tools, are equally heavy. 



80 



RAILROADS — LAND GRANTS EXTENT AND COST. 



The expenditure of this vast sum for rail- 
ways within a period of little more than forty 
years, and more than half of it within the 
last ten — an expenditure amounting to over 
one hundred dollars for each inhabitant of 
the average population of the United States, 
during that period — is without a precedent 
in the world's history. Had this been accom- 
plished in a country as old and rich as En- 
gland, and where capital had accumulated and 
was constantly seeking avenues of invest- 
ment, it would still have been wonderful, but 
it has been done in a country whose whole 
valuation of real and personal estate in 1860 
tvas, by the most liberal tables, only $16,- 
519,616,068, and less than half this was per- 
sonal property, so that the cost of the rail- 
roads of the United States up to 1870, is 
about three-sevenths of the entire personal 
property of the United States in 1860. That 
there has been a vast increase in our national 
wealth within the past ten years, no one can 
doubt, and this increase undoubtedly makes 
the present valuation of personal property 
sixteen or seventeen thousand millions of dol- 
lars, but even this is only five or six times 
the cost of the railroads. That many of them 
are not worth to-day what they cost, perhaps 
not the half of it, is undoubtedly true, but, on 
the other hand, a considerable number are 
worth nearly double their cost, and will con- 
tinue to increase in value. 

We might be led to suppose, reasoning 
from analogy, that so great an absorption of 
capital in the construction and equipment of 
railroads would have rendered it scarce for 
other purposes ; but, owing to the fact that 
the railroads in this country have for the 
most part been the pioneer influences in de- 
veloping the settlement, and stimulating the 
production of crops, manufactures, and min- 
ing products, capital has not only not been 
rendered more scarce by their construction, 
but has been greatly increased, and is con- 
stantly becoming more plentiful. Prior to 
1860, there were but seven railroads in the 
United States with a capital stock of ten 
million dollars or more, and not one with 
twenty millions ; now there are fifty which 
have cost more than ten millions, and fifteen 
ranging between twenty and one hundred 
millions. Our railroad indebtedness, like our 
national bonds, is, much of it, held in Europe. 
The stock and bonds of the Boston and Al- 
bany, the Erie, Atlantic and Great Western, 
Lake Shore, Ohio and Mississippi, Illinois 
Central, Chicago and Northwestern, Kansas 



Pacific, Union Pacific, Central Pacific, the 
leading Southern roads, and some others, are 
very largely held in Europe, and some of 
them are entirely controlled by foreign influ- 
ences. It is partly on this account that hith- 
erto foreign and especially English rails have 
been so largely used for their construction, 
often to the very great detriment of the roads. 
From 1840 to 1857, 3,004,130 tons of rails 
were imported from Great Britain, at a cost 
of about 8150,000,000, paid for, to a consid- 
erable extent, in railroad bonds, at prices 
considerably below par. From 1857 to 1869, 
(both inclusive,) 1,717,222 tons more were 
imported, at a cost of somewhat more than 
$75,000,000. Within a few years past, it 
has been found that steel rails possess great 
advantages over iron, and they are beginning 
to be extensively adopted, the great roads 
laying them as fast as they can without dis- 
turbing their traffic. Over 50,000 tons of 
these rails were laid in 1869, of which 35,000 
tons were foreign, and between 15,000 and 
16,0(10 tons American. It is estimated that 
not far from 90,000 tons will be laid in 1870, 
of which probably two-thirds will be Amer- 
ican steel, the best qualities of which are 
worth from $100 to $120 per ton. The most 
important single article of freight transported 
by the railroads is coal ; several very exten- 
sive railroads, particularly the Philadelphia 
and Beading, the Philadelphia and Erie, the 
I)elaware and Lackawanna, the Lehigh Val- 
lep, the Lehigh and Susquehanna, Lacka- 
wanna and Bloomsburg, the Morris and Essex, 
the New Jersey Central, and the Baltimore 
and Ohio, are almost wholly supported by 
this traffic, while many others do a very large 
coal business. The employment of coal as 
fuel, though known some years before, was 
not attempted to any great extent prior to 
1820. The following table shows how great- 
ly it has been developed since that time, and 
particularly within the past ten years. There 
has been, it will be noticed, an increase of 
more than three hundred per cent, in each 
successive decade. Though there will be no 
such increase in the future in the anthracite 
coal production, the bituminous and semi- 
bituminous coals will develop even more rap- 
idly for many years to come. 

Coal of all descriptions sent to market Tons. 

from 1820 to 1830, 636.903 

From 1830 to 1840 5.377,540 

From 1840 to 1850, 15,094,132 

From 1850 to 1860, 46,139,096 

From 1860 to 1870, 161,050,916 

Total tons, 228,299~256 



TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION. 



1 



This, at an average value of $5, gives 
$1,141,490,280. The investment in rail- 
roads and canals to transport to market the 
18,308,316 tons of coal forwarded in 1869, 
is not less than $300,000,000. It is true that 
only about three-fourths of the traffic of these 
railroads and canals is coal, but nine-tenths 
of the remaining one-fourth has grown out 
of the coal development and transportation. 

Under the supposition that the coal trans- 
ported pays the interest on this investment, 
which is (at six per cent.) 118,000,000, then 
the 18,30S,316 tons transported in 1869, at 
a value of $91,500,000, paid 98 cents per ton, 
or 19.5 per ct., thus making the clear value 
of the coal sent to market from those fields, 
$73,500,000. This includes the product of 
all the coal fields east of the Alleghanies, and 
also the coal products of the upper Ohio 
Valley. 

It is estimated that there were 10,000,000 
tons of bituminous and semi-anthracite coals 
sent to market from the Mississippi Valley 
and Rocky Mountain coal fields the same 

Miles of Cotton crop, 

road. Dales. 

1841 662 1,634,945 

1842 791 1,683,574 

1843 848 2,378,875 

1844 932 2,030,401 

1845 1,109 2,394,503 

1846 1,169 2,100,537 

1847 1,303 1,778,651 

1848 1,319 "2,347,634 

1849 1,415 2,728,596 

1850 1,415 2,096,706 

Total 21,174,422 

The value of the 5,914 miles of roads built 
was not far from $150,000,000, but the value 
of the cotton produced and brought to 
market was in the twenty years $2,900,000,- 
000. The increase in the value during the 
last ten years over the former decade was 
$800,000,000. The war so far changed the 
current of affairs that the 10,000 miles of 
completed railways in the south are now, 
and will be for years to come, engaged in a 
more general but not less profitable traffic, 
in which, however, cotton and sugar will be 
very heavy items. 

In the western country the results are still 
more marked, since a country which was a 
wilderness has, under the influence of rail- 
roads opening the way, become the source 
of immense wealth. This influence upon 
the grain business of Chicago is seen in the 
following table, which shows the number of 
miles in operation in Illinois and Wisconsin, 
6 



year. The annual sale of coal from all these 
fields is, in round numbers, $140,000,000, 
and this sum is added to the floating capital 
of the country as a consequence of the -S450,- 
000,000 invested in these railroads and canals. 
In other words, the cost of construction is 
repaid in three years nearly, and a perpetu- 
ally increasing fund flows down for the pro- 
motion of trade, since coal is as much a pur- 
chasing power for goods as gold. AVhat 
those roads have done for coal, have the 
southern roads done for cotton. Formerly 
the water-courses were the only means of 
transportation ; and when they were dry or 
shallow, cotton accumulated at the landings 
until the next flood. The iron arms now 
stretch out in all directions, and not only is 
all the cotton grown added to the market- 
able value, but new lands are brought into 
action. The effect of railroads upon cotton 
is seen in the following table, which shows 
the miles of railroad open in ten cotton states, 
and the quantity of cotton produced : — 



Miles of 
road. 

1851 1,560 

1852 2,010 

1853 2,515 

1854 3,040 

1855 T,362 

1856 3,809 

1857 4,165 

1858 4,751 

1859 5,552 

1860 5,914 



Cotton crop. 
Bales. 
2,355,257 
3,015,029 
3.262,882 
2,930,027 
2,847,339 
3,527,845 
2,939.519 
3.113,962 
3,851,481 
4,675,770 

32,519,111 



in each year, and the bushels of grain re- 
ceived in Chicago for corresponding years : — 

Miles of railroad. Grain receipts. 

Illinois. Wisconsin. Bushels. 

1841 22 . . 10,000 

1852 148 20 5,87:U41 

1853 296 50 6.412,181 

1854 1,200 200 lJ.n::2.:i20 

1855 1,884 240 l «;,<;::::. 7 <>0 

1856 2,241 285 21,583,221 

1857 2,571 559 18,032,678 

1858 2,678 793 20,035,166 

1859 2,774 838 21,736,147 

1860 2,811 951 40,000,000 

1868 4,708 1,451 72,356,982 

The cost of the Illinois and Wisconsin 
railroads (to which should be added 823 
miles of Minnesota roads, as tributary to 
Chicago as the others,) to July, 1868, had 
been $305, 7 78,265. Since its settlement 
the government has sold over 20 millions of 
acres of land in Illinois, and the canals, rail- 



82 



RAILROADS LAJ*D GRANTS EXTENT AND COST. 



roads and state, about 4 millions more. 
Aside from the large quantities of grain sent 
directly to St. Louis, New Orleans, Louis- 
ville, and Cincinnati, and the live stock ship- 
ments over these roads, the cut meats, but- 
ter, lard, and lumber, <fec, &c, the grain re- 
ceipts alone, in 1868, amounted to over 150 
million dollars. The other receipts were 
certainly more than as much more, so that 
one year's production pays the whole cost of 
the roads. What is true of these roads is 
equally true of those of Ohio, Indiana, <fec. 

As an illustration take Chicago as a great 
railroad centre. The gross earnings of the 
principal railroads centering there, were, in 
1868, as follows: — 

Gross earnings. 
1868. 

Chicago and Northwestern railroad. . . $13,941,343 

Chicago and Alton 4,508,643 

Chicago, Burlington and Quiney 6,812,809 

Chicago, Iowa and Nebraska 631,782 

Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific 5,231,980 

Cincinnati, Richmond and Chicago. .. . 183,305 

Illinois Central 7,817,629 

Mdwaukee and St. Paul 6,547, OK; 

Mineral Point 102,119 

Ohio and Mississippi 2,964,041 

Pittsburg, Fort Wayne and Chicago.. . 8,041.181 

St. Louis, Alton and Terre Haute 517,941 

St. Louis, Jacksonville and Chicago.. . 240,000 

Michigan Central 4,716,293 

Michigan Southern 5,124,108 

Toledo, Peoria and Warsaw 750,625 

Toledo. Wabash and Western 4,013,207 

Western Union 758.785 

Dubuque and Sioux City 963,186 

Dubuque and Southwestern 176,217 

$73,952,838 

In 1860, only eight years previous, the 
gross earnings of such of these roads as were 
then in existence were $1 5,297,155, or but 
a trifle more than one-fifth of their receipts 
in 1868. We think no more rapid growth 
of business has ever been chronicled in any 
country. 

While all these rivers, canals, and roads 
have been busy bringing down produce from 
swelling numbers of settlers, the traffic of 
the great outlets has been equally as active. 
We are to bear in mind that, in 1825, when 
the Erie canal opened, there was no trans- 
portation of produce from west to east of the 
mountains. Bearing that in mind, we shall 
inspect the following table with interest. 
It shows the tonnage and revenues of the 
five great outlets, for the year 1859, as fol- 
lows : — 



Year. 



Miles in 
Operation. 



STATEMENT SHOWTNG THE NUMBEE OP MILES 

OF EAILROAD CONSTRUCTED EACH YEAH 

IN THE UNITED STATES, FROM 1830 

TO 1880, INCLUSIVE. 

Annual Miles in Annual 

Increase of Tear. nation Increase of 
Mileage. Operation. Miluage> 

1830 23 .. 1856 22,016 3,647 

1831 95 72 1857 24,503 2,647 

1832 229 134 1858 26,968 2,465 

1833 380 151 1859 28,789 1,821 

1834 633 253 1860 30,635 1,846 
1S35 1,098 465 1861 31,286 651 

1836 1,273 175 1862 32,120 834 

1837 1,497 224 1863 &3.170 1,050 

1838 1,913 416 1864 33,908 738 

1839 2,302 389 1865 35,085 1,177 

1840 2,818 516 1866 36.827 1,742 

1841 3,535 717 1867 39,276 2,449 

1842 4,026 491 1868 42,255 2.979 

1843 4,185 159 1869 47,208 4,953 

1844 4,377 192 1870 52,898 5,690 

1845 4,633 256 1871 60.568 7,670 

1846 4,930 297 1872 66.735 6,167 

1847 5,598 668 1873 70,683 3,948 

1848 5,996 398 1874 72,623 1,940 

1849 7,365 1,369 1875 74,096 1,713 

1850 9,021 1,656 1876 76,808 2,712 

1851 10,928 1,961 1877 79,089 2,281 

1852 12,908 1,926 1878 81.776 2.687 

1853 15 360 2,452 1879 86,497 4,721 

1854 16.720 1,360 1880 94,622 7,207 

1855 18,374 1,654 

The increase in mileage in 1881, will 
certainly exceed 10,000 miles, and may 
reach that amount on the lines west of the 



Mississippi river. One third, and possibly 
more of the whole increase of the year will 
be narrow gauge roads. The estimated 
cost of construction and equipment, or 
what is substantially the same thing, of 
capital and funded debt, of these 93 704 
miles of railroad in operation in 1880 was 
$58,130 per mile, or for the whole, $5,- 
450,795,963. 

The immense length of continued rail 
now enables an individual to travel from 
one extremity of the Union to the other 
without fatigue ; not only are the distances 
shortened, but every appliance for comfort 
makes the journey, even to invalids, com- 
modious. Among these are the palace cars 
of Pullman, Wagner and others, which are 
of three kinds: drawing room cars, with 
easy chairs, sofa, tete-a-tetes, and lounges; 
dining room cars, with kitchen attached, in 
which meals equal to those of the best ho- 
tels are served regularly, and most numer- 
ous of all, sleeping cars, furnished with 
excellent beds and toilet appliances, where 
the weary traveler can sleep as quietly as on 
his bed at home. These cars are all hung 
on rubber and the best steel springs, and are 
without any jolting or unpleasant motion at 
their greatest speed. The rail cars do not 
go the less rapidly that the passengers are 
well accommodated. There have been 



TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION. 



83 



many instances not only of berths provided 
but of births taking place in the cars. Such 
an event happened on the Long Island cars, 
which were going at the speed of 40 miles 
per hour, and a grave difficulty sprung up 
as to where ihe young gentleman was bom, 
a problem not easily solved,, when towns 
were passed at the rate of a mile in 90 seconds. 

We have seen that the passenger of the 
present day does not occupy much time in 
performing long distances, and that these 
passages are by no means costly as compared 
with the inconvenient mode of locomo:ion in 
the olden time. Thirty-five years since it was 
recorded as a marvel that a gentleman made 
the distance from Chicago to Albany in 154 
hours, or 6 days and 10 hours, and 24 days 
from New Orleans to Baltimore was consid- 
ered as a matter of wonder. Now, 75 hours 
from New York to New Orleans is the usual 
mail time, and Chicago and New York are 
but 29 hours apart. A passenger now goes 
from Bangor to New Orleans in less time 
than was allowed, forty years ago, from 
Boston to New York. Since the completion 
of the Pacific railway, the time between 
New York and San Francisco has been re- 
duced to six days; distance 3,344 miles, 
over 558 miles a day. 

It is instructive to look back at the 
changes the means of locomotion have 
wrought in the views of passengers. At the 
close of the last century enterprising con- 
tractors advertised as follows: — 

"Philadelphia Stage-Waggon & New 
York Stage- Boat, performs their Stages 
twice a Week. John Bjtler, with his wag- 
gon, sets out on Mondays from his House, 
at the Sign of the Death of the Fox, in 
Strawberry-ally, and drives the same day to 
Trenton Ferry, when Francis Ilolman meets 
him, and proceeds on Tuesday to Bruns- 
wick, and the passengers and goods being 
shifted into the waggon of Isaac Fitzran- 
dolph's the same day, where Ruben Fitz- 
randolph, with a boat well suited, will receive 
them, and take them to New York that night. 
John Butler returning to Philadelphia on 
Tuesday with the passengers and goods 
delivered to him by Francis Ilolman, will 
again set out for Trenton Ferry on Thurs- 
day, and Francis Holman, &c, will carry 
his passengers and goods, with the same ex- 
pedition as above to New York."- 

By this remarkably ingenious plan and 
diction of John Butler, everybody got to 
his journey's end in the course of time ; 



"with the same expedition as above," that 
is, it appears, fiom Monday morning to 
Tuesday night, if Ruben Fitzrandoiph's 
boat did not get aground or becalmed, or 
weather-bound, or driven off, in either of 
which cases the time of ariival was dubious. 
But honest John " with his waggon," was 
soon " cut out." Tho:-e H Yankees," immor- 
talized by Knickerbocker, came down fiom 
the north and innovated even upon so ad- 
mirable an arrangement as was hei e devised 
in the tap-room of the " Death of the Fox," 
Strawberry-ally, under the administration of 
Jefferson. Ruben's boat with its vicissitudes 
was abandoned, notwithstanding the attrac- 
lions of the " Kill van Kull " passage, and a 
land route through adopted. The attractions 
of this route were set forth as follows : — 

"For Philadelphia and Baltimore — 
Swiftsure Mail Stage. — A new line has 
removed from No. 2 Courtlandt street to No. 
1 1 6 Broadway, and is now running between 
New York and Philadelphia, thiough a 
beautiful country, and on tbe short and 
pleasant road through Newark, Springfield, 
Scotch Plains, Bound Brook, Someiset, 
Arnwell, Coryell's Ferry, Cross Road, 
Crooket Billet, and Jenkintown to Philadel- 
phia. 

" To start from New York every day at 1 
o'clock, A. m. (Sundays excepted,) lodge at 
Somerset, and arrive at Philadelphia next 
day afternoon. The Swiftsure is the only 
opposition stage from this city to Philadel- 
phia and Baltimore." 

There does not appear to have been much 
time saved by this new plan, any further 
than that the vicissitudes of the boats were 
exchanged for those of muddy roads. Spring 
coaches had, however, supplanted honest 
John Butler's wagon, since travelers had 
become more dainty. A i'ew years more 
brought steam into compe'ition for the use 
of travelers, and the number multiplied to 
such an extent, that, on the occasion of the 
great semi centennial jubilee anniversary 
of the National Independence, held July 4, 
1825, it was recorded in The Philadelphia 
Gazette, that 300 New Yorkers were said to 
have been in Philadelphia. There wen' 
passengers enough to fill 35 coaches! Great 
doings, that, in the traveling way! What 
would Francis Ilolman have done with the 
crowd between Brunswick and Trenton ? 
Traveling had clearly outgrown his arrange- 
ments. Well, 35 years more passed on. and 
railroad connections being constructed, the 



84 



RAILROADS — LAND GRANTS — EXTENT AND COST. 



papers of the day contained a new adver- 
tisement of a trip to Philadelphia. It was 
no longer ''John Butler and his wagon," 
but that "John Brougham with his com- 
pany" would perform as usual in the even- 
ing at the New York theatre, then proceed 
by the cars to Philadelphia, and perform at 
the theatre there in the same evening, and 
return to New York to sleep. Thus two 
performances were had in two cities 90 
miles apart, and the passage made both 
ways in the same evening by rail. The 
" limited trains " on the rival railroads be- 
tween Philadelphia and New York now 
(in 1880-81) make the distance (90 miles) 
in 14; hours, and have made it in 1.05. 

The influence of these great improve- 
ments in travel has been in an eminent de- 
gree to consolidate population in cities, and 
these grow the more readily that the dis- 
tance within which perishable food can 
be brought to market is so much increased 
by rapidity of travel. The elements of 
growth of a city are supplies of food, fuel, 
and water. Unless these are abundant and 
cheap, the disadvantages thence arising will 
counterbalance the geographical and commer- 
cial advantages of a city. To supply food the 
circle of country about the city which supplies 
market-gardens, dairies, etc., must be fertile 
and accessible. The width of this ring, 
or, in other words, the area thus devoted, is 
determined by the speed with which the 
produce can be transported. The distance 
of its extreme limits must not be greater 
than will permit the products to reach the 
centre in time for use; any improvement 
that enables a larger space to be gone over 
in the same time increases the area of dwell- 
ings and market-lands. The area thus 
commanded increases as the square of the 
distances. Thus, if the speed is doubled, the 
area is four times as large, if it is tripled, the 
area adapted to city supplies is nine times as 
great, consequently there will be nine times 
as much milk, butter, vegetables, food, and 
produce as before. Now, by railroads and 
steamships, the supplies of early vegetables 
and small fruits are brought from Bermuda, 
St. Augustine, Savannah, Charleston, Nor- 
folk, the whole eastern shore region, southern 
New Jersey, Pittsburg, central and western 
New York, New England, and even from 
California. The effect of this on distant but 
accessible farms is important. If wheat is 
worth $1.00 in the city, and it cost 25 cents 
to get it there from a eertain farming district, 



the producer will get 75 cents only. If the 
cost of transportation be reduced to 10 cents, 
then there is 15 cents to be divided between 
the city consumer and the producer. 

Another very important development oi 
railroads has been for city service. It is 
now nearly 40 years since, the city of New 
York having spread over a greater surface 
of ground than it was convenient to walk 
over, lines of omnibusses were started to run 
on the great thoroughfares, to carry passen- 
gers. The price was, at first, 12£ cents for 
a ride any distance on the line. This was 
gradually reduced to 6 cents. , The small 
cars of the Harlem railroad, which then ex- 
tended only up to Westchester county, be- 
gan to carry passengers up as far as Forty- 
Second street, and in that vicinity, about 
1838, but for twelve years after, that was the 
only road, perhaps, in the United States, car- 
rying passengers from one part of the city to 
another in small cars drawn by horses. From 
1850 to 1852 there began to be considerable 
interest in this mode of transit, and the Sixth 
Avenue, and soon after the Third Avenue 
line was established. There are now (1881) 
more than one hundred of these lines in 
the state of New York alone, which have 
cost over 60 million dollars and earn over 
25 million dollars annually. These roads 
have an aggregate extent of more than 
4,000 miles, and carry more than 600 mil- 
lion passengers in a year. 

Recently, in our largest cities, there is 
complaint that this mode of transportation 
is not sufficiently rapid, and the use of 
dummy engines, underground tunnel, or 
arcade railroads, or steam driven roads not 
crossing the streets on their level, elevated 
railways in which the cars shouid be drawn 
by stationary engines, &c, &c, have been 
tried, to remedy the difficulty. The ele- 
vated railways and the tunnel roads have 
proved the most successful of these plans 

Thus while the railroads favor the settle- 
ment of cities, by concentrating in them a 
large manufacturing and commercial pop- 
ulation, which can draw cheap food from 
every section of the Union, they distribute 
that city population cheaply and speedily, 
enabling them to occupy a much greater 
territory, and at the same time concentrate 
the manufacturing operations in a manner 
to facilitate the greatest production of 
commodities which are required by the 
producers of food. 

Railroads here serve a very different 



TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION. 



85 



purpose, and exert a much greater influence 
in the development of a country, than they 
do in the densely populated countries of 
Europe. In Europe, by facilitating travel, 
they yield a fair though not generally a 
large profit as investments. Their average 
cost per mile is much greater than here, 
but they do, to a limited degree, increase 
traffic and promote more constant inter- 
course of the people. Here the railroad 
is the pioneer of civilization. It plows its 
way through the dense forest, the unbroken 
prairie, or the waterless and almost desert 
lands, and at every mile of its onward pro- 
gress, a village springs up, farms are laid 
out, orchards planted, the fields wave with 
the golden grain, and presently mines, 
manufactories, schools, churches and col- 
leges, are called into existence, all along 
the line. These enterprises all pay from 
the start, and increase the national wealth 
in an almost incredible degree. 



In 

September, 1859, the gross income of 257 
railroads (all or nearly all then in existence) 
in the United States, was $111,203,245 for 
freight and passengers, or about $4.00 per 
head for each inhabitant. In January, 1868, 
a little more than eight years later, 373 rail- 
roads reported a gross income of $327,547,- 
725, or more than $8,50 to each inhabitant. 
The reports of 1870 would undoubtedly add 
not less than twenty-five per cent, to this 
great aggregate. The number of miles of 
railroad completed in the United States, up 
to June, 1869, was almost half the length of 
railroads in the world. In 1859, the United 
States had 28,789 miles of railroad, and the 
entire globe (including the U. S.) 57,653. 
In January, 1869, the railroads of the world 
in operation were as follows : — 



Miles. 

United States 48,860 

Canada 2,37ri 

Culm 43] 

Jumaicii 10 

Argentine Republic 427 

C.ilumbia 4!) 

Brazil 410 

Peru 128 

Chili 350 

England and Wales I0,0:i7 

Scotland 2,282 

Ireland 1,928 

Bpain 4.372 

Franca 9.515 



Miles. 

Belgium 1,301 

Holland 659 

Denmark 220 

Norway and Sweden .... 800 

Russia nnd Pidnnd 3. 1117 

Prussia and N. Germany. 5,764 

South Germany 2,861 

Austria nnd Hungary- •. 4,517 

Switzerland 890 

Italy 3.153 

Turkey 22(1 

Egypt r»70 

British India 5,000 

Auatra la 850 



Total railroads of the world 111,186 



It is difficult to arrive with any considera- 
ble exactness at the cost of railroads in for- 
eign countries. The following table is an 
approximation, except in the United States, 
Great Britain, and a few other European 
states where the figures are official, for the 
beginning of 1869 : — 

Miles. Cost. Cost per mile. 

United States 48,S60 $2,212,413,000 945.380 

Great Britain 14,247 2,511,314,435 176.250 

France 9,515 1,773,400,000 188.690 

Prussia and N. Germnnv. . . 5.764 380,434,000 66,000 

Austria and S. Germany... 7,388 4911.000,1100 71.000 

Belgium 1,301 118,911,100 91,400 

British America 2,385 119,050,000 50.000 

Cuba 431 19,395.000 45.000 

Columbia 49 7 3. r .0.000 150.000 

South America 888 62,160,000 70,0(0 

Russia 3,107 285.030,000 90,000 

Sweden and Norway 800 72.000,000 90,000 

Switzerland 820 73,800.000 90.00(1 

Itnlv 3,153 315,300.000 100.000 

Spain 4,372 304.488.785 70,00(1 

Turkey 220 20.400 000 120,000 

Africa 670 80,400,000 120,000 

India 5,000 371,730,220 75,000 

Australia 850 63,750,000 75.0C0 

Other small States 880 61,000,000 70,000 

111,187 $9,430,116,840 $92,681 

The estimated amount of these items in 
1851 was: Miles of railroad, 48,114, cost, 
$3,823,200,814, cost per mile, $79,000. The 
greatest extension of the railroad system has 
in all cases been in the countries to which 
there is the greatest immigration. British 
America, South America, India, Australia, 
Russia, Italy, Spain, and Egypt, are the 
foreign countries which have increased their 
railroads most rapidly. With most of these 
countries (we may perhaps except Australia, 
India and Russia) there is a limit which 
must, in a few years, be reached beyond 
which the construction of railroads will not 
be profitable. With the United States, on 
the contrary, there is no conceivable limit 
(unless some better method of locomotion 
should be devised,) to the construction of 
railroads. Our vast territory, with its rapid- 
ly increasing population, is constantly re- 
quiring new routes to bring produce, coal, 
metals, or manufactures to market, and to 
transport, the tens of millions of passengers 
and immigrants who must rely on them for 
transportation to their homes or their busi- 
ness. We arc already adding 7,745 miles a 
year to our railroads, and shall soon increase 
to 10,000 miles a year. 

"We have purposely delayed the consider- 
ation of our railroad routes to the Pacific 
coast to the close of this article, both be- 
cause we regard them as in some measure 
dissevered from the more local railroad 
routes and because their vastness will be 



86 



RAILROADS LAND GRANTS EXTENT AND COST SHIP CANALS. 



more easily comprehended if they stand by 
themselves. 

The accession of California to onr territo- 
ry and the speedily following discovery of 
gold there, led necessarily to the improve- 
ment of the routes for reaching there. The 
long and perilous journey around Cape Horn 
was too tedious for our enterprising, impa- 
tient gold-hunters. The Panama railroad 
across the isthmus of that name, was com- 
menced in 1850 and completed in 1855, at 
a cost of $7,500,000, which subsequent ad- 
ditions and purchases have increased to $8,- 
000,000. It is about 49 miles in length, 
and its gross earnings have ranged from $1,- 
300,000"to $2,000,000. This shortened the 
voyage to San Francisco, to about three 
weeks. But other routes were demanded, 
which should abridge the time of transit still 
more. The Nicaragua and the Tehuantepec 
routes were tried with but partial success ; 
repeated explorations were made to ascer- 
tain the practicability of a ship canal across 
some portion of the isthmus, which connect 
North and South America, but thus far, 
without practical result. Between 1852 and 
1861 several exploring expeditions were sent 
out to ascertain the best route across the 
continent within the bounds of our own ter- 
ritory, and their costly reports were publish- 
ed by the government. The feeling that it 
was indispensable that the Pacific states 
should be bound to the east by a continuous 
railroad, which had been gaining strength, 
was quickened into greater activity by the 
war ; and while in the midst of the desperate 
struggle, in July, 1862, Congress passed an 
act chartering the Pacific railroad. There 
were some defects in the charter, and no 
company was formed till October, 1863, 
when the Union Pacific and soon after the 
Central Pacific was organized. By the 
charter the capital stock of the entire route 
was to be $100,000,000, and the government 
granted them a roadway of 200 feet on each 
side of the track, and alternate sections of 
land for twenty miles on each side of the 
road; and in addition its bonds, maturing 
in 30 years, bearing six per cent, payable 
in gold, for $16,000 per mile for the plain, 
$32,000 per mile for the steeper grades, and 
$-18,000 per mile for the deep cuttings and 
tunneling. They were, moreover, authorized 
to issue their own bonds to an equal amount 
with these government bonds, at the same 
rate, and these lands were to be a first mort- 
gage (the government bonds being a second 



mortgage) on the road. With these ample 
resources the two companies began at their 
respective ends to build the road in 1865; 
the Union Pacific commencing at Omaha, 
Nebraska, and the Central Pacific, at Sacra- 
mento, California. The Central Pacific built 
742 miles, much of it through the mountains, 
and the Union Pacific 1,032 miles The 
junction of the two roads was effected Ma}' 
15, 1869, and regular daily passenger trains 
are run each way, as well as numerous 
freight trains. It is difficult to ascertain 
what has been the cost of these roads. The 
bonds issued for the Union Pacific were 
$58,656,000. aside from its land grant bonds, 
and its entire cost is put down by the com- 
pany for road and equipment as $82,445,01 2. 
That full payments on subscribed stock have 
not been called for is evident. The Central 
Pacific has issued $45,578,000 of bonds, 
and computes the cost of its road at about 
62 million dollars ; while the Western 
Pacific, extending from Sacramento to San 
Francisco, has also received its bonds, and 
has cost about 15 millions more, making the 
aggregate cost of these lines, aside from their 
hinds," about $160,000,000. This is too 
much, even for the grandest enterprise ever 
undertaken by human hands, but it is to be 
remembered that it was begun in the midst 
of a great war and driven to its completion 
under the pressure of great difficulties. 

But three routes across the continent are 
as much required as one ; and the Northern 
Pacific, extending from St. Paul, Minnesota, 
to Puget's Sound, Washington territory, 
with branches to southern Idaho and Mon- 
tana, is already under contract, under the 
energetic management of Messrs. Jay Cooke 
& Co.; while there are two southern routes, 
one the Kansas Pacific, and the other, a 
road from Memphis along the 32d parallel; 
but both, terminating in San Diego, Califor- 
nia, are pushing westward. If a ship canal, 
either across the isthmus of Darien, the isth- 
mus of Panama, or that of Tehuantepec, 
shall be found practicable, the construction 
of that also is in the near future, and by 
these various routes the great trade of east- 
ern Asia is destined to find its way through 
our continent, as the most direct route, both 
to America and Europe. The northwest 
passage, of which Columbus dreamed so 
long, has been at last discovered in a way of 
which Columbus never dreamed, and the 
continent he discovered will be the market 
for the vast commerce of Cathay. 



VIEWS ON THE CENTRAL PACIFIC RAILROAD. 



To 

the irregularities 




PPOSITE AUBURN. 



Hue is the very extensive em- 
bei 



The tunneling required has been of small extent. _ The pecul , f*jf^ . - engravin g S have bee, 

ployment of trestle bridging, and it is with thejiew of dhs . tog n on £ ( .., ^ 

chosen, Nos. 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6, being examples ?^*^&*£%J^ of solid rock, and which is 
deep and 800 feet long through cemented gravel and sand, of the consistency 




N0 n _ TR ESTLE AND TRUSS BRIDGE, CLIPPER RAVINE, 
(100 feet high.) 




NO. III. — BLOOMER CUT, 
(63 feet deep, 800 feet long.) 

only to be moved by blasting. The trestle bridging has been all constructed as strongly as possible, and 
of the beal obtainable material The ties, stringers and caps are of the best quality pine (that from Pu- 
get'a Sound, nearly equal to oak,) and the posts, braces, sills and piles of red-wood. The main posts, 12 
inches square, are placed perpendicularly, let into a sill of the same dimensions with mortice and tenon. 
immediately under the bearing of the track stringers. Outside the main posts, two posts. 12 in. by 12 
in., extend down, with a run of 1 foot in 3 inches, to the sill to which they are tenoned, beside being 
bolted at the top to the main posts with inch bolts and cast-iron washers. The sills rest on piles on stone 
foundations. Piles, when used, are driven so as to come directly under the main posts and braces. The 
posts are capped with a timber 12 inches square and 9 feet long, into which the posts are tenoned and 
pinned. Upon the caps rest corbels 12 inches square and 9 feet long, and upon them are laid the sti'iug- 




NO. IV. — LONG UAVIXE, HOWE TRUSS BB 
(115 feet high.) 




NO. V. — TRESTLE AT SECRETTOWN, 
(1,000 feet long, 50 feet to 90 feet high.) 

ers, 12 in. by 15 in., secured by iron bolts passing down through them to the corbels. The caps are 
notched 1 inch to receive the corbels. The cross ties, or sleepers, are securely fastened to the stringers, 
and upon the sleepers are laid the rails in the ordinary manner. The "bents" or frames are placed at 
intervals of 15 feet from center to center. Trestling thus constructed is said to last from eight to fifteen 
years. When necessary it can be renewed at small cost, or filled with earthen embankment by trans- 
porting material on cars at far less cost and trouble than would have been incurred in constructing an 
embankment at first. 

It now takes three weeks or more to reach San Francisco via Panama, from New York. By railroad, 
the journey can be made in about five days. 




NO. VL — FIRST TRESTLE IN CLIPPER RAVTNE. 



STEAM. 



BY JOHN" C. MERRIAM, 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 
HISTORY OF STEAM ENGINE. 

One hundred years ago, a harmless vapor 
arose with the morning sun, and floated o'er 
our heads, remarked by the artist, poet, 
or philosopher, but almost unheeded by the 
mechanic, and only regarded by the mariner 
as a prognosticator of the wind. 

How is it to-day ? From myriad towering 
columns, o'er which the tierce fire-king his 
sombre mantle flings, gushes, in mimic 
clouds, the quick breath of our new-born 
Titan. The ancient rocks echo to his shrill 
voice, and tremble as he rushes by. He 
troubles the waters, and rides on their 
crest defiant. O'er hill and dale, and lake 
and river, is his white flag unfurled, pro- 
claiming peace to all nations. From the 
pine of the frozen north, to the palmetto of 
the sunny south, his twin track tunnels the 
mountain, belts the prairie, and spans the 
flood. Mightiest of kings is this son of fire ! 
proudest of monarchs is this genius of the 
lamp and the fountain ! 

In an article like this, it is not neces- 
sary that we should dwell upon the ge- 
nius of James Watt — abler pens have 
awarded him the fame he so richly deserves, 
and a proud monument in Westminster Ab- 
bey tells the passing stranger that it was 



NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME, 

WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH \ 

BUT To show 

T'lAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOR THOSE 

WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE, 

THAT THE KINO, 

HIS MIN18TERS, AND MANY OF TnE NOBLES 

AND COMMONERS 01 THE REALM 

RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO 

JAMES WATT, 

VI"), DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL HKMI'S, 

EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH, 

TO THIS IMPROVEMENT OF 

THE STEAM-ENGINE, 

ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY, 

INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN. 

AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE 

4M.ONO THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE, 

AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD. 

91 



What greater praise could be awarded to 
him than this? How could his unrivalled 
genius be more concisely expressed, or 
clearly acknowledged ? and yet, at that time, 
they had but begun to see the stupendous 
results of his inventions. To realize the in- 
ventive mind of James Watt, it requires 
careful study, and thorough mechanical 
knowledge, even at this late day ; and when 
•we consider that with him all was compara- 
tively novel, we pause in astonishment at a 
mind so fertile in mechanical devices. 

England, ever true and grateful to her own 
genius, has fitly honored her greatest in- 
ventor, while America has suffered genius as 
great to die, unrewarded in life, and forgot- 
ten in the grave ; but she has not neglected 
to profit by their inventions ; and it is our 
purpose to show, in this article, how great 
have been the results. 

The first steam engine of which we have 
any knowledge in America was at the 
Schuyler copper mine, Passaic, N. J. It 
was, more properly speaking, an atmos- 
pheric engine, and was imported from Eng- 
land in 1736, and put up by a Mr. I lorn- 
blower. The first engine that was con- 
structed in America was built by Christopher 
Colles for a distillery in Philadelphia ; the 
machine was, however, very defective. It 
was built in October, 1772, and was, like 
the other, an engine upon Newcomen's plan. 

Thus it will be seen that it is less than a 
hundred years since America took her first 
lessons in a science that was destined to 
work such a revolution in the whole world; 
and her birth, as a nation, may be considered 
as cotemporary with that of the steam en- 
gine. In 1 787, John Fitch, of Connecticut, 
built, in Philadelphia, the firsl condensing 
engine, and this without the aid of Watt's 
experiments — for it was only in the year 
1780 that the latter patented, and made 
public, his most important improvements; 
and we have every reason to believe that 
Fitch was at first ignorant of them. With 



92 



the assistance of common blacksmiths, he 
constructed a low-pressure engine, and, more 
than this, applied the motor to a steam- 
boat. Then came the experiments and suc- 
cess of Robert Fulton, a man whom we have 
not forgotten to honor; .the improvements 
of Stevens, to whom we owe our great suc- 
cess in river navigation, and the energy and 
perseverance of Oliver Evans, the first, to 
apply the principles of the high-pres mre, or 
non-condensing engine, to common use, and 
to demonstrate its advantages not only for 
the stationary engine, but also its adapta- 
bility to carriages on common roads ; from 
which we may date the invention of the lo- 
comotive engine, for it was only the experi- 
ence of Stephenson in tram-roads that led 
him, at a much later day, to the invention 
of the latter, and Watt's engines would never 
have become applicable thereto, on account 
of their great size. 

In spite of the difficulties under which a 
young nation labored, from the want of an 
accumulated capital, we took a start from 
the first introduction of the locomotive en- 
gine, that has astonished the world; and 
have grown a race of civil engineers that, 
with a limited amount of money, have pro- 
duced effects wonderful even to themselves. 
Well may Americans be proud of the results 
of their inventive genius. To the general 
reader these events have come to be a mat- 
ter of course, and steam, with its thousands 
of detailed improvements, is looked upon as 
something wonderful, but inexplicable ; the 
mass of people understanding little or nothing 
of its nature. We propose, then, to explain, 
as simply as possible, the cause of this great 
effect, and, dropping technicalities, to give 
the great public a concise idea of steam, and 
the steam engine, before proceeding to the 
results of its use. 

When Watt constructed his first engines, 
he used them to replace horses in the mines, 
and, in order to give some idea of their 
value, he reckoned his engines as at so many 
horses' power ; and the power of a horse was 
computed from the effect produced by a 
horse raising a weight to a certain height 
in a given time : this he computed as 33,000 
lbs., raised, in one minute, to the height of 
one foot. The following description, from 
S. Holland, chief engineer of the English 
navy, concisely shows the manner of obtain- 
ing the horse-power of a steam engine : — 

" Work is a term in mechanics of recent 
origin, but of great utility ; it means a com- 



pound of force (or pressure) and motion. 
Work is said to be performed when a pres- 
sure is exerted upon a body, and the body 
is thereby moved through space. The unit 
of a pressure is one pound, the unit of space 
one foot, and work is measured by a ' foot- 
pound' as a unit. Thus, if a pressure of so 
many pounds be exerted through a space of 
so many feet, the number of pounds is mul- 
tiplied into the number of feet, and the prod- 
uct is the number of foot-pounds of work ; 
hence, if the stroke of a steam engine be 
seven feet, and the pressure on each square 
inch of the piston be 22 pounds, the work 
done at each single stroke, for each square 
inch of the piston, will be 7 multiplied by 
22, equal to 154 foot-pounds. Power con- 
tains another element in addition to those 
contained in work. It implies the ability to 
do so much work in a certain period of time ; 
and, in order to have a proper idea of it, a 
unit of measure is also employed. This 
unit is called a ' horse-power,' and is equal 
to 33,000 pounds raised through a space of 
one foot in one minute ; it is the execution 
of 33,000 foot-pounds of work in one minute. 
To find the horse-power of a steam engine is 
to find the number of pounds pressure on the 
piston in square inches, and to multiply this by 
the number of feet travelled by the piston per 
minute, which gives the work ; then this is 
divided by 33,000 pounds, and the quotient is 
the horse-power, which is usually abbreviated 
II. P. As the pressure is always indicated 
by the square inch, the number of square 
inches in the area of the piston has to be 
found. This is done by squaring the diam- 
eter of the piston, and multiplying this by 
the decimal, -7854." 

The horse-power of an engine is always 
calculated with the steam in the boiler at a 
moderate pressure, and, consequently, if the 
steam is kept at a higher pressure, it will be 
capable of more work, and the engine will 
be of a greater effectual horse-power than 
the one given. Hence the terms real and 
nominal horse-power. The term horse- 
power is, in reality, of itself nominal, as 
Watt, in order to have his engines give 
satisfaction, added some twenty-five per cent, 
to the real work of the best horses in Corn- 
wall. Having thus given an explanation 
of this term concisely, that it may be re- 
membered, we will endeavor to instruct the 
general reader as to some other terms not 
always understood, although constantly made 
use of in conversation. 



93 



Engines are divided into two kinds : low 
and high-pressure, or condensing and non- 
condensing. The low-pressure engine was, 
in the main, invented by James Watt ; and 
its peculiarity consists in the fact that, while 
the steam is entering upon one side of the 
piston, the steam upon the other side is con- 
densed, and forms a vacuum that adds to 
the power of the engine from twelve to four- 
teen pounds to the square inch. Thus, with 
steam at the pressure of twenty-five pounds 
only, we have an effective force of nearly 
forty. The low-pressure engine has the ad- 
vantage of not carrying so much steam, and, 
consequently, is less dangerous. From the 
fact, however, that it is much more compli- 
cated and expensive, it is not often used on 
land, unless for large engines, and its size 
prevents its adaptation to locomotion. 

The high-pressure engine was invented by 
Leopold and Trevithick, • subsequent to the 
other. Oliver Evans, of Philadelphia, was 
the first to advocate its use, and, in fact, to 
practically apply it. Engines of this descrip- 
tion discharge the steam, after using it, into 
the air, and have, consequently, the resist- 
ance of the atmosphere to contend with ; 
they are, however, much cheaper, and with 
properly built boilers are not necessarily 
more dangerous. All our locomotives are 
upon this principle, and the draft of the fur- 
naces is accelerated by the rush of the waste 
or exhaust steam, as it passes into the chim- 
ney. The pressure of steam used in our high- 
pressure engines, averages more than in any 
other country ; from eighty to one hundred 
pounds per square inch being the common 
average. In order to prevent an amount of 
steam from accumulating to a higher pres- 
sure than this, the safety valve is placed 
upon the boiler, so constructed that, when 
the pressure rises above the point desired, it 
will open the valve, and allow the surplus to 
escape. Over-weighting this valve, or not 
taking proper care of it, and allowing it to 
rust into its seat, are fruitful sources of 
boiler explosions. No engineer should run 
an engine without trying his valve at least 
once a day. 

It is important that the water in the 
boiler should always be at about the same 
height ; not full, as in that case water is apt 
to pass over into the cylinders, and the en- 
gine is said to be flooded ; nor too low, for 
the heat of the furnace would melt the flues, 
if they were not covered with water. Vari- 
ous automatic contrivances have been in- 



vented to keep the water at the true level ; 
but their liability to get out of order has pre- 
vented their use, and engineers unite in the 
opinion that man's judgment alone is com- 
parative security. To assist the competent 
engineer, there are several devices. The 
most common are the three gauge-cocks, 
placed, the one above the other, at some 
three inches apart — the centre one being the 
desired level ; by trying these cocks, the ex- 
act height can be readily seen. Other water 
gauges have been in use, some of them since 
the earliest engines were constructed, upon 
the principle that a float upon the water will 
indicate, by means of a rod, its exact height. 
A glass tube, connected above and below the 
water line, is much used in our steamers. 

In order to determine the steam pressure 
at any point below that at which it raises the 
safety valve, various steam gauges have been 
in use from time to time ; the most common 
in steamboats is called the syphon gauge, 
and works upon the principle of balancing a 
column of mercury in a syphon tube. With- 
in the last ten years the spring gauge has 
come into general use in locomotive and 
other engines; they occupy but little room, 
and, if occasionally tested, answer every pur- 
pose of the more cumbersome syphon. With 
the exception of the Bourdon (French) and 
Schaeffer (Prussian), all the spring gauges in 
use in the United States, some thirty in 
number, are American inventions, and both 
of the foreign gauges have been improved 
upon, and are made in a superior manner 
here. 

The passage between the boiler and the 
cylinder was at first opened and closed by 
means of a cock ; the slide valve, modifica- 
tions of which arc now universally used, was 
the invention of Murray, of Leeds, England, 
in 1810. The piston was at first packed 
with hemp, saturated with grease; the brass 
rings, now used, were invented by Murdock 
& Aiken, of Glasgow, in the year 1813. 
The paddle-wheel between two boats was 
first used by William Symington, in Scot- 
land ; but the side wheel, as now used, to- 
gether with the screw propeller, were both 
made use of in the models by John Fitch. 
His first steamboat, however, was worked by 
cars, or paddles, after the same manner as an 
Indian uses them. The first boat that car- 
ried passengers, built by John Fitch in 1789, 
was propelled by a set of paddles at the 
stern. The North River, of Clermont — Ful- 
ton's first passenger boat — was driven by the 



94 



present form of side wheel ; she made a 
successful trip in the year 1807. 

One of the greatest improvements of 
steamboats with regard to speed was made 
by Robert L. Stevens, who added the false 
bow to a boat constructed by him in 1815. 
She attained the speed of 1 5 miles per hour, 
a great improvement over the North River 
(which only made four miles per hour), but 
seeming very slow at the present date, as 
contrasted with the time made at a trial trip 
of the Daniel Drew, in 1860, which was 22 
miles per hour against the tide. 

It is quite curious to follow the various 
improvements that have been made upon the 
steam engine, and to see how the present 
simple apparatus was settled upon. It re- 
quired years of experiment before the crank 
was adopted, notwithstanding that the same 
device had been in use in the common foot- 
lathe for several centuries. It was finally 
adopted by Picard ; but, after his invention, 
Watt patented a much more complicated 
method of transmitting the reciprocating 
into the rotary motion. This was called the 
sun and planet motion, and went out of use 
only after repeated trials with the crank. 
It is true that the latter was patented ; and 
the fact that Mr. Watt wished to avoid 
another patent, had much to do with this 
persistent trial of an inferior device. In the 
use of the locomotive engine, also, it was 
only after years of experiment that it was 
realized that the traction of the wheel upon 
the rail was sufficient to propel the carriage 
not only upon a level, but also up a very 
steep grade. 

On the line of the Pennsylvania railroad, 
beyond the town of Altoona, the track has 
an ascending grade over the mountains of 
over 100 feet to the mile, yet a passenger 
train of six or seven cars, with the assistance 
of two locomotives, surmounts the grade at 
a speed of nearly thirty miles per hour, and 
this, too, upon a road that lies coiled upon 
the side of the mountain like a huge serpent. 
So short are its curves, that the locomotive 
is quite visible from the fourth car during 
many parts of the ascent. No other nation 
in the world can show so great a triumph of 
civil engineering as this. The first road 
that was constructed at this place was work- 
ed by stationary engines, and the cars were 
drawn up by ropes and chains. This was a 
copy of European engineering ; but Amer- 
ican genius is destined always to rise supe- 
rior to imitation, and it is, in fact, only when 



it so rises, and trusts to its own gigantic 
plans, that the true power of American char- 
acter shows itself. The stolid English en- 
gineer imitates the Egyptians and the Ro- 
mans, and piles stone upon stone, and iron 
upon iron. The American imitates nature, 
with whose great Avorks he is in constant 
communion, and, like the spider, constructs 
a bridge light in appearance, but sufficiently 
strong to withstand the tempest and the 
storm, and bear with an easy vibration, 
double, nay, triple, the load put upon it. 
Only an appreciation of the grandeur of such 
a fall as that of Niagara, could fit a man to 
construct the bridge that spans its river. 

But to return to the improvements in the 
steam engine itself. When we look at the 
combination of them, as at present in use, 
we cannot but feel the wonderful genius 
therein displayed. It is but a few years 
since the steam engine, although vastly su- 
perior to horse power, was a. cumbersome 
and expensive machine both to construct 
and repair ; and although it is at present far 
from being perfect, yet the difference in its 
first cost, and the amount of fuel it uses for 
the same effect, is astonishing. Stand and 
look at some of our immense stationary en- 
gines, and see how noiselessly and steadily 
they turn the ponderous wheel ! One would 
think a child's power could stop it. Then 
pass on, and on, through the groaning mill, 
and see the labor of thousands of men per- 
formed by this untiring giant. It is only 
after seeing the work he accomplishes, you 
can realize his strength. Stand upon the 
western prairie at night. The moon silvers 
a twin track that glistens far into the dark- 
ness ; soon you hear a distant hum that 
grows upon the ear, and detect a faint spark 
that brightens as you gaze; anon the sound 
increases, and the eye of the iron horse over- 
powers the moon's pale gleam ; he sees you, 
and screams his shrill warning. Who can 
help starting as he rushes by, or not feel as 
though steam itself were personified. Mark 
the groaning train, with its living freight, 
tearing madly through the darkness, bearing 
absent friends to the loved at home, or per- 
haps good news from the beloved afar. 

Again, stand upon the Battery, at New 
York, and watch the almost countless fleet 
of steamships, steamboats, propellers, and 
tugs; some moving steadily toward the 
Narrows, as though conscious and proud of 
a power that can span the ocean in so short 
a time ; others plashing and dashing madly 



95 






about, or clinging to some gigantic ship, and 
tugging manfully at its side, when old 
Boreas has left it helpless ; others, again, in 
holiday attire, bearing a happy throng over 
the glad waters, and tuning the voice of this 
giant slave into fitting melody for the joyous 
hour. Ilere comes the Sound steamer, a 
floating palace fitted up in almost regal ele- 
gance, drawing but little water, and yet 
a staunch sea-boat, large, and, to the foreign 
ship-builder, apparently top-heavy, yet last 
as the racehorse, and frequently tried by the 
stoutest gales. Up and down both rivers 
ply the ever busy ferry-boats — movable 
bridges, ever crowded with passengers. Did 
Fulton's wildest dreams ever picture a scene 
like this ? Did John Fitch ever imagine a 
triumph so wonderful ? Yet it is all the 
work of steam ; and to them we owe, in 
part, the bands by which we hold this half- 
tamed Titan. Not only are these steamers 
propelled by steam, but his aid is called in 
both to load and unload them, and, in the 
hour of danger, steam works at the pumps 
with untiring hands. Not alone in the large 
manufactory, the gallant steamer, and the 
rushing car, does the vapor of water show 
its strength and usefulness, but thickly strewn 
about our cities and villages, delving in the 
mines, driving the rattling press, it helps 
all trades, and multiplies the power of man 
a thousand fold. Cities have sprung up under 
its magic touch, and everywhere we see traces 
of the king of motors — steam. 

And to whom are we indebted for all this 
improvement, this immense power ? Mainly 
to the American inventor, and our patent 
laws. It is not too much to say that one- 
third of the patents issued at the United 
States Patent Office for the last thirty years 
related either directly to the steam engine, 
or to machines intended to be driven by it ; 
nearly all of them patented by citizens of 
the United States. The use of steam ex- 
pansively Avas an English invention, but it is 
doubtful whether it was profitably used until 
improved upon in America. American loco- 
motives have borne off the palm wherever 
they have been brought into contact with 
those of other nations. In ocean steamers 
we may be second, but the reason is plain : 
foreign builders have the assistance of rich 
and powerful governments, while our own 
success is entirely due to private enterprise, 
with a limited amount of capital. 

As for steamboats for rivers and lakes, to 
which our immense inland navigation has 



turned the attention of our mechanics, we 
are far ahead of our rivals. The Yangtsze 
and Peiho, built for the Chinese coast, have 
never been equalled by England, as is suffi- 
ciently plain from the following China over- 
land trade report, written by one of their 
own countrymen : — 

" Steamboat builders in England, and Scot- 
land, too, are certainly the most adroit 
' shavers' living. They turn out so many 
miserable botches, that really we think a 
very great majority of the community would, 
were they ' going into steam,' resort to the 
United States. As far as river naviga- 
tion is concerned, our attempts to com- 
pete with Jonathan are simply absurd, as 
those who own English river steamers here 
at present, must, ere this, have discover- 
ed to their cost. But, even in sea-going 
steamers, ' if the proof of the pudding be in 
the eating,' we should wish to know where 
the British steamers are, which are as swift, 
as safe, as commodious, as serviceable, or as 
economical in expenditure of fuel, as the 
Yangtsze or the Peiho ? We maintain that 
every boat sent out here from England or 
Scotland, on China account, whether for 
coast or the river, has either been a misera- 
ble failure, or a glutton for fuel. We do 
not make one exception. We do not like to 
mention names, as we are averse to depre- 
ciate people's property, but we confidently 
leave it to every unfortunate sufferer to say 
whether or not we are correct in our state- 
ment. 

" AYc, of course, except the P. & O. 
Company, as they seem to have a secret 
plan of constructing boilers, which makes 
them last as long as the boat; that is, for an 
indefinite period. We declare one never 
hears of any thing occurring to one of the 
company's boilers, nor any of their boats 
being laid up to have a new one, or the old 
one mended. 

" We will take, for instance, the Chevy 
Chase, which vessel, wc believe, cost on the 
Clyde about three times the sum that the 
Yangtsze cost at New York. Now the 
Yangtsze has been running nearly three years 
hard upon the coast, making unprecedented! v 
swift passages, and never was docked until 
the other day. The Chevy Chase will not 
carry so much as the Yangtsze, nor has she 
as good accommodation ; but she burns 
twice as much coal, and, in a race between 
this and Shanghai, would be sparingly backed. 
She is about as strong again and as heavy 



96 



STEAM. 



again as there is the slightest occasion for ; 
and has clearly twice as much power as she 
can bear, for the weight of it sinks her. She 
is a very shallow craft, and her deck is so 
near the bottom, which contains an enor- 
mous mass of iron, that compasses will not 
act, and it becomes dangerous to run her 
in thick weather. She will bring grief to 
the hearth, but never grist to the mill ; and 
the sooner she is altered the better. She 
should be made into a screw propeller, and 
a suitable vessel built for the valuable and 
powerful machinery now fitted in her. 

Having spoken thus, in general terms, of 
the steam-engine, it may not be amiss to 
give a description of the simplest form 
thereof, by describing its component parts in 
terms easy to be understood and remembered. 
A steam-engine consists, then, of a cylinder, 
closed at both ends, having fitted to it a pis- 
ton, whose rod passes out at one end through 
a steam-tight hole, called a stuffing-box. 
The piston consists of a skeleton, technically 
called a spider, having three brass rings 
made thin enough to yield to the inequali- 
ties of the cylinder as it wears, and forced 
against it by springs resting upon the spider, 
and held in place by a plate commonly 
called a follower. The steam is admitted to 
the cylinder on the side, at each end, through 
what are called the ports ; the two ends of 
the ports are brought near each other at the 
point where they enter the steam-chest — a 
small box near the centre of the cylinder. 
These ports are alternately opened to the 
boiler and the atmosphere, by a sliding 
valve that obtains its motion from what is 
called the eccentric, which is placed upon 
the main shaft. The piston-rod is fastened, 
at the external end, to a cross-head, which 
communicates its motion to the crank-rod, 
and through it to the main shaft. In sta- 
tionary engines, working by a single cylin- 
der, it is evident there will be two points at 
which the rod has no power over the crank; 
these points are called dead centres, and 
to overcome them the momentum of the 
balance-wheel is used. In the locomotive, 
two cylinders being used, they are set 
quartering (at right angles with each other,) 
and the one overcomes the dead centre of 
the other. In the marine engine the motion 
of the wheel is continued by the action of 
the water, as the boat advances, and, conse- 
quently, no balance is required. 

If, after a part of the steam has entered 
the cylinder, the induction valve be closed, 



the expansion of the steam would continue 
the stroke of the piston until the pressure 
became the same as that of the external air, 
or until the piston had reached the end of 
its stroke. Thus, if the pressure of the steam 
was eighty pounds per square inch in the 
boiler, and the valve was closed after the 
piston had made one quarter of its stroke, 
it is evident that the pressure would con- 
stantly decrease up to the end of that 
stroke, and that the average pressure would 
be less than the pressure in the boiler, but 
at the end of the stroke there would be 
but very little waste steam ; in other words, 
the pressure remaining in the cylinder would 
not be in so great an excess over the atmos- 
pheric pressure as if the steam had followed 
the piston throughout its entire stroke. Ta 
show this more plainly, it must not be for- 
gotten that steam at eighty pounds pressure 
is, in reality, steam at ninety-five pounds to 
the square inch, working against fifteen 
pounds (the atmospheric pressure,) or a 
difference of pressure of eighty pounds ; there- 
fore, at the end of the stroke, the ninety-five 
pounds would have become twenty-three 
and three-quarters of pressure working 
against fifteen pounds atmospheric, or a 
difference of eight and three-quarters of 
pressure; so that, when the cylinder was 
opened by its exhaust to the air, there would 
be only eight and three-quarters of a pound 
to the square inch thrown out into the air, 
and thus wasted, while you have had an aver* 
age of sixty-seven pounds to the square inch 
throughout the stroke of the piston, working 
against fifteen pounds of atmospheric, or an 
actual difference of pressure of fifty-two 
pounds. Had you used fifty-two pounds of 
indicated pressure, following the full stroke 
of the piston, it is evident you would have 
thrown into the air the contents of the cylin- 
der at that pressure, instead of at eight and 
three-quarters, as by the cut-off. This is, in 
brief, the theory of the cut-off; but, like 
many other improvements, it has been car- 
ried to an extreme, and has thus become a 
positive evil. In order to realize this, notice 
carefully the following; If steam, at thirty 
pounds per inch, as indicated, be used in a 
cylinder, cutting off at one-quarter stroke, 
what will be the pressure at the end of the 
stroke ? Thirty is, as before shown, forty- 
five against fifteen : at the end of the stroke 
it will then be eleven and one-quarter against 
fifteen, or a back pressure of three and three- 
quarter pounds. Many people, who have 



STEAM. 



97 



found fault with cut-offs, have overlooked 
this. 

In explaining the cut-off, we have not 
taken into consideration the condensation of 
the steam from its expansion ; and this is, 
of itself, a very important item of loss, as is 
also its increased friction ; so that the actual 
gain from the use of a cut-off is not as great 
as it would theoretically appear. 

The whole subject of cut-offs and the use of 
steam expansively, was, in 1862-1865, put to 
the test of careful experiment both in England 
and the United States, and the theory of Mr. 
B. F. Isherwood, at that time chief engineer 
of the U. S. Navy, " That the maximum gain 
with any possible cut-off, in the saving of fuel, 
•or the increase of work, could not exceed 18 
per cent.," was completely exploded. Mr. 
Isherwood claimed this as his discovery, and 
during the whole war had been constructing 
the marine engines of the Navy without any 
regard to the carrying out of the principles 
of expansion. A. series of careful experi- 
ments, with different engines, and under the 
supervision of experienced engineers, es- 
tablished the fact that with engines of pro- 
per construction, the increase of work was in 
the ratio of not less than 27 revolutions by 
using the cut-off, and working the steam ex- 
pansively, to 20 revolutions without it, and 
that the saving of fuel was at least in the 
ratio of six tons with the cut-off, to seven 
without it. Some engines and some forms 
of cut-off did much better than this, one or 
two increasing the speed over 100 per cent, 
and saving more than 30 per cent, of the 
fuel ; but with average marine engines the 
lowest result attained was that stated above. 

Having thus stated some of the most im- 
portant parts of a steam engine, we will now 
speak of some of its accessories. In order 
to give a uniformity of speed to the machin- 
ery driven by a steam engine, no matter 
how much the work it has to do may vary, 
the governor was invented : it consists, in 
its simplest form, of two balls revolving 
around an upright shaft, and suspended from 
its top by rods ; if revolved with great rapid- 
ity, these balls are carried by their centrif- 
ugal motion to the greatest circumference 
that their rods will allow them ; if moved 
slowly, they will assume their smallest cir- 
cumference, and, by these motions, close or 
open the throttle, or, in the improved en- 



gines, vary the cut-off: thus controlling the 
speed of the engine, and keeping it always 
at nearly the same velocity. 

In order to keep the boiler filled with 
water to the requisite level, one or more 
pumps are placed in connection with it, of a 
capacity to supply it, if only working part 
of the time. These pumps should always be 
provided with a 2^t-cock, which, when open- 
ed, will show whether the pump is doing its 
duty, as the valves of any pump are liable to 
become clogged and useless. On the loco- 
motive engine the casual observer will notice 
that the engineer frequently tries these cocks, 
which arc placed upon the side of the en- 
gine, and, in fact, that he sometimes tries 
them to the detriment of dandified-looking 
individuals, who approach too close to the 
iron steed. The pet-cocks are not, how- 
ever, as much used as they should be, and, 
in fact, are very frequently left out altogether 
in the construction of the stationary engine. 
The safety valve, as at present in use, has a 
great many faults : it was originally the in- 
vention of Denis Papin, of France, and was 
constructed by him in his experiments with 
what was called Papin's steam digester — a 
machine for dissolving bones, etc. It con- 
sisted, as at first constructed, of a small 
round plate covering a hole, and held in its 
place by a weight suspended from a lever, 
whose fulcrum rested upon the plate. But 
little improvement has been made upon this 
simple device ; it is now tapered, to fit a 
counter-sunk hole, and possesses the advan- 
tage of being more difficult to calculate. But 
one of its chief faults is in the fact that the 
point of contact between the lever and valve 
is so large, that its wear creates a constantly 
varying leverage. This could be obviated 
by making the point of contact a knife-edge 
instead of a half-inch pin. Another disad- 
vantage in the common safety valve is the 
fact that the engineer has the power of 
weighting it to an unlimited extent. We 
have seen this difficulty obviated by an 
American invention. The weight is sus- 
pended in the boiler directly from the valve, 
and consists of the greatest weight the boiler 
should ever be allowed to carry. The lever 
is now so applied, that its tendency is 
to always lighten the valve, so that the 
more it is weighted the less steam can be 
carried. 



98 



STEAM. 



CHAPTER II. 

STEAMBOATS. 

In looking over English works upon steam, 
we cannot help noticing the truth of Dr. 
Lardner's remarks : " England has been so 
dazzled by the splendor of her own achieve- 
ments in the creation of a new art of trans- 
port by land and water within the last thirty 
years, as to become in a measure insensible 
to all that has been accomplished in the 
same interval and in the same department 
of the arts elsewhere." Not content with 
the praise other nations have ever been 
willing to give her for the invention of the 
steam engine, she also wishes to rob John 
Fitch of the only reward we can now give 
him for a life devoted to the steamboat. It 
is true that her arguments are aided to this 
end by the writings of some Americans who 
have endeavored to prove Fulton as the first 
practical steam navigator, thereby putting 
the date of this invention some twenty years 
later. But the time is fast approaching 
when the true inventor will be acknowledged 
by his countrymen, and the man who proph- 
esied so truly that " this will be the mode 
of crossing the Atlantic in time, whether I 
shall bring it to perfection or not ; steam- 
boats will be preferred to all other convey- 
ances, and they will be particularly useful 
in the navigation of the Ohio and the Mis- 
sissippi. The day will come when some more 
'potent man will get fame and riches for my 
invention " — when this man, we say, will be 
honored as he should be by the millions who 
enjoy the fruits of his genius ; when our 
school-books will place his name in connec- 
tion with that of Fulton, and his biography 
will be found in every library ; when his 
grave and the tomb of Washington will not 
bring a blush to the American cheek. 

Ami are you not to blame, reader? Have 
you ever read the life of John Fitch, the 
American Watt — a life that remained sealed 
'for thirty years by his own request, and now 
teaches a lesson of perseverance, under trials 
that few ever have to encounter ? If not, it 
is a duty you owe your country and j'oursclf 
to read it at once, and thus add another 
name to the tablets of your memory, already 
fcascribed with those of Franklin, Fulton, 
and Morse. 

The extent to which steam navigation has 
improved our country, is scarcely realized 
even by those who have travelled over it the 



most. The Hudson river, from the first 
voyage of the North River, Fulton's steam- 
boat, up to the present time, has re- 
mained at the head of all competitors in 
river navigation. We had then two trips 
per week, each consuming from thirty to 
thirty-six hours ; we have now four passen- 
ger boats per day over the entire route, and 
many making short trips, besides those used 
for towing barges and canal boats ; the pas- 
senger boats making the entire trip of one 
hundred and fifty miles in from ten to twelve 
hours. The increased prosperity of New 
York, growing out of this immense traffic 
by steamboats alone, is very great, but 
even this is small when compared with the 
navigation of the Mississippi and the other 
western rivers. In 1856 there were over 
one thousand steamboats and propellers on 
the western waters, costing not less than 
nineteen millions of dollars, and of a carry- 
ing capacity of four hundred and forty-three 
thousand tons. Of these boats, the smallest 
was the Major Darien, of ten tons, built at 
Freedom in 1852; and the largest was the 
Eclipse, of one thousand one hundred and 
seventeen tons, built at New Albany the 
same year. Thus, on the western waters, in 
the short space of forty-five years, steam 
created a business that absorbed nineteen 
millions of dollars in steamboats alone. 

Up to the year 1811, the only regular meth- 
od of transportation had been by means of 
flat boats, which consumed three or four 
months in the passage from New Orleans to 
Pittsburg. The price of passage was then one 
hundred and sixty dollars ; freight, six dol- 
lars and seventy -five cents per hundred 
pounds. The introduction of steam has re- 
duced the price of passage between these 
two cities to thirty dollars, and merchandise 
is carried the whole distance for a price 
which may be regarded as merely nominal, 
Besides this great saving of time and money 
effected by steam navigation on these waters, 
the comparative safety of steam conveyance 
is an item which especially deserves our 
notice. Before the steam dispensation be- 
gan, travellers and merchants were obliged 
to trust their lives and property to the barge- 
men, many of whom were suspected, with 
very good reason, to be in confederacy with 
the land robbers who infested the shores of 
the Ohio, and the pirates who resorted to 
the islands of the Mississippi. These partic- 
ulars being understood, we are prepared to 
estimate the value and importance of the 




THE FIRST SI'EAMBJAT EVER BfflLT TO CARRY PASSENGERS. 

Constructed by John Fitch, and finished April 16th, 1789. Cylinder eighteen inches in diameter, 
speed eight miles per hour in smopth water. The following year this boat was run to Burlington 
regularly as a passenger boat. 




THE FIRST PROPELLER EVER BUILT. 



Constructed by John Fitch, and experimented with by him on the Collect pond. New York city. 
The boiler was a twelve gallon pot, with a bit of truck-plank fastened by an iron bar placed transversely. 
This was hi the year 1796. 




f 




OLIVER EVANS OKUKTKK AMPH1LVLOS. 



Thirty feet long and twelve broad. Cylinder five inches in diameter with a nineteen inch stroke. 
Constructed by Oliver Evans about the year 1804. 




THE SECOND EXPERIMENTAL BOAT OF JOHN FITCH. 



Finished in May, 1787, and run at the rate of four miles per hour on the Delaware. Cylinder 
twelve inches in diameter, stroke three feet. 




TIIE MACHINERY OF FULTON 'S FIRST STEAMBOAT. 



Imported from England where it was constructed in 1805. Wheels fifteen feet in diameter, cylinder 
twenty-four inches in diameter, four feet stroke. 




THE NOBTH KiVl.ll, OF CLERMONT. 

Robert Fulton's first steamboat as she appeared after being lengthened in 1808. She was launched 
In 1807, and was run as a regular packet between New York and Albany. Speed four miles per hour, 
length 133 feet, beam 18 feet, depth 8 feet, tonnage 160. 



STEAMBOATS. 



103 



services which the steam engine has rendered 
to the commerce and prosperity of the west- 
ern states. 

In 1811, Messrs. Fulton and Livingston, 
having established a ship-yard at Pittsburg 
foi the purpose of introducing steam navi- 
gation on the western waters, built an exper- 
imental boat for this service — and this was 
the first steamboat that ever floated on the 
western rivers, [t was furnished with astern 
wheel and two masts — for Mr. Fulton be- 
lieved, at that time, that the occasional use 
of sails would be indispensable. This first 
western steamboat was called the Orleans; 
her capacity was one hundred tons. In the 
winter of 1812, she made her first trip from 
Pittsburg to New Orleans in fourteen days. 

The first appearance of this vessel on the 
Ohio river produced, as the reader may sup- 
pose, not a little excitement and admiration. 
A steamboat at that day was, to common 
observers, as great a wonder as a navigable 
balloon would be at the present. The banks 
of the river, in some places, were thronged 
with spectators, gazing in speechless aston- 
ishment at the puffing and smoking phe- 
nomenon. . The average speed of this boat 
was only about three miles per hour. Be- 
fore her ability to move through the water 
without the assistance of sails or oars had 
been fully exemplified, comparatively few 
persons believed that she could possibly be 
made to answer any purpose of real utility. 
In fact, she had made several voyages before 
the general prejudice began to subside, and 
for some months, many of the river mer- 
chants preferred the old mode of transporta- 
tion, with all its risks, delays, and extra ex- 
pense, rather than make use of such a con- 
trivance as a steamboat, which, to their ap- 
prehensions, appeared too marvellous and 
miraculous for the business of every-day 
life. How slow are the masses of mankind 
to adopt improvements, even when they ap- 
peal- to be must obvious and unquestionable ! 

The second steamboat of the west, was 
a diminutive vessel called the Comet. 
She was rated at twenty-five tons. Daniel 
D. Smith was the owner, and I). French the 
builder of this boat. Her machinery was 
on a plan for which French had obtained a 

patent in iso'.t. she went t<> Louisville in 
the summer of L 81 8, and descended to New 

Orleans in the Bpring of 1814. She after- 
ward made two voyages to Natchez, and 
was then sold, taken to pieces, and the en- 
gine was put up in a cotton factory. The 

7 



Vesuvius was the next ; she was built by 
Mr. Fulton, at Pittsburg, for a company, 
the several members of which resided at 
New York, Philadelphia, and New Orleans. 
She sailed under the command of Captain 
Frank Ogden, for New Orleans, in the spring 
of 1814. Prom New Orleans, she started 
for Louisville, in July of the same year, but 
was grounded on a sand-bar, seven hundred 
miles up the Mississippi, where she remain- 
ed until the 3d of December following, 
when, being floated oft' by the tide, she re- 
turned to New Orleans. In 1815-16, she made 
regular trips for several months, from New 
( Means to Natchez, under the command of 
Captain Clement. This gentleman was soon 
after succeeded by Captain John I). Hart, 
and while approaching New Orleans, with a 
valuable cargo on board, she took tire and 
burned to the water's edge. After being 
submerged for several months, her hulk 
was raised and re-fitted. She was afterward 
in the Louisville trade, and was condemned 
in 1819. 

In 1818, the first steamboat was built for 
Lake Erie and the upper lakes, at Black 
Rock, on the Niagara river, for the late Dr. 
I. B. Stuart, of Albany, N. V., by Noah 
Brown, of New York city. She w as a very 
handsome vessel, 360 tons burden, brig rig- 
ged, and her engine, on the plan of a Boulton 
and Watt square engine, was made by Rob~ 
ert McQueen, at the corner of Centre and 
Duane streets, New York city; her cylinder 
was 40 inches diameter, 4 feet stroke. The 
materials for making the boiler were sent 
from New York, and the boiler was made at 
Black Rock — it feet diameter, 24 feet long 
—a circular boiler, with one return flue, 
called a kidney flue, seldom, if ever, carry- 
ing more than nine inches of steam. This 
steamer was called the Walk-in-t he-Water, 
after a celebrated Indian chief in Mich- 
igan. Her engines were transported from 
New Fork to Albany by sloops, and from 

Albany to Buffalo by large six and eight 
horse Pennsylvania teams. Some of the 
engine was delivered in fifteen days time, 
and some was on the road about twenty-five 
days. 

The trip from Flack Rock, or Buffalo, to 

Detroit, consumed about forty hours in good 
weather, using thirty-six to forty cords of 

wood the trip. The price of passage in the 
main cabin was eighteen dollars; from Buf- 
falo to Erie (l'enn.), six dollars; to Cleve- 
land, twelve dollars ; to Sandusky (Ohio), 



104 



STEAM. 



fifteen dollars; to Detroit, eighteen dollars. 
The strength of the rapids at the head of 
the Niagara river, between Buffalo and 
Black Rock, was so great, that besides the 
power of the engine, the steamer had to 
(have the aid of eight yoke of oxen to get 
her up on to the lake, a distance of about two 
and one-half miles. In those days, the pas- 
senger and freighting business was so small, 
that one dividend only was made to the 
owners for the first three years from the 
earnings of the steamer. In 1821, in the 
fall, the steamer was totally lost in a terrible 
gale. On the coming winter, a new steamer 
was built at Buffalo, by Mr. Noah Brown of 
New York — a very strong, brig-rigged vessel. 
She was called the Superior, flush decks fore 
and aft ; the first steamer, the Walk-in-the-Wa- 
ter, having had a high quarter or poop deck. 

Compare the time and expense of travel- 
ling in those days with the present time ! 
Mr. Calhoun (now living), the engineer of 
the Walk-in-the- Water, says, "Every two 
years I used to return to New York from 
Buffalo in the fall, and in the spring from 
New York to Buffalo. I have been three 
and four days, by stage, to Albany; never 
less than three days, and sometimes near 
five days ; the stage fare was ten dollars to 
Albany. From Albany to Buffalo, I have 
been ten days in getting through ; the short- 
est time was eight days; the stage fare 
through, was twenty-one dollars. How is it 
noio ? My usual expense in going to Buf- 
falo from Albany was thirty dollars, includ- 
ing meals and sleeping." Such facts show 
the advantages we have obtained from the 
use of steam in our river navigation. 

The boats that then plied upon the Hud- 
son river, would not be sufficient to carry 
the passengers' baggage of the present day. 
The first boat was only 160 tons, while the 
New World, built in 1847, was of 1400. 
The latter has made the trip from New York 
to Albany in seven hours and fifteen min- 
utes, including nine landings of say five 
minutes each ; the actual running time 
being six hours and twenty minutes ; dis- 
tance, one hundred and fifty miles — per- 
formed by the North River in thirty-six 
hours. 

The application of the steam engine to 
navigation, has been successful by three 
methods only : the side wheel, the stern 
wheel, and the propeller. The side wheel 
was known to the ancients, and was used in 
connection with a windlass, turned by men, 



as a means of propulsion, by the Romans, 
in their war galleys. It was first partially 
applied to steam navigation by Robert Ful- 
ton, but since his day it has undergone vast 
improvement. As at first constructed, it 
consisted of a double-spoked water-wheel, 
suspended by a shaft with no outside bear- 
ing, which shaft, being of cast iron, was 
very liable to break. The outside bearing 
and guard were subsequently invented b} 
Fulton, as appears from his specification of 
patent. The wheels being totally uncovered, 
were found to throw water upon deck, and 
a dash-board was put up to prevent it, which 
was in time - replaced by the present wheel- 
house. The paddle was next surrounded 
with a circular brace, or rim, as at present in 
use. In Fulton's first boat, the wheels 
could, at will, be disconnected from the en- 
gine, but this plan went out of use in order 
to simplify the machinery, after the crank 
shaft was adopted, connected directly with 
the engine. Various side wheels have been 
patented, that are so constructed as to prevent 
the lift of water as the bucket rises there- 
from. One on the Richard Stockton ap- 
pears to work well, but their complication, 
cost, and liability to get out of repair, have 
prevented their general introduction. 

The stern wheel was first thought of by 
Jonathan Hull, of England, in 1736, as suf- 
ficiently appears from drawings thereof pub- 
lished by him ; but it certainly was first 
practically applied by Robert Fulton, in the 
steamboat Orleans, of which we have al- 
ready spoken. This wheel is now in almost 
universal use on our western rivers, as it is 
peculiarly adapted to boats drawing but lit- 
tle water. The wheel is suspended at the 
stern, and is sometimes covered with a 
wheel-house, but more frequently entirely 
exposed. 

The propeller was first applied to a small 
steamboat built by John Fitch, and experi- 
mented with by him under the patronage of 
Chancellor Livingston, on the Collect Pond 
in New York. The propeller was a screw 
or worm. Great improvements have, how 
ever, been made in the screw, and to the 
English we are indebted for some of the 
most important. Captain Ericsson deserves 
great credit for his improvements in this 
respect. The improvements in the screw 
propellers since 1860, have secured its almost 
universal use in all sea-going ships, and par- 
ticularly in war steamers. The new vessels, 
both armed and unprotected, of the British 



MACHINERY OP A STEAM-SHIP— PROCESS OF MANUFACTURE. 




MARINE ENGINE. 







RIVETING THE BOIl.KKS. 




BENDING AND CUTTING ENGINES. 




CASTING THE CYLINDERS. 



STEAMBOATS. 



107 



and American navies, are all propelled by 
the screw, and so universal has its use be- 
come in the merchant service, that of the 
oeean steamers now (1870) sailing from the 
port of New York, somewhat more than 200 
in number, but one or two have paddle- 
wheels. The Pacific mail steamers, the Liv- 
erpool and Great Western Steamship Com- 
pany's ships, and those of the Hamburg and 
Bremen lines, are fine specimens of the screw 
steamship, in their roominess, comfort and 
elegance. It was at first objected to the 
propellers that they rolled more than the 
paddle-wheel steamers, and that there was 
an unpleasant vibration from the rapid revo- 
lution of the heavy screw on a shaft extend- 
ing half the ship's length. They were, also, 
at first considerably slower than the paddle- 
wheels. These objections have been almost 
wholly obviated ; the speed of a screw 
steamer of fine lines is fully equal if not su- 
perior to that of the best paddle-wheel. 
They have repeatedly crossed the Atlantic 
in a little more than eight days, and by some 
improvements in construction, both of the 
ships and the screws, the rolling and the vi- 
bratiou is greatly diminished. The advant- 
ages of the propeller were, that in a heavy 
sea it was always submerged, whatever the 
condition of the ship's lading, while the pad- 
dle-wheels would be out of water on one 
side or too deep on the other; the paddles 
were, also, more exposed to danger of break- 
age, and when the wind was ahead greatly 
impeded the speed of the ship. The paddle- 
wheel steamers, also, consumed on an aver- 
age nearly double the fuel required for the 
propellers. In war-ships the propeller had 
the advantage of having its motive power 
out of harm's way, and of having an unob- 
structed broadside for firing upon the enemy. 
The monitors devised by Captain Ericsson, 
which were propelled by screws, though for 
the most part intended for coast and harbor 
defense and offensive warfare only upon forts, 
<kc, demonstrated in the case of the Dicta- 
tor, Monadnock, and Miantonomoh, that a 
steamer might be very low in the water, 
having in fact no appreciable bulwarks, and 
yet be perfectly sea-worthy, and possess high 
qualites of speed and ready management in 
all weathers. The plan of having twin 
screws, one under each quarter, has been 
tried in London, by the Messrs. Dudgeon ; 
the steamers turn more readily and in smaller 
space, but arc not materially faster. The 
adoption of a feathering screw, or one in 



which the blades can be turned into a line 
with the ship's keel, is an improvement in 
auxiliary propellers where the ship depends 
upon her sails in favorable winds; but these 
vessels are less numerous now than formerly. 
The insertion of three or more blades of the 
screw around the periphery of a hollow 
sphere, attached to the shaft instead of di- 
rectly to that shaft itself, (Griffith's screw,) 
or of the insertion of numerous short blades 
around the periphery of a ring of metal, 
(Ericsson's screw,) or of having the blades 
within the periphery, (Carlsrund and Soren- 
sen's,) or of applying a large proportion of 
the power nearly parallel to the shaft, by in- 
serting behind the moving screw a fixed 
screw having the blades turned in the oppo- 
site direction, (Rig's,) have each their advant- 
ages, and their advocates. 

In the so-called cigar steamers of Ross 
Winans, and some other similar inventions, 
one part of the design was the operating of 
two or three propellers in a line with the 
steamer's keel, one near the bow, another, 
amidships, and still a third at the stern. The 
theory was that the first would overcome the 
resistance, and the others could propel the 
vessel at much higher speed than ordinary. 

The use of the donkey engine or auxiliary 
pump, has been adopted in nearly all of our 
steam vessels, and is a decided improvement 
over the old method of filling the boilers by 
the main engine, as it obviates the difficulty 
of working the wheels while lying at the 
wharf, or stopping from any cause. The 
Great Eastern was not, at first, supplied with 
them, but the experience of the great storm 
in which the monster ship came so near 
foundering, led to their being introduced at 
the earliest opportunity. The builder of a 
steamship who should neglect to furnish don- 
key engines would now be considered insane. 

The use of coal in our steamers is now 
universal upon the Atlantic coast and rivers. 
John E. Mowatt, the first to establish the 
tow-boat business, was also among the first to 
burn coal. His boat, the Henry Eckford, 
was fitted up tor that purpose, but the want 
of a sufficient draft was the cause of its 
abandonment after several trials; this w;:s in 
1825. A few years after, Robert L. Stevens 
tried a blower on his crank boat, the North 
America. His first blower was of rude con- 
struction, being made of planks, and placed 
directly in front of the furnace, under the 
doors. After his success, the blower cane 
into general use both for coal and wood ; but 



108 



STEAM. 



improvements in furnaces have now, in a 
measure, superseded its use. Mr. Stevens 
tried several expensive experiments, and many 
of them proved of value only as lessons to 
the engineer. While experimenting upon 
the blower, he caused to be constructed a 
spiral fan in the chimney, but abandoned it 
after one or two trials. Placing the boiler 
on deck was his invention, as also the false 
bow that made so great an improvement in 
speed. The present open work walking- 
beam is also ascribed to him ; in fact we 
may safely say that Robert L. Stevens did 
more than any other man toward the im- 
provement of the steam-engine. 

In the early days of steamboats on the 
rivers and lakes, there were great fears en- 
tertained both of explosions and of danger 
from fire. These apprehensions were not 
altogether groundless. On the western 
rivers and lakes, where the boats were fur- 
nished with high pressure engines, carelessly 
built, and run with the highest attainable 
speed, by the use of pitch and other quickly 
burning fuel, and with prevalent recklessness 
of human life, explosions were of frequent 
occurrence, and fires which swept with fright- 
ful rapidity through the cargoes of cotton or 
other combustible materials, took place too 
often. In the Atlantic states, where the en- 
gines were low pressure and the cargoes less 
inflammable, they were less common. The 
first destructive explosion was' on board the 
steamboat Washington, near Point Harmar, 
on the Ohio river, June 9, 1816. A consid- 
erable number were killed, and many others 
scalded. £&d horribly mangled. The Oliver 
Ellsworth, a steamboat plying on the Con- 
necticut river, exploded on that river in 
1818, with great loss of life. We have no 
list of the number of explosions, or of the 
burning of American steamboats, but the 
number must have been several hundred, 
many of them attended with great loss of 
life, and terrible suffering. Any one whose 
memory of the events of the past fifty years 
is distinct, will recall many of these sad 
scenes, of some of which he had very proba- 
bly been an eye-witness. Many of these 
were inevitable under any precautions which 
could have been adopted ; but others were 
the result of racing, carelessness, or reckless- 
ness of human life. Still, while there have 
been many unnecessary disasters, the result 
of ignorance and mismanagement, there can 
be no question that the transportation by 
steamboats is much safer and less productive 



of loss of life, than the old methods of loco- 
motion, by stage, wagon, or on horseback, 
or even by sailing vessel, canal boat, flat- 
boat, or barge. The number of accidents at 
last drew the attention of Congress to the 
subject, and successive bills were passed to 
endeavor to control and prevent these seri- 
ous disasters ; but it was not until after sev- 
eral trials that the present very efficient sys- 
tem of inspection was perfected. Since the 
passage of this act, whose provisions we 
recite below, the number of these accidents 
has materially decreased, though we are still 
occasionally distressed by reports of whole- 
sale slaughter by the explosion or burning of 
some great steamer with its hundreds of 
passengers. 

Among others to whom great credit is due 
for their modifications of the steam-engine 
or some of its parts, Mr. Corliss, of Provi- 
dence, R. I., of whom we have already spoken; 
Mr. Learned, of the firm of Lee & Learned, 
manufacturers of steam fire-engines ; Capt. 
Ericsson ; Mr. Dickinson, equally celebrated 
as an engineer and as a great patent lawyer ; 
Mr. Horatio Allen, and several others, have 
made valuable improvements in the steam- 
engine. It is due in a great measure to the 
valuable modifications which these men have 
introduced in the use of steam and to the 
simplification and increased perfection of the 
mechanism of steam-engines, that among the 
hundreds of thousands of them in use 
throughout the United States, so few acci- 
dents occur. The engineers employed are 
too often, especially on stationary engines, 
unskilled and incompetent for their business; 
but most of the engines are so well constructed 
that they will not give out except from the 
most outrageous carelessness or stupidity in 
their management. 

In the year 1852, an act was passed by 
Congress, containing provisions against fire, 
regarding pumps, boats, life-preservers, the 
transportation of dangerous articles, etc. 
This act also provided for an inspector of 
boilers in each district, whose duty it is to 
test all the boilers in his district, used on 
board of vessels carrying passengers, once 
when first constructed, and at least once a 
year thereafter. The Board of Inspectors 
were also empowered with the examination 
of engineers, which duty is set forth in the 
following section: "Whenever any person 
claiming to be qualified to perform the 
duty of engineer upon steamers carrying 
passengers, shall apply for a certificate, the 



LOCOMOTIVES. 



109 



Board of Inspectors shall examine the appli- 
cant, and the proofs which he produces in 
support of his claim ; and if, upon full con- 
sideration, they are satisfied that his char- 
acter, habits of life, knowledge, and experi- 
ence in the duties of an engineer are all such 
as to authorize the belief that the applicant is 
a suitable and safe person to be entrusted 
with the powers and duties of such a station, 
they shall give him a certificate to such effect, 
for one year, signed by them, in which cer- 
tificate they shall state the time of the exami- 
nation, and shall assign the appointee to the 
appropriate class of engineers." 

It was also provided that nine super- 
vising inspectors should be appointed by the 
executive, to carry out the provisions of the 
act. Since the passage of this law, steam- 
boat explosions on the Atlantic coast have 
become almost unknown, and have greatly 
decreased in the west. With competent 
inspectors this law is invaluable, and we 
hope to hail the day when a similar act is 
passed in every legislature, touching loco- 
motive and stationary boilers. 

No one who looks at the immense amount 
of business done by steam vessels, will ques- 
tion the advantages obtained by the appli- 
cation of steam to navigation, still this 
branch of commerce is as yet in its infancy, 
and it is our belief that not only will steam 
supersede sails entirely, but also that the la- 
borious occupation of rowing will eventually 
be mainly done by steam. It is unques- 
tionable that boats requiring four men to pull 
them can, even now, be much more economi- 
cally worked by machinery, and certainly 
run much faster. Their cost need not ex- 
ceed five hundred dollars. For such small 
craft the propeller is better fitted than the 
side wheel. There was a boat of this descrip- 
tion running in the harbor of Norfolk, for 
some years, and capable of carrying twelve 
passengers at eight miles per hour, at the 
expense of seventy-five cents per day for fuel, 
and the wages of one man, who could easily 
do the work and steer the boat. This boat 
carried passengers to the Great Eastern, 
when she lay off Old Point Comfort, and 
appeared like the minnow beside the whale. 

In 1864, the Navy Department ordered 
the construction of several steam launches, 
small boats of about the dimensions of 
the Captain's boat of a war steamer, to 
perform the service which had till then 
been done by the row-boats. It was on 
one of these that Lieutenaut Cushing ran 



up to the Albermarle and effected her 
destruction. 

We have already stated that John E. 
Mowatt was the first to introduce the tug 
business on the North river. This was 
Jonathan Hull's idea; he never dreaming 
that large vessels could be provided with 
propelling power, both on account of its 
weight, the weight of fuel for a voyage, and 
the danger from fire. This branch of steam 
navigation has proved very lucrative. With- 
in the past few years the propeller has here 
also been substituted. Philadelphia, we be- 
lieve, was the pioneer in this enterprise, and 
most of the propeller-tugs were built in that 
city. We will conclude this chapter with 
the following statement of the tonnage of 
steam vessels belonging to the several ports 
of the United States in 1868, as published 
in the " Report on Commerce and Navi- 
gation : " — 

Atlantic and Gulf Coasts 653,730.37 

Pacific Coast 49.895.98 

Northern Lakes 144,117.15 

Western Rivers 351,671.39 

The total steam tonnage of the United 
States, for the year ending 30th of June, 
1868, was 1,199,414.89-95 tons. 



CHAPTER III. 



LOCOMOTIVES. 



Our second chapter referred more partic- 
ularly to the application of steam to naviga- 
tion. In this, we shall endeavor to set forth 
its advantages in land transportation. Among 
the earliest experiments upon this subject in 
America, were those by Oliver Evans, of 
Philadelphia. The following is his account, 
published in 1804 : — 

" I constructed for the Board of Health of 
Philadelphia a machine for cleaning docks, 
called the Orukter Amphibolos or Amphib- 
ious Digger. It consisted of a heavy flat- 
bottomed boat, thirty feet long, and twelve 
feet broad, with a chain of buckets to bring 
up the mud, and hooks to clear away sticks, 
stones, and other obstacles. These buckets 
are wrought by a small steam engine set in 
the boat, the cylinder of which is rive inches 
diameter, and the length of stroke nine- 
teen inches. This machine was constructed 
at my shop, one mile and a half from the 
river Schuylkill, where she was launched. 



no 



STEAM. 



She sunk nineteen inches, displacing five 
hundred and fifty-one cubic feet of water, 
which, at 02.5 pounds, the weight of a cubic 
foot, gives the weight of the boat thirty-four 
thousand four hundred and thirty-seven 
pounds, which, divided by two hundred and 
thirteen, the weight of a barrel of flour, gives 
the weight of one hundred and sixty-one 
barrels of flour that the boat and engine is 
equal to. Add to this the heavy pieces of 
timber and wheels used in transporting her, 
and the number of persons generally in her, 
will make the whole burden equal to at least 
two hundred barrels of flour. Yet this 
small engine moved so great a burden, with 
a gentle motion, up Market street and around 
the Centre Square, and we concluded from 
the experiment that the engine was able to 
rise any ascent allowed by law on turnpike 
roads, which is not more than four degrees." 

After giving a comparison of the merits 
of steam and horse power, for moving car- 
riages on common roads, Evans says : 'Add 
to all this that the steam wagon consumes 
nothing while standing, will roll and mend 
the roads, while the horse wagons will cut 
them up. Upon the whole it appears that 
no competition could exist between the two. 
The steam wagons would take all the busi- 
ness on the turnpike roads. I have no 
doubt but you will duly appreciate the im- 
portance of such an improvement, and con- 
ceive it to be your interest to appropriate 
the sum necessary to put it in operation. I 
have invented the only engine that will 
answer that great purpose, as well as many 
others for which power may be wanted. It 
is too much for an individual to put in 
operation every improvement which he may 
be able to conceive or invent. I have no 
doubt that my engines will propel boats 
against the current of the Mississippi, and 
wagons on turnpike roads with great profit. 
I now call upon those whose interest it is, to 
carry this invention into effect. All which 
I respectfully submit to your consideration." 

Thus it will be seen that Mr. Evans not 
only practically applied steam to locomotion, 
but fully realized the advantages of his in- 
vention. The introduction of the railroad 
prevented the improvements that would 
naturally have followed so great an inven- 
tion, and but little lias since been done, until 
within the past three or four years. 

Mr. Fisher has been one of the most success- 
ful in his improvements ; his first experiment 
was in 1853, when he built a small carriage 



for four persons, which weighed, empty, 
about one thousand four hundred pounds. 
The cylinders were ten by four ; boiler, 
thirty feet of surface, only twenty feet of 
which could be reckoned effective, or one 
foot of surface to about one hundred and 
ten pounds of total weight. It outran 
horses, in night races, on the Broadway 
pavement, and ran at a moderate speed on 
cobble pavements, but had not steam enough 
for common roads. 

The next trial was in 1858, on two steam 
fire engines, the J. C. Cary and J. G. Storm, 
the carriages and engines of which were 
built from his design, the boilers and pumps 
being designed by others. These engines 
had heavy boilers and apparatus, and could 
not be regarded as steam carriages, but only 
as a demonstration of the practicability of 
working by steam. Their cylinders are 
fourteen by seven and a half inches ; wheels, 
five feet ; the Cary boiler four hundred and 
eighty feet of heating surface ; that of the 
Storm three hundred and eighty ; weight of 
the Cary, empty, fifteen thousand six hun- 
dred and thirty-six pounds ; the Storm some- 
what lighter. These engines ran well on 
pavements, and when fairly in motion could 
run on soft ground at six or seven miles per 
hour. Mr. J. K. Fisher built another steam 
carriage, completing it in 1801, from which 
great results were expected ; but the all-en- 
grossing interest of the war, at that time, 
prevented its receiving attention, and noth- 
ing has been heard of it since. A Newark 
machinist contrived one in which the motive 
power was an engine and boiler in the form 
of a man, drawing a wagon, in the front part 
of which was the water-tank. This excited 
considerable attention but proved of no prac- 
tical value. In 1800, a steam wagon with 
vulcanized rubber ties 13 inches wide and 
5 inches thick, was run in the streets of 
Edinburgh, drawing one or two wagons up 
the steep grades of that city, and its per- 
formance was entirely satisfactory. 

The railway itself does not come within 
the compass of our article ; we will state, 
however, that its origin is unknown, as the 
remains of a stone tram-road have been 
found among the ruins of Thebes. 

Thirty years ago they were still discussing 
the advantages of canals as compared with 
railroads in this country ; it is, however, 
somewhat singular that, with the exception 
of a mile or two of canal near Cambridge, 
constructed by the Romans, England had in- 



LOCOMOTIVES. 



Ill 



troduced the entire principle of railroads 
long before she took up canals. As long 
ago as 1776, and possibly thirty years prior 
to that time, England had wooden rails in 
%ome of her collieries. It was not, however, 
until the year 1825 that the subject was 
prominently brought forward. The railway 
project from Manchester to Liverpool was 
the cause of this new impulse. The rails, 
prior to 1776, were of wood, placed about 
four feet apart on sleepers ; these wooden 
rails we.'e then covered with iron plates, 
and cast iron wheels were adopted instead 
of the wooden ones that had been used up 
to this time. In 1790, the edge rail was 
invented. From 1802 to 1806, the first 
effective experiments were made with the 
locomotive engine. It was not, however, 
supposed possible that the friction or ad- 
herence of the plain wheels of such car- 
riages upon the rail could be sufficient to 
allow any great weight to be drawn after 
them, and, therefore, the cumbersome ap- 
pendage of cog wheels and ratchet wheels, 
continuous and endless chains, propelling 
levers, etc., etc., continued to perplex the 
minds of engineers until about 1814, when 
it was first discovered that the adhesion of 
the locomotive carriage, with its plain cast 
iron wheels, was adequate for every purpose 
on ordinary railways. The improvement 
consequent upon this was effected by Mr. 
Stephenson in the north of England, and for 
a long time his engines, with unimportant 
alterations, were used where fuel was cheap. 
Those locomotives drew about one hundred 
tons on a level, at four miles the hour, per- 
forming the work of about sixteen horses. 
Their weight was about ten tons, and cost 
about sixteen thousand dollars. 

The first railway in the United States was 
built from Milton to Quincy, Mass., a dis- 
tance of two miles, in 1826. The Baltimore 
and Ohio was the first passenger railroad ; 
it was opened in 1830, a distance of fifteen 
miles, with horse power. Next in the order 
of time came the Mohawk and Hudson, from 
Albany to Schenectady, sixteen miles ; opened 
for travel also with horse power. The first 
locomotive engine upon a railway in this 
country, was built at Stourbridge, England, 
for the Delaware and Hudson Canal Com- 
pany, and imported by Mr. Horatio Allen. 
This engine was called the Lion. Mr. 
Allen, in a speech not long since, gives a 
graphic account of the first trip : " It was 
in the year 1828, on the banks of the Lack- 



awaxen, at the commencement of the rail- 
roads connecting the canal of the Delaware 
and Hudson Canal Company with their coal 
mines ; and he who addresses you was the 
only person on that locomotive. The circum- 
stances which led to my being alone on the 
engine were these : the road had been built 
in the summer ; the structure was of hem- 
lock timber; the rails of large dimensions, 
notched on caps placed far apart; the tim- 
ber had cracked and warped from exposure 
to the sun. After about three hundred feet 
of straight line, the road crossed tho Lacka- 
waxen creek on trestle-work, about thirty feet 
high, with a curve of from three hundred and 
fifty-six to four hundred feet radius. The 
impression was very general that the iron 
monster would break down the road, or it 
would leave the track at the curve and plunge 
into the creek. My reply to such appre- 
hensions was, that it was too late to consider 
the probability of such occurrences ; that 
there was no other course than to have a 
trial made of the strange animal, which had 
been brought here at great expense ; but 
that it was not necessary that more than one 
should be involved in its fate ; that 1 would 
take the first ride alone, and the time would 
come when I should look back to the inci- 
dent with great interest. As I placed my 
hand on the throttle- valve handle, I was un- 
decided whether I would move slowly or 
with a fair degree of speed ; but believing 
that the road would prove safe, and prefer- 
ring, if I did go down, to go handsomely, 
and without any evidence of timidity, I 
started with considerable velocity, passed the 
curve over the creek safely, and was soon 
out of hearing of the vast assemblage. At 
the end of two or three miles I reversed the 
valve, and returned without accident; having 
thus made the first railroad trip by locomo- 
tive on the western hemisphere." 

The first locomotive engine ever built in 
the United States, was built at the West 
Point foundry, New York, under the direc- 
tion of Samuel Hall, for the South Carolina 
railroad. This engine blew up shortly after 
it commenced running, and another was 
built to replace it. In 1831, the De Witt 
Clinton was built at the same foundry for 
the Mohawk and Hudson (New York Cen- 
tral) railroad ; this engine weighed four tons; 
it was run without load at the rate of forty 
miles per hour. Cylinders, five and a half 
inches in diameter — stroke, sixteen inches; 
four coupled wheels, four and a half feet in 



112 



STEAM. 



diameter. The boiler was cylindrical, with 
a large dome in the centre, and contained 
some thirty flues. In January of the same 
year, the Baltimore and Ohio railroad offered 
four thousand dollars for the best anthracite 
coal-burning locomotive, weighing three and 
one half tons, and capable of drawing fifteen 
tons, fifteen miles per hour on a level, with 
a steam pressure of not more than a hundred 
pounds to the square inch. The conditions 
were filled by an engine built by Phineas 
Davis, of York, Pa., in June, 1831. This 
engine had an upright boiler and cylinder. 
"William T. James, of New York, who had 
already constructed a steam carriage in 1829, 
finished a locomotive in 1832; this engine 
was employed on the Harlem railroad, with 
success, for a time, but was eventually sold 
to the Baltimore and Ohio road, where it 
exploded in 1834. This engine was pro- 
vided with a " spark arrester." In January, 
1833, M. W. Baldwin, of Philadelphia, long 
one of our best locomotive builders, built 
the Old Ironsides, for the Philadelphia 
and Germantown Railroad Company. This 
engine weighed five tons, and was said 
to have been run at the rate of sixty- 
two miles per hour. Mr. Baldwin intro- 
duced the outside connection engine, thus 
doing away with the crank axle, and plac- 
ing the cylinder more under the eye of 
the engineer. 

It would be tedious to follow the con- 
struction and alterations in the various loco- 
motives that were built by different manu- 
facturers in the United States. We will, 
however, mention the most important im- 
provements. 

The truck frame, in front of the engine, 
was first used by Adam Hall, of the West 
Point foundry, in 1832, on an engine called 
the Experiment. The four eccentrics were 
first used by William T. James, on his steam 
carriage ; they were, however, patented by 
S. 11. Long, of Philadelphia, in 1830, and 
first used on a locomotive in 1833 ; this was 
the Black Hawk, built by Long and Norris, 
of Philadelphia, the founders of the present 
locomotive shop known as Norris' works. 
The Norris engines were the first ever ex- 
ported ; this was brought about by the, at 
that time, extraordinary fact of drawing 
19,200 pounds up an incline of three hun- 
dred and sixty-nine feet to the mile, the en- 
gine weighing but 14,370 pounds; on hear- 
ing of which, the Birmingham and Glouces- 
ter Railway Company ordered several engines 



for an incline upon their road, where they 
performed successfully. Since that time, 
engines have been exported to England, 
France, Russia, Germany, Egypt, and Chili. 
In the latter country all the locomotives are 
American. The engines forwarded to Egypt, 
were built by William Mason, of Taunton ; 
and for excellence of workmanship, style, 
and finish, will compare favorably with any 
in the world. There are now nearly fifty 
American locomotives on German roads. 
Messrs. Winans, of Baltimore, furnished the 
majority of the locomotives sent to Russia. 
There are twenty-five manufactories of loco- 
motives in the United States, aside from 
the repair and manufacturing shops of 
the great railroad companies. Hinckley 
and Drury's, afterwards called the Bos- 
ton Locomotive Works, was established 
in 1840. The LoAvell shop began to build 
engines in 1835. Rogers, Ketchum & Gros- 
venor, of Paterson, New Jersey, commenced 
building in 1837. This shop is still in full 
operation, under the name of the Rogers 
Locomotive Works. This shop made sev- 
eral material alterations upon the English 
type ; they enlarged the boiler in proportion 
to the cylinder, established the link motion, 
and covered more effectually the cylinders 
and valve chests, to prevent radiation. Rog- 
ers, also, was among the first to adopt 
the full-stroke pump. The locomotives built 
at this shop have always found a ready 
market. Next in order was the Taunton Lo- 
comotive Company, established in 1847, by 
W. W. Fairbanks, a marine boiler maker from 
Providence, Rhode Island. Then John Sou- 
ther, formerly of Hinckley's shop, started 
his works in South Boston, in 1848. In 
1849, the Amoskeag Manufacturing Com- 
pany entered the lists with some important 
improvements ; they were followed by the 
Portland, Lawrence, and Wilmarth shops, 
and a few years after, by Mason, of Taunton, 
the East Bridgewater, and the Manchester 
locomotive works. After 1857, the New 
England locomotive shops turned their at- 
tention largely to other work. One large 
company failed ; others manufactured steam 
fire-engines, stationary engines, and cotton 
and woolen machinery; a number became- 
manufactories of cannon and fire-arms din- 
ing the war, and much of the business fell 
into the hands of the Paterson and Phila- 
delphia shops. The causes of this change 
are various: prominent among them may 
be mentioned the manufacture of locomo 



LOCOMOTIVES. 



113 



tivcs by the larger railroad companies them- 
selves, at their repair shops. 

The manufacture of the locomotive engine 
had a good effect upon our machine shops, 
independent of the work it furnished ; as in 
order to construct them a variety of improved 
tools were made, that have greatly added to 
the facility for turning out other machinery. 
These improvements are so marked that no 
one who is familiar with the machine shop 
can help noticing them. 

Coal is now rapidly superseding wood as 
fuel for the locomotive. It is true that some 
of our first engines were coal-burners, but 
wood has been for years the principal fuel 
used. The American engine has several 
marked distinctions from the English ; what 
most strikes the eye of the common observer 
is the cab, or house for the protection of the 
engineer; this is peculiar to our locomo- 
tive. The smoke stack is also very different 
in the wood-burning engine from that in use 
on coal-burners. The auxiliary pump is used 
on some of our engines, but not to so great 
an extent as it should be. 

A first-class locomotive engine costs from 
10 to 15 thousand dollars, and an average, 
taken from our largest roads, shows a cost 
of about sixteen hundred dollars pervearfor 
repairs. Locomotives in this country are 
built much too large for the work they have 
to accomplish, and the attention of our 
master machinists having lately been much 
attracted to this subject, it is to be hoped 
that some improvements in the weight will 
be made. A locomotive too heavy for the 
work it has to do, is not only more expen- 
sive in first cost, but in the greater wear of 
the road. A good locomotive can draw thirty 
times its own weight on a level, and a paying 
load should not exceed twenty-five tons ; 
bearing this in mind, why build twenty-six 
ton engines? There are many parts of an 
engine now built much too heavy ; the bell, 
dome-casings, and cabs, for instance. It is 
not necessary to greatly lessen the weight of 
the running gear, although in some instan- 
ces this is much too heavy. Wrought iron 
in place of cast in some cases would be 
lighter and much better, and steel should he 
substituted for iron wherever possible. The 
speed over the American roads is not so 
great as in England, from the fact that the 
former have more and steeper grades, and 
have, besides, shorter curves, to say nothing 
about their construction being much less 
expensive. Sixty miles per hour has been 



made upon our roads, however, but thirty is 
nearer an average, while in England seventy 
miles has frequently been attained. 

Dr. Lardner, in his lately published "Econ- 
omy of Railroads," thus endeavors to convey 
to the unpractised reader the enormous speed 
of a locomotive going at the rate of seventy 
miles an hour : " Seventy miles an hour is, 
in round numbers, one hundred and five feet 
per second, that is a motion in virtue of 
which a passenger is carried over thirty-five 
yards between the beats of a common clock. 
Two objects near him, a yard asunder, pass 
by his eye in the thirty-fifth part of a sec- 
ond ; and if thirty-five stakes were erected 
by the side of the road, one yard asunder, 
the whole would pass his eye between two 
beats of a clock ; if they had any strong 
color, such as red, they would appear a con- 
tinuous flash of red. At such a speed, 
therefore, the objects on the side of the road 
are not distinguishable. When two trains, 
having this speed, pass each other, the rela- 
tive velocity will be double this, or seventy 
yards per second ; and if one of the trains 
were seventy yards long, it would flash by in 
a sine'le second. To accomplish this, suppo- 
sing the driving wheels seven feet in diame- 
ter, the piston must change its direction in 
the cylinder ten times in a second. But 
there are two cylinders, and the mechanism 
is so regulated that the discharges of steam 
are alternate. There are, therefore, twenty 
discharges of steam per second, at equal in- 
tervals ; and thus these twenty puffs divide 
a second into twenty equal parts, each puff 
having the twentieth of a second between 
it and that which precedes and follows it. 
The ear, like the eye, is limited in the rapid" 
it v of its sensations, and sensitive as that 
organ is, it is not capable of distinguishing 
monotonous sounds which succeed each 
other at intervals of the twentieth part of a 
second. According to the experiments of 
Dr. Mutton, the flight of a cannon ball was 
six thousand seven hundred feet in one 
quarter of a minute, equal to five miles per 
minute, or three hundred miles per hour. 
It follows, therefore, that a railway train, 
going at the rate of seventy-live miles per 
hour, has the velocity of one-fourth that of 
a cannon hall; and the momentum of such 
a mass, moving at such a speed, is equiva- 
lent to the aggregate force of a number of 
cannon balls equal to one-fourth of its own 
weight." 

Some years ago a curious calculation, 



114 



showing one of the advantages of the steam 
locomotive, was made in England. " In 1853, 
111,000,000 passengers were conveyed, each 
passenger travelling an average of twelve 
miles. Twelve miles of railroad are accom- 
plished in half an hour, whereas the old 
stage coach required an hour and a half to 
get through the distance. The aggregate 
time thus saved for the above number of 
passengers is equal to thirty-eight thousand 
years." This was seventeen years ago, since 
which time the number of passengers car- 
ried has been nearly tripled. 

Mr. Fleming, on the Mobile & Ohio rail- 
road, and some other master mechanics, have 
adopted the plan of paying the engineers a 
certain fixed salary, and then giving prizes 
to those who saved the most fuel to the mile 
run. It is also customary to place the in- 
spection of wood to be used under the en- 
gineer's care, he having the .choice of the 
stations at which he will take in wood. 
With these two regulations the company get 
better wood at the same price, as it is di- 
rectly to the engineer's interest to carefully 
examine the quality, quantity, and price of 
every load of wood he takes on. So great 
has been the economy of this plan, that 
it is strange that every one does not 
adopt it. 

Another important item in the running 
expenses of the locomotive is the oil and 
waste. The latter is used to wipe the 
machinery, not only on account of the looks, 
but to prevent its gumming up with oil and 
dirt. The average cost of oil, waste, and 
tallow, taken from some of our largest roads, 
is seventy-five hundredths of a cent per 
mile run ; and as engines average some fif- 
teen thousand miles per year, we have a 
total cost, in these small items, of 11,125,000 
per year in the United States alone, by the 
more than 10,000 locomotives now in use. 

Before leaving the subject of steam loco- 
motives, we wish to speak of the Dummy 
engine, or steam car for city railroads. We 
know that this use of steam has met with 
great opposition from all classes of men ; 
but what are the arguments? In the first 
place they say : " Oh ! the steam car is 
much more dangerous than horses." Why ? 
" Because it is more difficult to stop, and it 
goes so much faster." What is the truth ? 
It is much easier to stop a steam car than 
one drawn by horses, inasmuch as we have 
not only the same brakes, but the power of 
reversing the engine in an emergency. As 



to the cars being run faster, our laws against 
fast driving are as potent in the one case as 
in the other ; and by Darker's arrangement, 
it is impossible for the car to go over a given 
speed — the governor being attached to the 
brake. The second argument against steam 
cars is that the noise and smoke will frighten 
horses. The noise and smoke can both be 
avoided, and it has been proved that horses 
are not more liable to start than at the sight 
of a buffalo robe. The argument as to ex- 
pense has been entirely thrown aside ; still, 
but few know the great advantage in this 
respect that steam has over horse power. A 
number of our lines average seven horses to 
a car (in Boston they average eight), in 
order to have the necessary relays; seven 
good horses for this purpose are worth, say, 
eight hundred dollars ; the feed, care, and 
stable-room of each horse averages, say three 
dollars and fifty cents per week ; so that aline 
with forty cars is under the enormous annual 
expense, for horse-care and keep alone, of 
$50,960 ! Now then for steam. The first cost 
of an engine and steam generator, with all the 
necessary appurtenances, will be no more, if as 
much, as the seven horses to each car. Keep- 
ing the engine in repair would incur no more 
expense than shoeing horses, renewing har- 
ness, etc. It would cost no more to replace 
them than to replace worn-out horses. The 
engines, to be of sufficient capacity to over- 
come our steepest grades, will consume eight 
bushels of coke per day (a high estimate), 
running sixteen hours, the price of which at 
present is five cents per bushel; but, suppo- 
sing the extra demand to cause an advance 
of a hundred per cent. — which is hardly 
likely, for even a less increase in price would 
cause many private families and others to 
cease using it — the fuel expense in one year, 
to a company with forty cars, would be 
$9,984 ; making the difference in cost, 
in one year, between steam and horses, 
of $40,976. Think of it! $40,976 saved 
to a company with forty cars, in one year 
(over $1,000 per car), after putting down 
the fuel at double its present price. Coke 
is preferable, because it is clean to handle, 
ignites quick, emits no smoke, is light and 
cheap, and requires a much less draught than 
coai. To save cumbrous and useless weight 
as much as possible, it is proposed to carry 
very little fuel, except Avhat is on the fire, 
nor unnecessary extra water either, the tank 
and bin to be replenished at the depot each 
trip, while waiting its time. 



LOCOMOTIVES. 



115 






Were the different companies to offer, as 
an inducement, to reduce the fare to four 
cents, on condition that the community would 
permit the use of steam, they would anni- 
hilate all groundless opposition on the part 
of the masses, which is every thing with us ; 
and the enormous increase of "short rides," 
(Occasioned hy the reduction of fare, would 
make the receipts greater than at present ; 
and as the saving in favor of steam is quite 
$1,000 a year per car, the value of the stock 
would be increased prodigiously. It would 
seem that there was no valid objection to 
the use of some forms of dummy engines for 
city railroads, for they are more completely 
under the control of the engineer than a 
horse is under his driver; yet the prejudice 
is very strong against them, and the South 
Side railroad of Long Island, after trying 
them for a year in Brooklyn, E. D., was 
compelled, in 1870, by the opposition of the 
people, to withdraw them. 

Among the plans for city cars that have 
been suggested and built, we may mention 
those of Latta, of Cincinnati ; Baldwin, 
Grice & Long, and Darker, of Philadelphia. 
Latta's engine was in a separate car from the 
passengers; Baldwin's had its machinery be- 
neath the car, and its boiler in front ; and 
Darker placed his entire engine and boiler 
upon the roof, connecting with the wheels 
on the outside, near the centre. Grice & 
Long's car was thus fitted : The engines and 
boiler are on the front platform ; the engines 
slightly inclined, and graded to the front 
axle ; the axle being placed at the extreme 
end of the car, for the purpose of making 
the connection, and increasing the stability 
of the wheels. The boiler was of the ordina- 
ry vertical, tubular type ; the after part of 
the car was finished with a self-adjusting, vi- 
brating truck, for the purpose of turning the 
short curves of city roads. 

On roads running through sparsely settled 
districts, in the suburbs of our great cities, 
or to villages a few miles distant, these dum- 
my engines often do good service, producing 
less trouble and annoyance, and proving less 
dangerous than the ordinary locomotive, but 
the best form of motive power for driving 
one or more cars along the streets of a large 
and crowded city, without inducing serious 
accidents, is yet to be devised. Something 
is imperatively needed to take the place of 
horses for this work, for there is a very gen- 
eral complaint that horses are too slow, and 
that too much time is consumed in going 



from one part of the city or its suburbs 
to another. Whether this difficulty can be 
obviated by any means of transportation 
passing along the present level of the streets, 
is doubtful ; and of late, attention has been 
turned in New York and some other large 
cities, to other means of locomotion. These, 
so far as yet proposed, are the following : 1st, 
an elevated railway sustained on pillars ris- 
ing from the curb, the cars drawn by endless 
chains set in motion by stationary engines, 
placed below the pavement. This plan has 
been tried, but has met with several acci- 
dents, which have created a popular distrust 
of it ; 2d, an elevated railway passing through 
the middle of the blocks, crossing the streets 
upon high and strong bridges, and running 
elsewhere on masonry and tressels of suffi- 
cient strength to prevent danger, and drawn 
by ordinary or dummy locomotives; 3d, an 
underground railway with openings and stair- 
ways at every three or four blocks, in New 
York, passing under Broadway or the Bow- 
ery, and having laterals running in connec- 
tion with it ; 4th, the Arcade railway plan, 
occupying the entire width of the present 
principal street, (Broadway, for instance, in 
New York,) but at the level of the present 
basements, and covered over above with 
Hyatt's patent illuminator, or some other 
mode of illumination, strong enough to per- 
mit travel, except of railroads or omnibuses, 
at the present level of the street; and with 
elegant sidewalks the whole distance, for foot 
passengers ; 5th, the pneumatic tubular rail- 
way, either elevated or underground, in 
which the cars are driven with great speed 
through a tube by means of compressed air. 
One form of this pneumatic tubular railway 
proposes to have a gigantic wooden tube 
made air-tight by the cement used for pre- 
venting leakage in petroleum barrels, and 
elevated on tressels ; through this tube the 
cars are to be driven by compressed air at a 
speed of a hundred miles an hour. The cost 
is stated as about $10,000 per mile. By 
some of these means, it is claimed that 
the speed of transit can be greatly increased 
without danger, either to the passengers or 
others, and points now distant can be 
brought practically very near to each other. 
We will conclude this chapter with an 
anecdote of the first engine introduced upon 
the Baltimore and Susquehanna railroad. 
This road was built to run with horses, and 
in some of the first circulars issued by the 
company, the road was spoken of as being 



116 



STEAM. 



delightfully picturesque, winding among 
beautiful scenery, and forming a most inter- 
esting ride — rather different from the em- 
peror of Russia's idea of a railroad, which 
he laid out with a ruler, by describing a 
straight line from Moscow to St. Petersburg. 
Against the wish of the president of the 
company an engine was imported from Eng- 
land in the brig Herald, about the year 1830, 
and was put upon the road under the man- 
agement of an English engineer. While 
standing upon the track one day, fired up 
and ready to start, the president, who was 
absent on her arrival, came down to look at 
the strange animal. He was accompanied 
by one of the directors, who had already ex- 
amined the iron steed and was desirous of 
exhibiting it to the best advantage. The 
engineer being temporarily absent, the two 
mounted upon the platform. " Thee sees, 
friend," said the director, " this lever ; well, 
by drawing it toward thee (suiting the action 
to the word ), the machine will retreat, and 
by pushing it from thee, it will advance ; 
thus the competent man can handle it as 
readily as thee can drive a horse. If thee 
turns this little crank the steam will com- 
mence working, and the engine will start." 
And sure enough the engine did start, for 
the honest Quaker, in order fully to explain 
its action, had opened the throttle. Away 
went the iron horse, affrighting them out of 
all presence of mind, and increasing in ve- 
locity at each stroke of the piston, until it 
reached one of the picturesque curves that 
had so much delighted the president, where, 
with one bound, it left the track and turned 
a summersault down the embankment. Both 
parties were hurt, but most fortunately es- 
caped with their lives. 



CHAPTER IV. 

STATIONARY ENGINES. 

This is the oldest form, being but a modi- 
fication of the first steam pumping engines ; 
not being confined to space as in the loco- 
motive and marine engine, these machines 
have admitted of a greater variation of form, 
and a better chance of artistic display than 
any other, consequently we have many in- 
stances of elaborate workmanship and a 
great variety of design. The majority of 
stationary engines in use may be divided as 
follows : the beam, the horizontal, the steeple, 



the oscillating, and the rotary engine. The 
beam engines are commonly low-pressure or 
condensing, and are mainly used for pump- 
ing, or where great power is required ; the 
motion of the piston is communicated by 
the working-beam to the pump or crank- 
shaft at the opposite side of the machine. 
The horizontal engine is probably the most 
used at a high pressure in this country ; its 
advantage is the facility with which it is 
put up, and its steady working ; every part 
being firmly attached to a solid bed, requir- 
ing but little bracing to keep it in place. 
The disadvantage of a horizontal engine is 
the unequal wear of the cylinder, due to the 
gravity of the piston. The steeple or verti- 
cal engine has, like the beam engine, an up- 
right cylinder, but is connected directly to 
the main shaft above or below. In all the 
above-named engines the cylinder is station- 
ary, and the reciprocating motion is changed 
into rotary by means of a cross-head, slides, 
and connecting-rod ; in the oscillating engine 
the cylinder vibrates upon trunions, placed 
sometimes at its centre, and sometimes at its 
end ; thus allowing the piston to be coupled 
to the crank, and doing away with the cross- 
head and slides. The advantages of this en- 
gine are its reduced size and expense. In the 
horizontal and other engines the steam valve 
is moved by an eccentric, but in some oscil- 
lators the trunion box forms a self-working 
valve both for induction at the one side and 
eduction at the other. The disadvantages of 
an oscillator are the liability to overheat its 
trunions and the difficulty of keeping them 
tight. An oscillator costs less at the start, 
but requires more oil, and is of doubtful 
economy. 

The change of the reciprocating into the 
rotary motion was a problem for many years, 
and the idea that there was a great loss of 
momentum in the constant stopping and 
starting of the piston at each end of the 
stroke induced many mechanics to study 
some method of obtaining a direct rotary 
motion, or, in other words, to produce a ro- 
tary piston. It was at once evident to the 
merest novice that a rotary engine would be 
in reality a rotary pump reversed, and con- 
sequently the rotary engines bear so strong 
a resemblance to the oldest rotary pump as 
to instantly strike the eye of any one who 
has seen the two. One of the most suc- 
cessful rotary engines of to-day is that of 
Holly, of Seneca Falls, New York, and this 
is only a modification of Murdoch's rotary 







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STATIONARY ENGINES. 



119 






engine, which is, in turn, a perfect copy of an 
old pump taken from Serviere's collection. 
It may be thus described : two cog-wheels 
fitted accurately to each other are inclosed 
in a case ; each cog is grooved and fitted 
with packing, bringing it into steam-tight 
contact with the circumference and sides of 
the case. The axles of the cog-wheels are 
continued through the sides of the case, and 
geared together at each end to prevent 
friction upon the centre cogs ; now, if re- 
volved, each cog will act as a piston, but as 
the cogs in contact in the centre lap each 
other, the piston surface at each extreme of 
the case will be just double that of the 
centre, and this surplus of force gives mo- 
tion to the two axles. The pump of which 
this engine is a copy was invented as long 
ago as the sixteenth century. 

A patent was obtained in England in 1825 
by Mr. J. Eve, an American. Within a 
cylindrical case a hollow drum was so con- 
structed as to fit closely to the case ; floats, 
or pistons, were cast upon its periphery, and 
packed to fit the cylinder ; on one side of 
the main cylinder was a small recess filled 
with a small drum, that revolved in contact 
with the main drum, this small drum having 
a segment removed to receive each piston as 
it passed, and having its diameter so pro- 
portioned to the main drum as to revolve 
once between the passage of each piston or 
float. Other rotary engines, on a plan anal- 
ogous to the above, differing only in the 
manner of opening the valve, have been in- 
vented, and copied from the ancients, some 
of which are exceedingly complicated, but 
they have always been unsuccessful in prac- 
tice, principally from the fact that it is ex- 
ceedingly difficult to pack them. If they 
could overcome this fault without adding 
friction, the rotary engine would be very 
valuable on account of the small space it 
occupies. 

The demand for stationary engines, from 
one horse power upward, during the last 
twenty-five years, has been so great that now 
almost any machine shop is prepared to build 
them, and of course, while such is the case, 
thousands of engines are annually built that 
would better bear the name of steam eaters 
than steam engines. In some of the small 
engines that flood the market, the first 
principles of steam are practically ignored, 
and there are at this moment running in the 
United States engines that consume more 
coal to do the work of ten horses than a 



properly-constructed one would use to do 
the work of twenty. As an instance of the 
truth of this statement, we will take the 
engines built by Messrs. Corliss <fe Nighten- 
gale, of Providence, over an engine that 
was working to good advantage in the 
James Mills, Newburyport, but was re- 
moved on the representation of the build- 
ers of the new machine, that they would 
take five times the saving of the first year's 
fuel as sole payment of their engine. The 
James Steam Mills contained 17,024 spin- 
dles, and, including the weaving and all 
the preparations for making sheeting and 
shirtings, required a hundred and ninety 
horse power ; their engines were condensers ; 
cylinders, twenty-four inches by four feet 
length of stroke. Ten thousand four hun- 
dred and eighty -three pounds of coal per day 
was the average amount used during rive 
years previous to the contract for the new 
engines ; this included the coal used for 
dressing, heating, and all other purposes for 
which steam is used in such an establish- 
ment. The new engines were high-pressure 
cylinders, eighteen inches by four feet stroke. 
By the terms of contract under which the 
change of engines was made, it was at the 
option of the company to pay for the new 
arrangement the sum of ten thousand five 
hundred dollars cash in lieu of the saving 
of coal ; but the choice was to be made be- 
fore the new engines were put in operation. 
In view of the favorable results obtained by 
the former engines, they decided to pay in 
the saving of fuel. The new engines were 
run one year from December 3d, 1855, and 
the average amount of coal used per day 
was found to be five thousand six hundred 
and ninety pounds. The coal being reck- 
oned at six dollars per ton, Messrs. Corliss 
<fe Nightengale received nineteen thousand 
seven hundred and thirty-four dollars and 
twenty-two cents. Thus it will be seen that 
the builders received nearly double price 
for their engine, and yet it cost the owners 
of the mill nothing for a machine that was 
destined to be a source of great saving in 
their future expenses. 

The singular character of Mr. Corliss' bar- 
gains attracted much attention to his en- 
gines, as they showed conclusively the ad- 
vantages thereof over the old plans. The 
above experiment was a comparison between 
his engine and what had been considered 
a good machine ; in the following, however, 
we see its great advantages over a more or- 



120 



STEAM. 



dinary engine. In March, 1852, Mr. Corliss 
contracted with Crocker Brothers & Co., 
of Taunton, Massachusetts, to furnish them 
with an engine that would do the same work 
they were then doing with five tons of coal 
per day, and yet only consume two ; agree- 
ing to forfeit one dollar per pound, for every 
pound per day used above that amount. 
This contract was successfully filled without 
taking out the old boilers. 

Mr. Corliss' engines possessed, as may be 
readily supposed, several important improve- 
ments, one of which was the manner by 
which its speed was regulated. Watt 
regulated by connecting the governor with 
the throttle-valve ; Corliss used no throttle- 
valve, but connected the governor direct to 
the cut-oft". This connection of the gover- 
nor was not of itself the improvement of 
Mr. Corliss, as that had already been done 
by others ; but it was the manner by which 
this connection was made, which was at once 
simple and efficacious, for which he deserves 
credit. The use of the throttle-valve was 
always attended with a wire-drawing of the 
steam. This wire-drawing is a reduction of 
the expansive force of the steam, and is al- 
ways attended with more or less condensa- 
tion ; so that every form of cut-oft', used 
with a throttle, is more or less imperfect. 
By thus dispensing with the throttle-valve 
altogether, and opening the steam-valve sud- 
denly, the pressure of steam in the cylinder 
approximates very closely to the boiler pres- 
sure. The valves in the Corliss engine are 
circular ; and by his automatic method of 
varying the point of cut-off, he gains a great 
advantage, as he cuts off suddenly without 
danger of slamming, as in the use of the 
puppet-valve. 

The Corliss engines are manufactured with 
extreme care; and Mr. Corliss, in 1869, re- 
ceived the great Rumford medal for the 
greatest improvement in the construction of 
steam-engines; a medal which has been 
awarded but twice in more than sixty years. 
When we add the fact that one-half of the 
stationary engines in the United States are 
run by boys or men not capable of manag- 
ing a modern cooking-stove, the reader can 
realize to some extent the economy of cheap 
(?) engines and cheap (?) engineers. Steam 
is a good slave but a bad master ; and the 
fearful loss of life in the United States 
during the past forty years, from the explo- 
sion of steam boilers, is mainly due to bad 
management. Boilers are in constant use 
all over the country, carrying a pressure 



double — nay, triple — that for which they 
were intended ; the safety (?) valve weight- 
ed down by old pieces of iron, stones, etc., 
to such an extent that the runner no more 
knows what pressure he is using, than does 
the stranger who is passing his door. # In 
thousands of cases the steam-gauge, which, 
at least, gives the pressure when in order, 
is not used, or never tested ; and what was 
intended as a preventive, becomes, by a stop- 
page in the connecting pipe or a derange- 
ment of its machinery, a source of treach- 
erous security. Many a man, on being asked 
why he does not use a steam-gauge, will re- 
ply that they are not reliable, or that the 
safety-valve is good enough ; and yet that 
same man is perhaps employing an engineer 
that could not calculate, to save his life, the 
amount of pressure he was carrying, or, the 
size of his safety-valve being given, tell its 
area in square inches. " We can point out 
places where the engines, beautifully de- 
signed and executed in their details, are 
nothing but a mass of slime and grease from 
bed-plate to cylinder-head, the deposit of 
no one knows how many weeks of inatten- 
tion and neglect, while a stolid runner sits 
calmly by, as though rather admiring the 
state of things than otherwise. When such 
is the case where every thing is visible, where 
is the necessity of looking among the usual- 
ly unsearched portions of the machine for 
safety and economy." 

One of these steam boilers blew up in 
Brooklyn, in 1859, and Mr. J. C. Merriam, a 
scientific practical engineer, was sent for to 
examine it. He found that in this case, 
as in many others, the engineer did not 
understand nis business, as was sufficiently 
evident from the following reasons : his 
pump was small, but sufficiently large if in 
good order — which it certainly was not ; he 
took out the piston with ease, and put it back 
again readily, although it was entirely cov- 
ered with the coarse gravel and sand thrown 
about by the explosion. The safety-valve 
was held in its place by a rod passing through 
a plate ; this rod, originally a good tit, was 
so firmly rusted in its place, that all the force 
he could exert on the end of the lever was 
not sufficient to move it. He unscrewed 
this plate, and it required two or three smart 
blows of the hammer to drive the rod out. 
In his opinion, it would have taken not lees 
than twelve hundred pounds in the boiler to 
have started that valve, allowing that it had 
the weight upon it that he saw. The owner 



STATIONARY ENGINES. 



121 



stated that the valve always leaked more or 
less ; but on looking at it he was convinced 
•that if it rested upon its seat, it never could 
have leaked, as it was a ground joint and a 
good one. He consequently came to the 
conclusion that the valve was not held in its 
place by the weight on the lever, but simply 
by the rust on the valve-rod or stem, the 
weight at tbe end having nothing to do with 
it. The safety-valve was bolted on to the 
steam dome with four 5-8 bolts, and was 
evidently blown off at the same instant as 
the flue collapsed, as it was found in the 
shop near the engine, while the boiler was 
thrown at least seventy-five feet against a 
house. 

We might name scores of other accidents 
resulting from similar causes, of which the 
above is a fair sample ; but it is evident 
enough, from what we have already said, that 
there is a want in the community yet un- 
filled — one that should receive the careful 
attention of every public man. What we 
need is a law compelling the owners of steam 
boilers to have them inspected at least once 
a year, and properly provided with safety- 
valves and other trustworthy appliances; it 
also should be imperatively their duty to 
employ engineers, and not mere runners. A 
law framed upon the United States steam- 
boat inspection plan would be of incalcula- 
ble benefit to the owners themselves, as well 
as the community at large. 

The gradual introduction of the station- 
ary engine has been of infinite value to our 
country as it is, but if rendered safe as it 
might be, its value would be increased four- 
fold. It is now no longer necessary that 
the manufacturer should locate beside a 
waterfall, and transport his manufactured 
goods for miles to a market ; he can estab- 
lish himself beside the railroad, the steam- 
boat, nay, in the city itself, where his cus- 
tomers dwell. Thus, the stationary engine 
tends to centralize manufactures, while the 
locomotive and steamboat lengthen the arms 
of trade. 

The portable engine has lately come into 
general use, and, like the stationary, is made 
of various forms, in all of which it resembles 
the latter, with the exception of placing the 
engine directly upon, or against the boiler. 
These engines are used wherever it is neces- 
sary to do work sufficiently great to pay for 
them, but not for permanent business, such 
as pile driving, excavating, etc. Among the 
simplest of this class of engines, may be 



mentioned Reed's oscillator, and the Wood 
& Mann steam-engine Co.'s. A portable en- 
gine manufactured at the Washington Iron 
Works, contains all the safety and economic 
appliances of the best stationary engines ; 
a description of this will answer for this 
class of machines. The boiler is tubu- 
lar, commonly called a locomotive boiler, 
and is mounted upon two large wheels at the 
fire-box end, and two small wheels at the 
smoke-box end, so fitted as to turn beneath 
the barrel. The steam dome is over the fire- 
box, and is fitted with safety-valve and steam 
gauge. The cylinder is fastened to a hollow 
frame that serves as a feed-water heater, and 
is placed very near the steam dome, thereby 
preventing radiation in the steam pipe. 
Upon the top of the steam chest is placed 
the governor. On the front of the boiler 
we find the smoke pipe, and, directly behind 
it, the main shaft and a pair of balance 
wheels. The next matter of interest is the 
arrangement of the main slide-valve of the 
engine, which is well known to cause much 
loss of power, in the ordinary construction, 
by the friction caused by the pressure of 
steam on its back. This is entirely relieved 
by a very simple method in this engine. 
The valve, which is an ordinary one, has a 
solid protection at each end, which rests on 
a roller. These rollers are made at first 
slightly too small, but the grinding away of 
the valve on its seat soon causes the projec- 
tions to rest on the rollers, when all the slid- 
ing friction at once ceases, and the valve 
works free from friction except that caused 
by the stuffing-box around its rod. It is ev- 
ident that this arrangement will not readily 
get out of order, for when the rollers wear, 
it brings the valve on the seat, which at once 
begins to wear, and the pressure once more 
is brought on the rollers ; hence, it is self- 
adjusting. The rollers being removed, re- 
duces it to the usual slide-valve. 

The force pump has been a fruitful source 
of trouble to all those who have ever had 
charge of a small steam engine having a 
quick motion; indeed, it frequently gives 
trouble in larger engines, from the accumu- 
lation of air in the chamber, which prevents 
its suction. It is usual to have attached to 
the lower part of the pump, or valve cham- 
ber, a small air-cock, and, when the pump is 
to start, the attendant places his finger on its 
extremity as soon as the plunger reaches the 
bottom of the pump, thus expelling the air; 
then, on the rise of the plunger, a vacuum is 



122 



STEAM. 



formed, and the pump fills with water; the 
cock is then closed, and the pump left to it- 
self. As soon, however, as air collects from 
any defect of packing, or otherwise, the 
pump ceases to work, and has to be again 
started as before. This difficulty is entirely 
got rid of by the simple contrivance of an 
air-trap, whose valve, opening outward at 
each downward stroke of the pump, allows 
the air to escape, accompanied with a little 
water, and closes by the atmospheric pres- 
sure as the plunger rises. 

Within the last five years, the labor of 
loading and unloading vessels at our wharves 
has been performed by hoisting engines. 
These are all run at high pressure, and do 
the work with economy and dispatch. One 
of the best of these machines is made at 
the shop of Hittinger & Cook. Several of 
the ocean steamers carry them to use at 
the other end of the route. The hoisting so 
much resembles the portable engine, as not 
to require especial explanation. 

In most of the steam sawmills in the 
United States, the fuel consists of the saw- 
dust made at the mills, and thus the cost of 
running is greatly reduced ; in other en- 
gines, coal is almost exclusively used. In 
fact, the enormous amount of wood con- 
sumed by steam engines throughout the 
United States, has so called the attention of 
mechanics to coal-burning engines, that it is 
not probable we shall use wood as fuel 
many years longer. One of the greatest 
fields for economy in the use of steam, now 
open, is the waste of combustible gases by 
the chimney, commonly spoken of under the 
term smoke, but often consisting of the best 
part of the fuel, unconsumed from the lack of 
oxygen, and, in some cases, lack of caloric. 
Tubes, to conduct atmospheric air to the sur- 
face of the fire, have been in use some time, 
also the perforation of the fire door; but 
the tubes being exposed to an intense heat, 
soon become of no value, and the openings 
at the door and sides of the fire-box only 
partially supply the oxygen. A Mr. Pierce, 
of Troy, has patented a plan for surrounding 
the air tubes with water, thus protecting a 
passage direct to the middle of the fire ; we 
have not seen this plan tried, but think it 
would be a source of economy. 

Stationary engines being the most plenty, 
it is upon them that are tried nearly all the 
new experiments. At the present time, the 
use of super-heated steam is attracting a 
great deal of attention. In order to under- 



stand this subject, it is necessary that we 
should look closely into the nature of steam 
itself. It would defeat the purpose of this 
article if we were to go into a lengthy argu- 
ment upon the relative merits of the various 
theories that have been advanced by scien- 
tific men upon steam, and, consequently, we 
shall merely give our own opinions upon the 
subject — opinions at which we have arrived 
by careful study and experience, it being 
understood that the laws of steam are at 
best comparatively unknown. The analyza- 
tion of simple steam is yet to be made ; we 
will, however, call it water converted into 
an aeriform state by the electrization of its 
particles by caloric. Simple steam does not, 
however, in the present construction of boil- 
ers, come into use as a motor, from the follow- 
ing reason : steam has the same affinity for 
liquids that all fluids have, forming an elec- 
tro-magnetic combination to which there is 
no barrier ; it will then absorb and hold in 
suspension particles of water whenever in 
direct contact therewith, and, consequently, 
all steam formed in the boiler will hold in 
suspension a portion of water, and become, 
in lieu of simple, surcharged steam. Thus, 
steam at 20 lbs. to the square inch holds 
in suspension nearly double its weight of 
water. What is the effect of this ? First, 
the water thus carried oft* in suspension is 
at the maximum temperature, or equal to 
that of the steam containing it, and the in- 
vested heat of this water is not only wasted 
to a great extent, but these water particles 
become a very serious tax upon the real 
steam with which they are admixed, as fol- 
lows : having been heated under the maxi- 
mum pressure of the steam with which they 
are incorporated, they have a corresponding 
temperature, and as the latter, the steam, 
expands in the steam pipes, on its way to 
the cylinder, and in the cylinder itself, the 
pressure becoming correspondingly less, 
these particles flash partially into steam, but 
not containing the total amount of heat neces- 
sary to their constitution as elastic vapor, they 
absorb into the " latent " form a quota of 
heat from the surrounding particles of true 
steam, thus condensing them ; for steam, be 
it remembered, can part with no portion of 
its legitimate heat without condensation 
(unless it be super-heat, of which presently), 
it being understood that the absorption of 
sensible heat (temperature) into the " latent" 
form, and which is the exact measure of the 
force exerted by steam under all circum- 



THE BAXTER STEAM-ENGINE,— Front view.— Ready fob USE 








S -i 



STATIONARY ENGINES. 



125 



stances, whether usefully realized or not, is 
not here meant as a loss of heat. That 
there is a loss by direct condensation because 
of the presence and action of these water 
particles as explained, may seem to some at 
the first glance ;i paradox, but there is in the 
case of steam, and between the particles of 
all matter, a certain impetus and momentum 
in the transference of that unknown some- 
thing;, which is their " vis viva" or cause of 
elasticity. The electrician knows this well ; 
vide the "lateral discharge" and return stroke. 
Again, for more common place example, 
fasten by one extremity a straight spring, bend 
it, release it, it flies back, not to its original 
position of rest or neutral point, but far 
beyond, though finally it will settle there. 
And so it might be held that the particles 
of steam would make " reprisal," so to speak, 
of the heat stolen by the particles of water 
flashing into steam, as set forth ; and so they 
do, but meantime the piston is moving on, 
and this heat, the source of the elastic force 
of the steam, cannot, it will be evident, be 
acting efficiently in two or more directions 
at the same time ; but this is not all, the 
more watery particles in the steam, the more 
heat wasted by conduction to, and radiation 
from, the steam pipes, cylinders, etc. 

Water is classed as a non-conductor of 
heat to a high degree, but it is a medium 
radiator, and it vastly exceeds steam and 
other aeriform fluids in both these respects. 
This, to a great extent, accounts for the sud- 
den falling off of power during " priming," 
so well known. But there is still another, 
as it were, negative loss due to this water 
carried off in the steam, because, by its 
minute subdivision, it exposes an immense 
surface to heat, particularly radiated heat, 
that might be brought to act upon it, 
and thus quickly transform it into perfect 
steam, much augmenting the volume of the 
whole, and being generated at less cost than 
the first portion which held it in suspension ; 
and it is through the avoidance of the evils 
before mentioned as due to these water 
particles, and the gain produced by their 
conversion into clastic steam, that so much 
economy is found in the use of super-heated 
steam, which is steam that has received an 
excess of heat (temperature) beyond that 
normally due to .its pressure when in direct 
contact with the water from whence it em- 
anated. The system, however, is fallacious, 
because pure steam, and all other known 
aeriform fluids, expand only about l-540tk 
8 



part of their volume, at the ordinary atmos- 
pheric temperature, for each degree of Fah. 
additional forced upon them. Pure steam 
thus, say at twenty pounds to the square 
inch, would require to be elevated to a tem- 
perature of about eight hundred Fahrenheit 
to double its volume if under a constant 
pressure, or to double its pressure if under a 
constant volume (the quantity of heat being, 
however, very different in the two cases) ; 
whereas the mere added temperature in tins 
case would correspond to that of simple 
steam at a pressure of about seven hundred 
and fifty pounds to the square inch, not to 
mention that such, and far less temperatures, 
would destroy all packings, prevent lubrica- 
tion, cause " cutting," warp valves, etc. 
There are other practical defects. Although 
there is no difficulty in super-heating the 
steam to any desired extent according to the 
size of the super-heating vessel and the part 
of the smoke or fire space in which it may 
be located, yet it is very difficult, if not im- 
practicable, to maintain a proper average un- 
der the influence of fluctuating fires — at one 
time in full glow, at another freshly trimmed, 
and an uneven draft, damp or dry, weak or 
strong ; the engine at one time under full 
motion, and a rapid flow of steam passing 
through the super-heater, and at another 
time the engine stopped, and there being 
little or no flow of moist steam through it 
to protect it from being overheated and 
"burnt out," or rendered brittle and insecure. 
Hence, if super-heating be attempted at all, 
it should be to the minimum degree, and 
not with the expectation of an important 
access of power that no degree will afford, 
but only to an extent sufficient to supply 
radiation from the various parts of the en- 
gine, etc., during the travel and action of 
the steam, thus preventing its condensation,, 
which, to a given extent, involves not only 
that much immediate loss, but the more im- 
portant coactive evils due to the presence 
of watery particles. The great and main 
object, then, is accomplished by the produc- 
tion and- use of simple (dry) steam ; any 
modicum of water present possessing but 
the negative advantage of supplying lubrica- 
tion, and any " super" heat, that of supplying 
radiation. 

A few words on the subject of large pump- 
ing engines, may be of interest to out read- 
ers. Opinions have been much divided as 
to the comparative success of the Cornish 
engines, and other models. An opportunity 



126 



STEAM. 



offered in 1859-60 of putting the question 
to a practical test. The Nassau Water De- 
partment of Brooklyn, N. Y., required a 
pumping engine to raise the water from their 
conduit into their great distributing reser- 
voir, for the supply of that rapidly growing 
city. Their board of engineers, thoroughly 
informed as to what Cornish engines had 
done elsewhere, stipulated that the engine to 
be contracted for should be required to lift 
six hundred thousand pounds of water, one 
foot with one pound of coal ; that it should 
deliver ten million gallons of water into the 
reservoir every twenty -four hours, and be 
capable of doing that amount of work in 
sixteen hours. Messrs. Woodruff and Beach, 
(now the Woodruff and Beach Iron Works,) 
of Hartford, Connecticut, took the contract, 
and their pumping engine, a double-acting 
Cornish engine, with some modifications and 
improvements, stood the test as to duty, 
(600,000 pounds of water raised one foot by 
one pound of coal,) and exceeded the test as 
to capacity, delivering 14,500,000 gallons in 
twenty-four hours, and when crowded doing 
nearly as much in sixteen hours. At the 
time of its erection, it was unquestionably 
the most powerful pumping engine in the 
world. 

The work required of this engine soon 
-proved too severe for it, and in 1862 a second 
engine of nearly the same pattern, though 
with some minor improvements, was built 
by the same manufacturers, and placed along 
•side the first. Though testing up to the re- 
quirement of the engineers in the matter of 
•duty, neither of these engines, in actual prac- 
tice, has exceeded 543,488 foot pounds per 
pound of coal, and the first engine has not, 
since 1865, exceeded 500,000 foot pounds. 
For several years the pumping duty of the 
two engines was comparatively light, as, un- 
til 1865, a daily consumption of ten million 
gallons of water was never reached ; but 
from that time the consumption has rapidly 
increased, and both engines requiring very 
frequent repairs, and falling off in the amount 
of their work, a third engine of greater power 
than either of the others was ordered, and 
this time of a somewhat different construc- 
tion. This engine, built by Messrs. Hubbard 
and Whitaker of the Burdon Iron Works, 
Brooklyn, is called a beam rotative engine, 
with a "Thames Ditton" pump attached, 
placed directly under the steam cylinder, and 
worked by a continuation of the main piston 
.rod through the bottom of the cylinder. 



The fly-wheel for regulating the motion of 
the engine is twenty-six feet in diameter, 
with rim twelve inches face by eighteen 
inches deep. The distribution valves are 
the double poppet or balance valves; and 
the point of cut-off, or degree of expansion, 
is determined by the time of tripping or 
dropping the steam valves, which point is 
regulated by the engineer. The bore of the 
pump cylinder is 50-^- inches, and tihc diam- 
eter of the plunger 38 inches — the stroke of 
both steam pistor and pump piston being 9 
feet and 11-f inches. The air chamber for 
the pump is six feet in diameter, and about 
35 feet in extreme height, with a semi- 
globular top or cover, and has a diaphragm 
division-plate fitted with check-valves to reg- 
ulate the return flow. There is no feed pump 
connected with the engine for supplying the 
boilers, this being done by an independent 
steam pump. For supplying this engine 
with steam there are five " drop return-flue 
boilers," seven feet in diameter, and twenty- 
four feet in length, well set in brick mason- 
ry ; so arranged that any number or all of 
them can be shut off at pleasure. 

This engine, undoubtedly the largest and 
most powerful pumping engine in the world, 
was set in November, 1869, and tested both 
for duty and capacity, in December, by 
Messrs. Worthen and Copeland, eminent and 
disinterested engineers. Its average results 
on the " duty " test were 750,000 pounds of 
water raised one foot with a pound of coal ; 
its capacity, the pumping at the ordinary 
speed 18,500,000 gallons of water into the 
reservoir in twenty-four hours, with a proved 
capacity for pumping 21,000,000 gallons in 
the same time. The consumption of the 
Ridgewood water is now (18/0) a little short 
of twenty million gallons per day, at some 
seasons of the year, so that this engine is 
capable, upon an emergency, of doing the 
entire work. The frictional loss between the 
cylinder and pump, new as the engine was, 
did not exceed 7-£ per cent. Remarkable as 
this performance is, it will undoubtedly be 
surpassed within the next ten years. 



CHAPTER V. 

STEAM PUMPS. 

The great desideratum in a machine for 
extinguishing fires, is the rapidity with which 




'AMOSKEAG" DOUBLE PLUNGER STEAM FIRE ENGINE. CRANE NECK FRAME. 




"AMOSKEAG" SELF-PROPELLING STEAM FIRE ENGINE. CRANE NECK FRAME. 



STEAM PUMPS. 



129 



it can be set to work, and next to this the 
quantity of water it will throw to a given 
height or distance. The machines that best 
filled these conditions were doubtless the 
American hand fire engines; but steam has 
now turned fireman, and in the contest 
between his iron arms and human muscle, 
we can readily determine the result. At 
first, time was the all-important item ; all 
were ready to acknowledge that after the fire 
had attained full headway,the untiring efforts 
of steam were all-powerful, but as the major- 
ity of our fires were nipped in the bud by 
the rapidity with which the hand engines 
were brought to bear, it was not believed 
that steam would ever become economical, 
and rarely efficacious. An engine was con- 
structed for the insurance companies of 
New York some twenty years since, but 
abandoned as too expensive ; it was located 
in a house containing a boiler, wherein steam 
was constantly kept up at a low pressure, 
and so arranged as to discharge its water 
into the engine on an alarm of fire being 
given ; beneath the boiler of the engine, sha- 
vings and light fuel were kept constantly 
laid, so that by the time the machine reached 
the fire it would have steam up and be ready 
for use. This was planned by Ericsson, who 
also planned the Braithwaites engine, used 
in England. The latter had two cylinders 
of about six inches in diameter, one for 
steam and the other as a pump ; they were 
placed horizontally. This engine would de- 
liver nine thousand gallons of water per 
hour to the height of ninety feet. The time 
consumed in getting to work from cold water 
was eighteen minutes. An engine built for 
the Prussian government in 1832 had two 
steam cylinders of twelve inches in diameter, 
with fourteen inch stroke, and two pumping 
cylinders of ten inches diameter. With a 
steam pressure of seventy pounds per square 
inch, this engine threw an inch and one 
quarter stream one hundred and twenty feet 
perpendicular ; and an average duty was 
called ninety tons per hour. She consumed 
three bushels of coke per hour. 

Such were the first steam fire engines. 
Experiments were frequently tried in the 
United States, but the whole subject re- 
mained in doubt until the year 1852, when 
the first public trial was made in Cincinnati. 
A steam generator, or boiler, which had been 
made for the purpose, was placed in connection 
with a steam cylinder and the pump of a fire en- 
gine belonging to the city, the whole mounted 



on suitable wheels and frame. A committee of 
the city council witnessed the experiment. 
From their report it appears that steam was 
raised from cold water, the engine started, 
and water discharged from the nozzle to the 
distance of one hundred and thirty feet, 
through three hundred and fifty feet of hose, 
in four minutes and ten seconds from the 
time that smoke was seen to issue from the 
chimney. The demonstration was convinc- 
ing, and did convince. The city council 
contracted for a steam engine to be built on 
the same plan, and this engine, when com- 
pleted, was placed in service under the 
charge of a company organized and put un- 
der pay by the city. Thus the first paid fire 
company, to operate with the untiring energy 
of steam, was brought into existence — the 
first of the kind in any age or country. 
Steam, whose resistless power had been so 
extensively used in the fabrication, develop- 
ment, and transportation of property, was at 
last compelled to aid in its preservation from 
fire. Its superiority over muscular power, 
acknowledged for other purposes so numer- 
ous, was to be asserted against conflagration ; 
and a city not a century old, west of the 
Alleghanies, attracts the applause of intelli- 
gent men everywhere, and the pride of 
western men, as the scene of this achieve- 
ment. 

After this successful experiment and the 
organization of the paid department, Miles 
Greenwood was appointed chief engineer, 
and it is to his energy and perseverance that 
we owe the success of the steam fire engine. 
These steamers were constructed by Messrs. 
A. & B. Latta ; the first in service was called 
the " Uncle Joe Ross." The circulation in 
the boiler is kept up by pumping, and thus 
steam is generated in a very short space of 
time; it is not, however, unattended with 
danger. After the success of Latta's en- 
gines, several manufacturers went into the 
business. Reaney He Xeaty. of Philadelphia ; 
■Lee & Lamed, of New York ; Silsby ftlan- 
uf'g Co., of Seneca Falls ; the Amoskeag 
Manufacturing Company ; the Boston Loco- 
motive Works, and several others, Reaney & 
Xeaty used what is commonly called the 
locomotive boiler ; their engines gave good 
satisfaction, and at a trial in Boston, in 1 858, 
they received the prize over three competi- 
tors. Of the Lee <fe Lamed self-propeller 
we have already spoken (J. C. Cary and 
J. G. Storm) ; they, however, build a light 
hand engine, and have heretofore furnished 



130 



STEAM. 



all the steamers for New York city. Their 
boiler is of the upright annular form, Gary's 
patent, and their pump is rotary, patented by 
the same man. 

The Amoskeag steam fire engine has some 
peculiar features, among which may be named 
the vertical cylinders and pumps, by the use 
of which they avoid to a certain extent the 
shaking that is so objectionable in some of 
the other machines ; also the arrangement of 
their gauge cocks so as to cover the whole 
side of the boiler and show at once the 
height of the water, which is used in this 
boiler at a very low point in commencing, 
thereby enabling them to get up steam very 
rapidly. At a trial in New York in Septem- 
ber, 1860, they obtained a working pressure 
from water at 90° Fahrenheit in three and 
one-half minutes. These machines have 
thrown a one and three-quarter inch stream 
two hundred and twenty-five feet high. They 
weigh about six thousand pounds, and are 
intended to be drawn by horses. The Silsby 
Man'f'g Co. engines are entirely different 
from any other in their construction and 
operation ; the engine and pump are both 
rotary, and are built after Holly's patent ; 
we have already spoken of this engine under 
the head of Stationaries. The weight of 
these machines is as follows : to be drawn by 
men — three thousand eight hundred pounds 
lijiht; four thousand three hundred pounds 
with fuel, water, suction hose, etc., all ready 
for service ; this size is warranted to force 
a one and one-eighth inch stream t\\ o hun- 
dred and fii'ty feet, or two, one hundred and 
eighty feet, with a steam pressure of from 
forty to sixty pounds. To be diawn by 
horses — five thousand one hundred pounds 
light ; five thou and eight hundred ready for 
service ; forces a one and one half inch 
stream two hundred and for y feet, or two 
one inch streams the same distance. These 
machines will gjt to work in from four to 
six minutes. An engine of this style in 
Providence, R. I. (where they have seven 
in service), weighing h\e thousand and eight 
hundred pounds, threw a one and a quarter 
inch stream two hundred and fifty- five feet 
horizontal. One great advantage of the Hol- 
ly pump is that it runs steadily, no chocking 
being required to keep the engine in place 
while on duty, as is the ease with all engines 
having reciprocating pumps. 

Other steam fire engines, for the u-e of 
factories and large buildings, not intended 
to be transported, have been in existence 



for a greater length of time ; these machines 
are also used as auxiliary pumps tor supply- 
ing water to the boilers of larger engines, 
and are generally called " doctors," or 
" donkeys." Among the best of these 
are Worthington's and Woodward's steam 
pumps. The importance of an auxiliary 
pump, in all cases, cannot be too much 
dwelt upon. If the pump be attached to 
the main engine, it is evident that on the 
lack of water in the boiler, the main engine 
must be started. This is not always possi- 
ble. A sudden break down in a mill 
would necessitate the uncoupling of the 
shafting before the boiler could be fed. The 
lack of water at a station when waiting for 
a train, obliges the engineer to run back and 
forth upon the road ; and if a boat stops at 
a wharf, or is enveloped in a fog, the power 
that works the pump ceases with the engine. 
But how is it when the engine itself breaks 
down, or the locomotive is embedded in a 
snow bank, as is sometimes the case ? Why, 
the engineer must draw his fires to avoid 
ruining his boiler. Bearing these facts in 
mind, the advantages of an extra steam 
pump are obvious. 

The Worthington pump is exceedingly 
simple in its construction ; as the reciprocating 
motion in the steam and water cylinder is 
the exact motion required, the cross-head, 
slides, and balance wheel are dispensed with 
as useless. In the Woodward, however, 
the connecting-rod, crank, and wheel are 
retained to give motion to the valve, which 
in W T orthington's pump is moved by an arm 
attached to the piston rod. Both of these 
pumps are favorites, and it is difficult to 
judge which is best. The importance of 
these steam pumps as auxiliaries is not, how- 
ever, their only advantage. On board of 
our steamboats, such pumps as are provided 
in case of fire are often rendered of no avail 
by the necessity that exists of stopping the 
progress of the boat in order to check the 
current of air, which otherwise would in- 
crease the flames. And let a fire engine be 
kept on board for the single purpose of ex- 
tinguishing fires if they happen — does not 
our common experience teach us that in so 
imminent a danger, when all are seeking 
personal safety, and unwilling to await the 
issue of a doubtful effort for the general 
preservation, such a machine will be found a 
very questionable dependence ? Will they 
not be difficult of access at the moment, or 
out of order, from rust or disuse, when most 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



131 



needed ? And does the confusion, which is 
always attendant upon such an occasion, al- 
low of reasonable hope that they will be 
found and repaired in time to be of use ? 

These are questions which can, perhaps, 
be best answered by those who have wit- 
nessed the scene of a steamboat on fire. 
But with the " donkey" engine, the case is 
quite different ; being constantly in use, it is 
always in order, and in case of fire it can at 
once be brought to bear upon the flames ; it 
is also always at hand in case of a leak that 
overpowers all other available pumps; and, in 
fact, its advantages are so great that no boat, 
locomotive, or stationary engine should ever 
be run without one. For large pumping 
operations, also, it is believed that the 
Worthington pump has many advantages. 
The power is direct, all the motions are 
rectilinear, the friction is not great, nor is the 
wear excessive. A steam and a pump cylin- 
der attached to one frame, with two pistons, 
two valves, and two rods, comprise the whole 
machine. The economy of the donkey 
engines is obvious where steam is only em- 
ployed for boiling, or for warming buildings, 
and where the large and costly engines usu- 
ally provided in such cases, are used solely 
for driving a pump to supply the boiler. 
The steam used to drive it, whether of high 
or low pressure, is, of course, just adequate 
to the required work of forcing water into 
the boiler against the same pressure. 

The Worthington pumps are made of a 
great variety of sizes, from the miniature 
ones used as feeders on the Lee & Lamed 
fire engines, up to the huge pumping engines 
for water works. The only fault we have 
ever heard found with them is the trouble of 
starting; this cannot, however, be very great, 
inasmuch as a pump, to be efficacious as a 
feeder for a fire engine, must be readily 
started or it would be almost valueless. The 
Woodward pump has much more brass 
used in its construction than any other, and 
is therefore not so liable to rust. The Holly 
pump has been constructed as an auxiliary 
engine, and, in fact, on some of their larger 
machines a small one is used as a feeder; it 
occupies but very little space, and is well 
spoken of by those who have used it. A 
pumping engine manufactured by Messrs. 
Carpenter & Plass, of New York, patent til 
in 1859, and has the advantage over the 
Worthington of starting at once on open- 
ing the throttle; it being fully as simple. 
Other pumps of this class are manufactured 



all over the country, but none are so well 
known as the ones we have named. On 
some of the western steamboats they use 
small engines of the ordinary construction 
attached to the common force pump, but in 
no case are they so compact, easy of repair 
or durable as the above-named steam pumps. 



CHAPTER VI. 

MISCELLANEOUS. 

In the former chapters we have set forth 
the various forms in which the adaptation 
of steam is most familiar to the community ; 
in all of which steam was used as a motor 
only ; and before dismissing this portion of 
the labor of steam, Ave will allude briefly to 
some other machines, destined, perhaps, to 
effect as great a revolution in other branches 
of industry, as the locomotive and steam- 
boat have in transportation, and the sta- 
tionary in manufactures. Agriculture — that 
wide extended base, upon which we have 
built up this great fabric of commerce, 
manufacture, and trade — has been the last to 
experience a direct benefit from steam. 
The farmer is pre-eminently conservative, to 
which the monotonous routine of his business 
predisposes him ; but the course of the giant 
worker, steam, is irresistible, and he, too, at 
last accepts its aid. For some time past the 
portable engine has been introduced to as- 
sist the farmer in the laborious duties of his 
calling, and soon will the iron horse be 
chained to the plough, swing the gleaming 
scythe, sow, reap, thresh, and winnow, while 
the husbandman will guide and direct the 
iron arms which do his bidding uncom- 
plainingly. Already has the shriek of our 
new friend been heard upon the western 
prairie field, and the smooth-turned furrow 
attested his strength, but as yet he takes 
not kindly to his new-found toil, and the 
brains of a score of inventors are at work to 
teach him this new duty. " God speed the 
(steam) plough," say we. 

But this great problem, the education of 
steam to its new duty, presents many diffi- 
culties. There are three kinds of engines — 
the locomotive, the portable, and the sta- 
tionary — capable of being employed in steam 
cultivation; and there may, consequently, 
be three kinds of steam cultivators invented, 
each characterized, in its general features, 
by the kind of engine employed; though 



132 



under each class there may be many modi- 
fications of parts, rendering the members of 
the same class as widely different as those 
of different classes. These varieties would 
be determined by the structure, form, or 
size of the engine itself; by the mode of 
conveying the power to the tools or imple- 
ments with which it works ; and by the na- 
ture of the tools or implements it uses. 
First, then, the locomotive steam plough ; this 
may be employed to draw a gang of ploughs 
after it, or by a series of knives, cutters, or 
some form of cultivator, turn up the ground 
as it passes. The moving of this great mass, 
however, consumes much of the power, and 
the difficulty presented by steep grades is 
very great. The mere sinking of the wheels 
may be obviated, as it is in the Fawkes 
engine, by broad wheels, but even these 
sometimes slip. In Boydell's engines the 
machine lays and takes up alternately a suc- 
cession of rails, upon which to roll. Hacket 
proposed to lay a temporary rail, but found 
it very expensive. The use of legs, or 
pushers, has also been tried in England, but 
was not successful. 

The portable engine has been used in 
several ways. As a cultivator it was mount- 
ed upon a wagon drawn by horses. As a 
plough it has been placed by the side of the 
field, working a gang of ploughs by chains 
and cables; and after finishing one field, 
easily transported to another ; this was called 
in England the AVolston system, but is at 
best very slow. The portable engine has 
also been used with anchors, and to warp, 
or draw itself along by stretched ropes. 
Each of the above methods of employing 
steam has its peculiar difficulties and de- 
fects. In the first one, two horses would be 
required to draw an engine of the lightest 
construction over safe ground, and up and 
down hill ; and the advantage of the ma- 
chine over animal power alone, would be 
only the difference between its work and 
what the team would do without it. The 
inventor, however, calculates that with an 
engine of two horse power, and of suitable 
construction, working a revolving axle, carry- 
ing tires armed with a kind of short spade 
toward their points, he can do the work of 
twelve horses, giving the work of ten horses 
and their attendants for the cost of feed and 
repairs, pay of attendants, interest of capital, 
etc. In the Wolston method the mode of 
transferring the power is indirect, the ap- 
paratus is complex and clumsy, and its sue-. 



cess, thus far, has been but small. In the 
third plan, or that of the warping engine, 
the inventor asserts that he requires an en- 
gine of less than one-half the weight, power, 
or cost of any locomotive; that he avoids 
all indirect strain upon his cable, by getting 
the engine to warp itself from one side of 
the field to the other, by means of a single 
rope passing a couple of times round a 
drum ; that the anchor at either side can be 
removed and passed forward six or eight 
feet, by one man, while the engine is trav- 
elling across the field ; that, when using 
rotary cultivators, he has but little strain 
upon his cable ; and, lastly, that when he is 
drawing ploughs, etc., he has the whole trac- 
tion power of his cable to prevent his being 
brought to a stand by his wheels slipping. 
The stationary engine has been used to 
some extent, but we do not think it has 
sufficient merit ever to come into practical 
use. 

As a motor for a dredging machine for 
deepening our rivers and harbors, steam has 
been in use since the time of Oliver Evans ; 
and as an excavator it has long ago dis- 
tanced human opposition. The millions of 
dollars that are annually expended in exca- 
vating earth, have attracted the attention of 
inventors to devise modes of aiding the 
operation by machinery, and large and 
costly machines have been made for this pur- 
pose in certain situations, especially in deep 
cuts of soft sand, which work well, and per- 
form the labor of many men. Among many 
others, Messrs. Goodale & Marsh patented 
last year a machine that not only acts as an 
excavator, but transports the earth to the 
desired place of deposit, it being intended 
to work in ground free from large stones, or 
nearly so, and where the hills are not too 
steep for the ascent and descent of a loco- 
motive running on broad wheels on the 
ground. This machine will prove particu- 
larly useful in the west. 

Steam has always benefited the farmer 
by bringing him nearer to a market, and in- 
asmuch as it reduces the expense thereof, 
it necessarily adds to his profit. The hand- 
ling of the large amount of grain that an- 
nually passes through the large warehouses 
of our western cities, is of itself no small 
item, and here, too, steam lends its assistance, 
being adapted to the large steam elevators 
of Chicago. It has benefited the black- 
smith indirectly by blowing his furnaces 
and driving the trip hammers, and directly 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



133 



within the past ten years in the immense 
steam hammers, where it is so much under 
control as to give a blow of several tons 
weight, or crack a walnut in the attendant's 
fingers without harming him. For this ad- 
vantage we were at first indebted to Eng- 
land ; but we arc improving upon the model, 
and steam hammers will soon come into 
general use, of American manufacture alone. 
An enormous steam hammer on Naylor's 
principle was sent, in 1860, to Australia. The 
hammer is not only lifted by the pressure of 
steam from below, but the gravity of the 
falling hammer is assisted by the pressure 
of steam from above. The work is finished 
at one heat, saving both the fuel and time 
of second heats, also consequent deteriora- 
tion and waste of iron. The effect of the 
blow of this hammer will be equal to the 
momentum acquired by sixteen tons making 
forty blows per minute. The hammer can 
be made to work double or single, acting 
instantaneously ; and by the adjusting valve 
gearing, the length of stroke and force of 
blow can be changed instantly. In all 
gravity hammers the effect of the blow is 
dependent on the weight of the hammer, 
multiplied by the height of its fall, and con- 
sequently, the greater the distance it falls, 
the greater the force of the blow, and the 
slower is the speed of working. In the 
double-action hammer, thrice the force of 
blow can be given at double the speed. The 
principal dimensions and weights are : timber 
foundation, twenty-six feet by twenty-four 
feet six inches, depth, thirteen feet ; cast 
iron anvil block, base eleven feet six inches 
by nine feet six inches, thirty tons weight ; 
base plate to receive standards, nineteen feet 
six inches by fifteen feet six inches, fourteen 
tons weight ; standards, ten feet six inches 
apart, weight fifteen tons ; height from 
ground to top of steam cylinder, twenty-one 
feet six inches ; weight of all, about seventy- 
five tons. Steam to work this hammer is 
generated from the furnace in which the 
work to be operated upon is heated, the 
boiler forming the chimney, and the heat 
passing up four flues in the same, thus 
economizing fuel and avoiding the expense 
of a brick chimney. The boiler is six feet 
six inches in diameter, and thirty feet long; 
weight, fifteen tons. The weight of the 
whole apparatus, including boiler and mount- 
ings, is about one hundred tons. This ap- 
paratus was constructed in England. 

Steam has also been applied to cranes 



with great success. One of Morrison's steam 
cranes was recently loaded with forty -five 
cwt., the steam cut oft* from the boiler, and 
the load left to hang from the crane by the 
power of the steam already in the crane 
cylinder. After hanging for half an hour, 
the weight had descended only four inches. 
Many other applications of steam as a motor 
might be enumerated if space would allow, 
but we must now turn to the multifarious 
duties of steam in the useful arts. One of 
the most important of its applications is its 
use as a vehicle for transferring and uniform- 
ly distributing heat. Its large capacity for 
caloric gives it great efficiency for this 
purpose, as it holds and will communicate as 
much heat as a mass of red-hot iron, and 
will transmit this heat to a great distance, 
which iron will not do, for the heat will re- 
main latent until the steam reaches its desti- 
nation and becomes condensed. In order to 
apply steam to the warming of buildings, it 
is only necessary to use a close boiler, from 
the top of which a steam pipe can be carried 
to the top of the building ; the boiler being 
placed as low as possible. This steam pipe 
is at the top connected with a series of larger 
ones, placed with a slight inclination near the 
floor of each room, connected each with the 
one above it, at its highest end ; thus giving 
facility to the descent of the condensed water, 
which is so directed as to re-enter the boiler 
near the bottom. By such an arrangement, 
properly constructed, the entire caloric pro- 
duced by the furnace will be distributed over 
the building. The small, or steam pipe 
should be made quite strong, and should 
have at least an area of one square inch for 
every six gallons of water evaporated per 
hour in the boiler. It will require occa- 
sionally an addition of water to supply acci- 
dental waste, and a ball-cock connected to 
the feed pipe would be useful ; but by all 
means have a safety-valve upon the boiler. 

The extent to which buildings are now 
heated by steam in this country is very 
great, aid since the introduction of Gold's 
appara'is, Brown's, Baker, Smith & Co.'s, 
and ther steam heaters have been 
addec with great advantage to private dwell- 
ings. They are certainly much more healthy 
than hot air, ami, properly arranged and 
managed, need not be more expensive. The 
pressure is merely nominal, and therefore not 
a source of danger; the only disadvantage, 
that of leakage, is no greater than in the use 
of gas pipes. For large factories, steam as a 



134 



STEAM. 



heater is invaluable ; and for warming hot- 
houses, nothing can supply its place. It 
gives an equal heat, and is devoid of that 
dryness so injurious to plants. To warm a 
greenhouse by steam, there is required the 
boiler of a steam engine, reckoned at one 
horse power for every thousand feet of glass. 
It is advisable, when heating a hothouse by 
steam, to surround the pipes with stones ; 
these stones absorb the heat, and if from 
carelessness or inattention the steam goes 
down, they will continue to radiate heat for 
some time, thus preventing the sudden cool- 
ing of the place. 

It is sometimes necessary to boil liquids 
in vessels of wood, as in brewing, etc., and to 
use heat in evaporating thickened liquids, 
strong solutions, etc., where the direct appli- 
cation of tire would be destructive ; there, 
also, we see the utility of steam. The com- 
mon manner of making glue is an instance 
of this ; elevate the bottom of the glue-pot 
and cover the receptacle for boiling water, 
and you have at once a steam oven. This 
plan has been extensively used in making 
salt. Or, introduce a pipe in the form of 
the worm of a still into the vat containing 
the solution, and allow the steam to pass 
through the pipe. The steam pipe can then 
be of iron, copper, lead, or tin, as the nature 
of the solution may require •, copper is in 
all cases the best where it can be used. 
Another process of a similar nature was in- 
vented by Mr. Goodlet, of Leith ; it consists 
of pumping the solution through a spiral 
pipe passing through the boiler, thus bringing 
the solution to the steam, instead of the 
steam to the solution. Steam kilns for dry- 
ing grain have also been used upon the same 
principle. Dry houses, for lumber to be used 
in the pattern room, are added to our ma- 
chine shops. The process of drying printed 
cloths and fabrics of various kinds, also the 
warp after it is sized, is in use in all our 
principal manufactories, and adds materially 
to the economy and expedition of their pro- 
duction. The process of drying cloths illus- 
trates this. Steam is conducted thro rh the 
axis of a cylinder, which is revolv 1 by 
suitable machinery; the cloth is then m le to 
pass over it in contact with its periphery ; if 
necessary, several cylinders are placed in a 
line, and the cloth passes over the first, under 
the second, and so on. Paper is thus dried : 
the wet pulp laid out on the web of wire 
cloth is gradually strained as it approaches 
the cylinders, around which it winds, until it 



comes off dry and ready for cutting ; this 
operation is singularly interesting. 

Cooking by steam was the invention of 
Denis Papin, of France, as long ago as 1680 ; 
the most important of whose experiments 
were the extraction of gelatine from bones, 
and the manufacture of essence of meat, 
soups, etc., suitable for long sea voyages. 
From a work published by him in 1681, we 
extract the following : " I took," says he, 
"beef bones that had never been boiled, but 
kept dry a long time, and of the hardest 
part of the leg ; these being put into a little 
glass pot with water, I included in the en- 
gine, together with another little glass pot 
full with bones and water too, but in this 
the bones were ribs, and had been boiled 
already. Having pressed the fire till the drop 
of water would dry away in three seconds, 
and had ten pressures, I took off the fire, and 
the vessels being cooled, 1 found very good 
jelly in both my pots; but that which had 
been made out of ribs had a kind of a red- 
dish color, which I believe might proceed 
from the medullary part ; the other jelly was 
without color, like hartshorn jelly ; and I 
may say, that having seasoned it with sugar 
and juice of lemon, I did eat it with as 
much pleasure, and found it as stomachi- 
cal, as if it had been jelly of hartshorn." 
Mutton bones are better than beef bones ; 
and he infers, first, that one pound of beef 
bones affords about two pounds of jelly ; sec- 
ond, that it is the cement (gelatine) that 
unites the parts of the bones, which is dis- 
solved in the water to make it a jelly, since 
after that, the bones remain brittle; third, 
that few glutinous parts are sufficient to con- 
geal much water, " for I found that when 
the jelly was dried, I had very little glue (glu- 
ten?) remaining; fourth, I used it to glue a 
broken glass, which did since that time hold 
very well, and even be washed as well as if 
it had never been broken ; fifth, it is heavier 
than water, and sinks to the bottom; sixth, 
hartshorn produces five times its weight of 

i ell y- . T , . , . 

"From all these experiments, I think it 
very likely that if people would be per- 
suaded to lay by bones, gristles, tendons, 
feet, and other parts of animals that are solid 
enough to be kept without salt, whereof 
people throw away more than would be nec- 
essary to supply all the ships that England 
has at sea, the ships might always be tur- 
nished with better and cheaper victuals than 
they use to have. And I may say that such 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



135 



rictuals would take up less room, too, be- 
cause they have a great deal more nourish- 
ment in them in proportion to their weight. 
They would also be more wholesome than 
salt meat. Vegetables, such as dried peas, 
may also be cooked by the steam of salt 
water without becoming salt." 

We have already mentioned that Denis 
Papin invented the safety-valve ; it was in 
the construction of this digester that he 
used it; he thus speaks of it: "To know 
the quantity of the inward pressure, you 
must have a little pipe open at both ends, 
this being soldered to a hole in the cover, 
is to be stopped at the top with a little valve, 
exactly ground to it. This must be kept 
down with an iron rod, one end of which 
must be put into an iron staple, fastened to 
the bar, and the other end kept down by a 
weight, to be hung upon it nearer or further 
from the valve, according as you would 
keep it less or more strong, after the man- 
ner of an ordinary Roman balance or steel- 
yard." 

Papin's method of determining the tem- 
perature is somewhat curious : " To know 
the degree of heat, I hang a weight to a 
thread about three feet long, and I let fall a 
drop of water into a little cavity made for 
that purpose at the top of it, and I tell how 
many times the hanging weight will move 
to and fro before the drop of water is quite 
evaporated !" As nearly all that we at pres- 
ent know about cooking, and extracting 
jellies by steam, is derived from the experi- 
ments of Denis Papin, we will close this 
portion of the subject by adding his descrip- 
tion of one of them: "Having filled my 
pot with a piece of a breast of mutton, and 
weighed rive ounces of coals, I lighted my 
fire, and by blowing gave such a heat that 
a drop of water would evaporate in four sec- 
onds, the inward pressure being about ten 
times stronger than the atmosphere. I let 
the fire go out of itself, and the mutton was 
very well done, the bones soft, and the juice 
a strong jelly. So that, having had occasion 
to boil mutton several times since, I have 
always observed the same rule, and never 
have missed to have it in the same condi- 
tion, which I take to be the best of all. 

" Beef required seven ounces of coal and 
the same heat, and the beef was very well 
boiled, although there were more parts of 
the bones not quite softened. Lamb, rab- 
bits, and pigeons, mackerel, pike, and eel, 
were subjected to the same process; whence 
I infer that the bones of young beasts re- 



quire almost as much fire as those of old 
ones to be boiled ; that rabbit bones are 
harder than those of mutton ; that tough 
old rabbits may be made as good as tender 
young ones by this means; that pigeons may 
be best boiled with a heat that evaporates a 
drop of water in five seconds ; that mackerel 
was cooked with gooseberries, in a digester, 
the fish being good and firm, and the bones 
so soft as not to be felt in eating. I par- 
ticularly recommend as an excellent dish 
cooked in this manner, cod fish and green 
peas." 

Another application of steam that has 
proved very valuable on ship-board, is its 
condensation after having been evaporated 
from salt water, to supply the wants of pas- 
sengers and crews when from accident or an 
unusually long voyage the regular stores are 
exhausted. The reader is probably aware 
that when salt water is evaporated, the steam 
therefrom is as pure as if taken from fresh, 
and would be as healthful and palatable as 
any other were it not from the fact that it 
does not contain the usual quantity of at- 
mospheric air which has been expelled by 
heat. If, however, it is allowed to fall in 
the form of rain, or is poured from one vessel 
to another, it very soon absorbs a sufficient 
quantity and becomes as good as rain water, 
which, in fact, it is. 

The application of steam to soften wood, 
so as to admit of its being bent into various 
shapes, is old ; but by compressing the wood 
while being bent, so as to prevent the loosen- 
ing of its fibre, great improvement has been 
made, and in the manufacture of furniture 
this has been of great service. There is also 
a Ship Timber Bending Company in Brook- 
lyn, L. I., who are doing a large business in 
that line ; the timber thus bent being quite 
as good as if of natural growth. 

Steam bakeries, as they are called, show no 
new application thereof, as they simply consist 
of dough-raising and other machines driven 
by a stationary engine; we mention them 
simply to show how extensive are the uses 
of steam. 

Steam has been used within a few vears 
past in the preparation of paper pulp or fibre 
from the cane or brake of North Carolina. 
The canes, softened by exposure to steam 
tor some hours, were discharged from the 
steam cylinder with great force (by means 
of the steam) against a granite wall, and 
were thoroughly disintegrated and formed a 
pulpy and fibrous mass. 



IMPROVEMENTS IN STEAM PRODUCTION AND USE. 



Although it would be assumptive for 
mechanics to pretend during the last fifteen 
years, to any radical change for the "better, 
in the means of producing steam as an op- 
erating power, it is undeniable that the dif- 
ference between the burning of fuel and 
its resultant products of evaporating water 
to produce operating steam has been large- 
ly in favor of the resultant product. Many 
of the devices for producing steam cheaply 
have proved their efficiency, so that now a 
pound of coal can give out twice as much 
productive — motive — power as ten or 
twelve years ago; and some boilers, with 
their comparison and proportion of heat- 
ing and steam-giving surfaces are almost 
as far ahead of the old-time methods as the 
easy-acting pump is ahead of the slow mov- 
ing and laborious well sweep. It is be- 
yond denial, because well demonstrated, 
that the boilers set for stationary engines 
during the last ten years, if not more, do 
much better service for the amount of fuel 
consumed than the best which were used 
previous to that time. 

The principal objection to all our coal 
burning furnaces under boilers was that 
they allowed a large portion of the pro- 
ducts of combustion to escape without yield- 
ing their proper proportion of heat; that 
not only all the visible smoke escaped — 
that was only unconsumed carbon — but 
that the invisible gases that ought to be 
made into radiant flame went with them. 
This iv as true — this is true to too great an 
extent. It is certain that we derive but a 
small percentage of the heat force stored 
in the concentrated carbon of coal for use 
in our motive apparatus. Statistics are un- 
necessary in this statement, as we do not 
care to make this a technical article. But 
it will suffice to say that under proper me- 
chanical and chemical conditions, the active 
power from the latent force of coal under 
combustion may readily be doubled; and 
it is not too much to affirm that improve- 
ments in combustion, in handling of the 



fuel, in storing of its energy, and in use of 
its heat, may give a trebled and even quad- 
rupled result. 

All of this suppositious result cannot be 
predicated of improvements in apparatus 
for combustion and means for storing and 
giving out the products; much must, nec- 
essarily, be left to the judicious attention of 
those who have this mechanical process in 
charge. It is as much a necessity to have 
a good fireman for a steam boiler as it is 
to have a good maker of the boiler. "With 
the most scientifically constructed steam 
boiler and furnace, an incompetent firer can 
make all the improvements of construction 
of no valuable account. 

The feeding of a fire with coal is an art 
acquired only by practice, or understood 
by a knowledge of the nature of the fuel 
and of the proper theory of its combustion. 
Heavy firing under steam boilers induces 
the escape of the volatile products of com- 
bustion before they have done their work 
of resolving themselves into heat. For 
this reason there have been many recent 
attempts to control the feed of fuel almost 
automatically, so that only a certain amount 
of combustible material — fuel — shall be 
placed on the furnace grate at one time. 
The recent improvements in grate bars are 
worthy more attention than has heretofore 
been given them. One plan has been at- 
tended with good results, and that is to al- 
low only a certain amount of. fuel to be 
placed on the fire at one time, gauged by 
the level of the bed. This is kept at its 
normal and proper level by means of grate 
bars that shake down all the debris of com- 
bustion as fast as it forms, and in the best 
types of these contrivances the grate bars 
are made in short sections that are readily 
moved by means of a simple shaking lever. 
The object of these sectional and shaking 
grate bars is not merely to allow the de- 
position of the ashes by shaking them down 
into the ash pit, nor merely to break up 
gathering clinkers of scoria. Indeed, these 



IMPROVEMENTS IN STEAM PRODUCTION AND USE. 



137 



are secondary intentions. The primary de- 
sire is to so surface the fuel that it shall 
burn evenly, and instead of offering special 
facilities for the removal of clinkers, it is 
desirable that none shall be formed. 

Judicious firing with these oscillating 
bars allows the atmospheric air to pass 
readily from the under side of the grate 
through the burning fuel, and aids equable 
combustion. It is quite certain that when 
combustion is good, the residuum is re- 
duced to a minimum proportion. Of course 
it is not possible to predicate entire com- 
bustion of any coal, as there is no crude 
material known that varies to a larger ex- 
tent in value than coal does as a fuel. But 
with a good draft, (which simply means 
"sufficient oxygen") there is no reason why 
the most ordinary coal cannot be consumed 
down to its mineral residuum — the ashes. 

In fact, the well-known Jarvis setting of 
boilers, that is specially adapted to the 
burning of refuse coal and other materials, 
and which compels unpromising fuels to 
minister as heat-producers to the steam 
engine, is simply a sensible and ingenious 
method of supplying a sufficient quantity 
of oxygen to the fuel while burning, to in- 
sure its thorough combustion. 

Mr. Jarvis's plan, however, is not that 
merely of furnishing a sufficient amount of 
atmospheric air; he heats the air before 
using it. The supporting brick walls of 
the boiler are hollow, with external open- 
ings to allow the outer air to enter, and the 
air is heated by its passage between the in- 
terior and exterior brick walls that form 
the sides of the furnace and ash pit, and 
the setting of the boiler. This heated air 
escapes into the furnace at a point near its 
thither end, just in front of the first bridge 
wall. The result is not only to burn the 
volatile escaping products of the furnace, 
but also to induce a strong natural draft by 
means of the heated air that is drawn in 
from the sides, and the cost of fuel is there- 
by considerably reduced, as it is possible 
to obtain excellent results with coal culm 
and dust, spent tan bark, the leavings of 
dye stuff extracters, saw dust, and green 
peat. 

There is still another claim made for im- 
proving the combustion of coal. And that 
is the use of a hollow grate bar that, being 
double and open at its front end, takes in 
the outside air and keeps it until it is al- 
lowed to escape at lateral openings at the 



rear end, or near the rear end, having been 
intensely heated during its passage from 
the front to the rear end of the bars. 

There are other adaptations of the prin- 
ciple of furnishing a sufficient amount of 
oxygen to insure entire combustion; but it 
may be reasonably questioned whether the 
best do more than approximate to a theoret- 
ical result. And entire combustion of fuel 
with mechanical use of all the heat pro- 
ducts is proba*bly too much to expect. It 
seems as though a portion of the products 
of combustion must be allowed to pass off 
without mechanical service, as they are 
necessary in their heated form to rarefy 
the atmosphere in the smoke passages suf- 
ficient to induce an up-lift in the flues and 
chimney. 

The improvements in boilers and other 
steam generators made during the last de- 
cade, or perhaps fifteen years, have been 
marked. It is noticeable, however, that 
new types of boilers have been contrived 
and constructed rather to allay popular 
fears regarding steam boiler explosions 
than to economize the consumption of fuel 
and furnish proper steam for power. Sec- 
tional boilers, as globes and tubes, have 
been recommended, not so much for their 
steam-furnishing properties as because of 
the claim that if they exploded, the explo- 
sion would be only partial, and therefore 
be diminished as to danger. It would 
seem that the sensible idea to be developed 
would be the improvement in a generator 
for active steam; surely mechanical skill 
and manufacturing integrity can insure 
good workmanship from good materials, 
and intelligent attention can prevent acci- 
dent from carelessness. With good boil- 
ers, made of good materials and having 
good workmanship, sensible, judicious care 
and management can make a boiler explo- 
sion almost impossible. "We are using 
steam of much higher pressure than ever 
before, and yet, although the number of 
steam boilers in use has enormously in- 
creased, the proportionate number of ex- 
plosions is much less than it was ten or 
fifteen years ago. Perhaps it could be 
shown by statistics that the actual number 
of explosions is less than ten or fifteen 
years ago. It is certain that much greater 
care is used in the manufacture of boiler 
iron and steel than formerly; that the work- 
manship is more exact and faithful, and 
that more discrimination is exercised in 



138 



IMPROVEMENTS IN STEAM PRODUCTION AND USE. 



the selection of those having boilers in 
charge than was the case twenty years ago. 

But the boiler has undergone other 
changes. Much attention has been paid to 
the internal bracing of boilers, the shell, or 
cylindrical portion, being thoroughly held 
to the ends by diagonal braces. It is a 
lesson to steam users to notice the extra 
care that is now given to the internal brac- 
ing of boilers. A boiler destined to hold 
water and steam at a uniform pressure of 
eighty pounds to the square inch is allowed 
to be tested to twice that amount, and if 
lacking at this test is condemned or rein- 
forced. Sectional boilers are built of small 
pipes or large flues, with the idea of util- 
izing a larger amount of the heat than 
where the water is held in a body in one 
envelope, although traversed by heat tubes, 
forming part of the system from furnace 
to chimney. This plan is a reversion of 
the ordinary tube, or locomotive system, 
in which the products of combustion pass 
through tubes that traverse the boiler 
under the water level. In these tube boil- 
ers the tubes themselves — usually quite 
large — are holders of wator, and are group- 
ed so that the flames can pa c _,s around them. 
They are united at either end to transverse 
tubes and so form a nest of boilers. 
Usually these tubes are inclined in posi- 
tion, the rear ends being lower than the 
furnace ends, to assist in circulation of the 
water by gravitation. Some of these boil- 
ers give remarkably excellent results in 
evaporation, particularly when new and 
clean. A good type is the well-known 
Babcock & Wilcox boiler. 

There have been other recent attempts 
to improve the usable product of steam. 
They have been modifications of the pipe 
system in which only a limited and inter- 
mittent amount of water was allowed to be 
exposed to the heat at one time. The claim 
made for these systems is that the incre- 
ments of heat are not partially absorbed 
and rendered nugatory by acting on an in- 
ert body of water, but are made to perform 
instant work. There is much sense in this 
idea, and probably the chief objection to 
its adoption generally, would be the me- 
chanical hindrances which might interfere 
with a stated and regular supply of water 
adapted to the amount of steam needed 
under all conditions of speed. Some very 
excellent results have, however, been ob- 
tained through some of these devices. 



The use of steam at a very high press- 
ure has been lately tested with remarkable 
results. There seems, however, to bo a 
mechanical limit to the use of high steam, 
owing to its deleterious effect on the mech- 
anism of the engine. Compounding the 
engines is the partial remedy for the use 
of high steam — the re-using of the steam 
from the high pressure cylinder in one or 
even two other and increasingly larger 
cylinders, making it do double duty at dif- 
ferent temperatures. It will probably be 
found, however, that there is a mechanical 
limit to this use of steam. There certainly 
is an economic limit, for the costliness of 
the compound engine is as much a bar to 
its general adoption as to that of the con- 
densing engine. 

There have been devices contrived with- 
in the last ten years for relieving the ordi- 
nary high pressure engine from the load, 
or obstruction, of the atmospheric pressure 
of 14.7 lbs. to the square inch in the emis- 
sion of the steam after having performed 
duty. This has been attempted by attach- 
ing a separate and partially independent 
condenser that reduces the exhaust steam 
to hot water, and uses this water for the 
boiler feed. One of the neatest and most 
efficient appliances of this class noticed by 
the writer is that of R. "W. Hamilton, M. E., 
of New York. It is a pump and jet 
condenser combined, that is, governed in 
its action entirely by the requirements of 
the engine and its load. This device has 
been tested to prove its advantages in in- 
creasing the service of the high speed en- 
gine from 20 to 30 per cent, with a saving 
of fuel at the same time. 

High speed for engines may be reckoned 
as one of the advances made in the use of 
steam during the last ten or fifteen years. 
Formerly 300 feet piston speed per minute 
was considered good speed. Some of our 
recent types of engines reach 700 and even 
800 feet per minute. The principal ob- 
stacle in the way of the adoption of this 
system generally, and even its increase of 
speed, is the difficulty of perfectly balanc- 
ing the parts and having a corresponding 
balance on the driven work. There are 
advantages in this method of using steam 
rapidly so palpable as to demand attention. 
The element of time is one of great impor- 
tance in the use of such a material as steam. 
Our locomotives use their steam at high 
rates of speed and there is consequently a 



HIGH PRESSURE AND LOW PRESSURE ENGINES. 



139 



comparatively small loss in the inertia of 
the steam by condensation from radiation. 
The longer steam is exposed to action in a 
cylinder the less its power at the end of 
the stroke. The slower the steam traverses 
the greater the condensation. Live steam 
admitted to the end of a four feet cylinder 
and pushing the piston at the rate of 200 
feet per minute, loses its energetic force 
before it has run its length. But the same 
amount of steam traversing only eighteen 
inches preserves a large amount of its 
initial force at the end of its stroke. For 
this reason our modern engines are built 
more nearly ''square" than formerly ; we 
give a twelve inch cylinder only eighteen 
inches stroke instead of forty-eight as for- 
merly. 

Summing up the improvements made in 
steam as a power during the last fifteen 
years, it may be said that they have been 
based on two elements — using the steam 
quickly and improving the workmanship of 
the engines and the boilers. Instead of 
being content with the vapor of water, 
which, like that of the tea kettle, is only a 
trifle above the energy of the atmosphere, 
we have insisted on a pure steam with a 
vastly higher temperature and correspond- 
ingly higher pi-essure. "We run safely at 
100 to 125 pounds to the square inch where 
once 40 or 60 was deemed sufficient. We 
use our steam on the instant. Short cylin- 
ders and quick stroke is the rule. The 
build and material of the boilers are both 
improved, as must necessarily be the case, 
and the finish and perfection of our engines 
ai'e shown more in the proportions of their 
parts, their adaptions to their purposes, 
and their exquisite balance in rapid motion 
than in meretricious ornamentation and 
fine polish. 

HIGH PRESSURE AND* LOW PRESSURE ENGINES. 

There are two general systems of using 
steam in engines that give two divisions of 
steam engines, known in common parlance 
as "high pressure" and "low pressure" 
engines. These terms are, however, not 
only indefinite, but calculated to convey a 
wrong idea. To the unpractical inquirer 
the term "high pressure," as contradistin- 
guished from "low pressure," implies the use 
of steam at a much greater energy per square 
inch than "low pressure," and suggests pos- 
sible greater danger. But the fact is that 
there are " low pressure " and "high press- 



ure " boilers which carry steam of the same 
general pressure. A "high pressure" 
boiler is not necessarily a dangerous one, 
neither is a "low pressure " boiler neces- 
sarily safe. 

Tho proper distinguishing terms are 
"non-condensing" and "condensing" en- 
gines, the " non-condensing " correspond- 
ing to "high pressure" and the "condens- 
ing" to "low pressure." 

When the steam used in the engine cyl- 
inder has performed its work of driving 
the piston from one end to the other it is 
allowed to escape either into the atmos- 
phere, or into an exhausted receiver known 
as the "condenser." The "non-condens- 
ing" or miscalled "high pressure" en- 
gine exhausts its steam directly into the 
atmosphere, striking against it with such 
force as to produce a noisy concussion, 
heard at every stroke of the piston, and 
particularly noticeable on locomotives on 
starting and while getting under way. 
The extent of this force can be readily un- 
derstood when it is remembered that the 
atmospheric pressure is nearly fifteen 
pounds to the square inch. It is evident, 
then, that the productive and useful energy 
of the " non-condensing " engine is shorn 
of just that amount of effectiveness. At 
first sight it would appear to be demon- 
strated that the "non-condensing" engine 
would, of course, be more expensive in use 
than one that did not have this drawback ; 
but this is not necessarily so, for some 
other elements than those of the direct ef- 
fectiveness of steam and the absolute cost 
of its production are concerned in the 
problem of how to produce and use steam 
power economically. If this were not so 
there would be comparatively little advan- 
tage in the variety of styles of steam en- 
gines; and yet it is apparent to the most 
cursory observation that steam engines 
must be designed for their special place 
and work as much as road vehicles should 
be — the coach, omnibus, and truck team 
having only the most general character- 
istics in common with the buggy, racing 
gig. and bicycle. 

The "condensing" engine, on the con- 
trary, exhausts its steam into a vacuum 
formed by exhausting the air from a vessel 
called the "condenser." When the ex- 
haust steam from the engine has done its 
work of pushing the piston in one direc- 
tion it passes instantly into this vacuum, 



140 



HIGH PRESSURE AND LOW PRESSURE ENGINES. 



where it is met by a jet of cold water, that 
resolves the steam into its liquid form of 
water, thus reducing its volume from 
about 1,700 to 1, that being the proportion 
between water and steam as to volume, 
and at the same time reduces its tempera- 
ture to about 100° Fah., making it useful 
for re-supplying the boiler. The addition 
of the condenser, air pump and their ap- 
purtenances, renders the condensing engine 
more complicated and cumbersome than 
the non-condensing engine, and somewhat 
limits its use, and greatly adds to its first cost. 



These facts have confined the condensing 
engine to large machines on land, or on 
steamships of considerable tonnage. But 
there have been several attempts to make 
a combination of the non-condensing and 
condensing types without the large expense 
of original construction. One of the most 
successful of these attempts is herewith 
represented. It is the invention of R. "W. 
Hamilton, a well-known mechanical engin- 
eer, and is manufactured by Sawtelle & 
Judd, Hartford, Conn. The accompanying 
engraving is a vertical section of the 



HAMILTON INDEPENDENT AIR PUMP AND CONDENSER. 




The exhaust pipe, A, has valves to con- 
nect or disconnect condenser from engine, 
making it a condensing or non-condensing 
engine, without stopping the engine. 

When the condenser is required to be 
ussd, the injection valve is opened, and 



steam is let on to the steam cylinder of 
condenser to operate air pump. When 
sufficient vacuum is formed to lift the 
water in injection pipe, B, the water is car- 
ried up through pipe B to the deflector, 
C, and falls on the perforated plate, E, to 



HIGH PRESSURE AND LOW PRESSURE ENGINES. 



141 






distribute the water in the condenser; at 
the same time the exhaust steam is being 
drawn by vacuum through the exhaust 
pipe, A. The contact of the steam with 
water at once condenses the steam, which 
water falls into the cone (shown by direc- 
tion of darts) to the bottom of the base of 
the condenser. The vacuum formed by 
the plunger of the air pump, L, operated 
by the steam cylinder, H, lifts the water 
from the lower part of the base of the con- 
denser through the induction valves, F, 
into the space around the plunger, L, and 
on the return stroke of the plunger, L, is 
forced up and out through the eduction 
valves, D, to the waste pipe. 

The piston in the steam cylinder, XI, is 
operated by the piston side valve, J, in the 
steam chest, K, the whole governed by a 
tappet rod G, which determines the stroke 
from both steam piston in cylinder, EL, 
and air pump plunger, L, giving it a reg- 
ular and positive stroke, which is at all 
times ready to start without reversing the 
valves. 

THE COMPOUND ENGINE. 

This comparatively modern type of steam 
engine differs from ordinary engines in 
having two or three cylinders, the steam 
from one exhausting into the next. The 
principle of the compound engine is the 
reduction of steam heat by radiation in a 
single cylinder. As generally used, steam 
is greatly expanded in the single cylin- 
der, this expansion necessarily greatly 
reducing its temperature and cooling 
the cylinder between each stroke. In 
the compound engine the steam in the first 
cylinder runs nearly full stroke, and ex- 
pands so slightly as to hardly affect the 
cylinder. From the first cylinder the steam 
enters the second cylinder, which is very 
much larger than the first cylinder, so that 
it operates expansively in this second or 
supplementary cylinder. In some situa- 
tions, particularly on ship board, the com- 
pound engine is considered very economi- 
cal. 

THE "HORSE POWER." 

There is another vulgar error relating to 
steam engines and their work, and that is 
the common style of talking of "horse 
power." This method of defining the 
energy of steam was originated by James 
"Watt, who had no other handy and .avail- 
able comparison than the work done by 



Cornish horses in raising coal, water, and 
men by means of a wmcli, or pumps, from 
the depths of coal mines. As his engine 
was primarily constructed to supersede or 
to compete with the work of horses, it was 
but natural that he should use their ani- 
mal powers in contrast with his atmospher- 
ic engine. He estimated, from experi- 
ments, that a good horse could raise over 
a single pulley 33,000 lbs. one foot high in 
one minute, and this became the unit cf 
estimate in the power of engines — and ako 
of the steaming quality of boilers. But 
modern engineers, although employing the 
term, define it, at least mentally, in the 
consideration of 1 , pressure per square inch 
on the piston; 2, area of the piston in 
square inches; 3, velocity of the piston. 
If nearer approximation is desired other 
considerations are taken into the problem, 
as the point of cut-off of the admission of 
steam to the cylinder, the character of the 
valve gear, the amount of clearance, the 
diameter and weight of the fly wheel, and 
other items relating to the normal and use- 
ful quality of the stecm, etc. For general 
and rough estimates, however, the practical 
engineer conveys to a brother engineer an 
idea of the power of an engine by stating 
the boiler pressure, diameter of the pistcn 
and length of stroke. 

"When approximate and nearly absolute 
results in the use of steam in the engine is 
desired the indicator is attached to the 
steam engine cylinder. This is a small 
steam cylinder that takes the steam at the 
same instant the engine piston takes it and, 
of course, with the same energy, and while 
the engine piston is performing its work 
the miniature piston is recording it by 
means of attached mechanism, on a sheet 
of paper. By having one of these indi- 
cators at each end of a cylinder, the recip- 
rocating action of the steam in the cylinder 
is simultaneously recorded in the form of 
a diagram that by right lines and curves 
gives the data of the admission of steam, 
the point of its cut-off, the amount of back 
pressure in its emission, and the action of 
the combined induction and eduction of 
steam to the piston. Very accurate men- 
surations of the work have been made by 
means of these little instruments; for they 
seldom have a diameter of cylinder of more 
than a single square inch, although the 
engines they may be used upon may vary 
from 4 or 6 inches diameter to 80 or 100 



142 



HIGH PRESSURE AND LOW PRESSURE ENGINES. 



inches; and while the stroke of the indica- 
tor is only 3, or, at most 4 inches, that of 
the engines may vary from 12 to 140 
inches. 

By the use of this delicate machine the 
real power of an engine may be determined, 
and it can also show the amount of work 
performed by the engine. Its use is the 
determination between "nominal," (calcu- 
lated) horse power and "indicated," (real) 
horse power ; statements of which are some- 
times made that vary to a very marked 
extent. 

It may be that instruments will some- 
time be constructed which will give dia- 
grams of the performance of steam in the 
cylinder of the full size of the steam engine 
cylinder, or perhaps enlarge them. If this 
could be done, either on full size, or on a 
magnifying scale, the deductions of the 
indicator might be made absolute and per- 
fect. As it is, all the operations noted are 
reduced to a very low proportion, and even 
then not to scale, as the same indicator that 
records on its "card" the work of a port- 
able engine of 4-inch piston and 8-inch 
stroke, is used also to record the action of 
a 110-inch piston and 144-inch stroke, the 
calculations in both cases having to be re- 
duced to the dimensions of the indicator. 

SOME PECULIAR ENGINES. 

The practice of running engines at very 
high speeds has received great encourage- 
ment from practical engineers within a few 
years. Theoretically there is much in 
favor of it. It is certain that the quicker 
the steam performs its work — the less time 
it is exposed to cooling influences — the 
more useful energy will be obtained. It 
is certain, also, that velocity when com- 
bined with heavy rotating bodies is itself 
an element of power. On these bases the 
principle of high speed engines can be very 
strongly defended. But such engines need 
careful attention and must be very exactly 
built and the parts finely balanced. A 
piston speed of 720 feet per minute is not 
unusual with this class of engines; and it 
is certain that whatever may be urged 
against their general use, they have proved 
valuable in many instances. Some engin- 
eers go so far as to assume that they will 
eventually become the popular typo for sta- 
tionary engines. The Porter-Allen, Buck- 
eye, and Hartford High Speed are well- 
known types of swift running engines. 



A very peculiar engine is that known as 
the "Colt's Disc Engine," made by the 
Colt's Pat. F. A. Co., Hartford, Conn., a 
vertical section of which is appended. 

This engine is chiefly valuable because of 
the small space it occupies, and because its 
working parts are all encased and thereby 
removed from chance of accidental injury 
and ignorant tampering. It has other 
merits which appear in its use. In form it 
may be likened to the chamber of a six- 
shooting revolver, there being six cylinders 
arranged longitudinally and horizontally 
around a central shaft. The main diverg- 
ence in this comparison would be that 
while the pistol chambers revolve around 
the pin or stud in the engine, the chambers 
or cylinders are fixed and the pin, stud, or 
shaft is made to revolve. 

In most steam engines, since the first at- 
tempts of Watt, the steam impels the pis- 
ton in the cylinder in both movements, 
driving it not only from the hither to the 
thither end, but vice versa. In the Colt 
Disc engine the steam acts only in one di- 
rection on the piston, sending it back from 
what may be considered the front of the 
cylinder. This engine has no piston rods, 
the connection being the reciprocating — or 
rather the thrusting — motion of the pis- 
tons, and the rotary motion of the central 
shaft being made by a singular contrivance 
that gives its name to the engine as the 
"Disc" engine. This is a disc large 
enough to cover the entire circuit of the 
grouped cylinders, and sustained by a ball 
and socket joint at the centre of its back. 
It is evident, therefore that the successive 
thrusts of the six pistons against its surface 
near its rim will impart to it a motion of 
rocking on its centre, a swinging, or "wab- 
bling" motion that may be illustrated by 
poising a dinner plate on the point of the 
finger and then giving it a push or touch 
downward on one side. This disturbance 
of equilibrium will be continued in a wave- 
like form entirely around the edge of the 
plate. Now it is evident that if this wave- 
like motion can be controlled as to extent 
it may become a mechanical success. This 
is what this Disc engine does. The tipping 
of the disc around an entire circle would 
make a projection or continuation of its 
centre describe an entire and perfect cir- 
cle. This is utilized as a crank connection 
by a universal joint, a crank that can have 
no dead centre, as the entire rotation is 



HIGH PRESSURE AND LOW PRESSURE ENGINES. 



143 



divided into six parts instead of two as in 
the ordinary reciprocating engine, so that 
tho engine is always ready to start. The 
fewness of parts adapts it admirably for 



yacht, launch, and other purposes where 
great power is required and little space can 
be accorded. 



THE COLT DISC ENGINE. 




The pistons, A, are plungers, one end 
terminating in a blunt cone which bears 
continuously against the periphery of the 
disc, B. They are single acting, being 
subject to steam pressure upon the flat end 
only. Steam is admitted successively to 
the six cylinders from the steam chest, C, 
three pistons being constantly in action at 
different points of the stroke. The crank 
pin P is fixed in the centre of the conical 
disc B, the rolling motion of the disc caus- 
ing the pin to describe a circle, and by 
means of the crank G, imparting a rotary 
motion to the shaft, H. The shaft, H, 
passes through the centre of the steam 
chest and carries an eccentric giving mo- 
tion to a circular valve that slides on tho 
face of the combined cylinders, opening 
and closing them as one describes a rotary 
and the other an eccentric vertical motion. 
The valve is shown in the engraving as K, 
the eccentric motion of which alternately 
opens and closes all the steam ports, suc- 
cessively admitting steam to the cylinders, 
from which it again escapes to the exhaust 
chamber, M, formed by the inside of the 
valve ring, and thence through openings 
into the body of the engine, and is finally 
discharged by the exhaust pipe, N". 

The compactness of this engine makes it 
9 



very useful for propelling yachts, launches 
and other small vessels using the screw. 
It may be placed very close to the screw 
and very near the keelson. For these ma- 
rine purposes the engine is fitted with a 
reversing motion, which, by a single move- 
ment of a hand lever will instantly reverse 
the action of the engine even when running 
at full speed. 

The Baxter Portable Engine is a very 
fair type of engine that is in great demand 
in this country for "opening up" new 
means of individual wealth and developing 
sections of unused national domain; and 
also for combined boiler and steam powers- 
in small manufactories. The peculiarities 
of the Baxter engine are not so much its 
portability as the fact that its steam cylin- 
der is jacketed with boiler pressure steam 
at all times. This fact — arresting conden- 
sation — makes this a very economical small 
engine. 

In this engine the working cylinder is 
introduced into the boiler and all the boiler 
— steam — heat envelopes the cylinder, ab- 
solutely preventing the access of atmos- 
pheric or outside air to the cylinder, so 
that the steam at its first pressure from the 
boiler, does its work without the possibil- 
ity of radiation and loss; there being no 



144 



MACHINE TOOLS. 



conducting steam pipes between boiler and 
cylinder. The fact of its compactness — 
like that of a kitchen stove — and its excel- 
lent arrangements of supply pump and 
blow-off that secure it from explosion 
through carelessness, make it a favorable 
type of the portable engine. 

MACHINE TOOLS. 

The improvements made in tools during 
the last twenty-five years are most noticea- 
ble in those for manufacturing, although 
much has been done in the production of 
hand tools. In this latter line, the improve- 
ments are felt more by operative mechanics 
than by the general public. For the peo- 
ple generally, the improvement has been 
in the way of giving the agriculturist and 
the general farmer better tools and adapted 
appliances, specimens of which are to be 
found in every town and in every decently 
furnished hardware store. 

But, among mechanical producers, the 
improvements most to be noticed are those 
in the production of manufactured articles, 
and the means for their production. In 
this department of endeavor it is evident 
that the manager of machinery has an ad- 
vantage over the manipulator of material; 
the hand worker being merely an assistant 
to the machine manager. The machine 
does the work, and the hand workman fur- 
nishes the means. This is not the proper 
arrangement, and will be rectified as soon 
as the limit of mechanical production is 
reached. 

But the products of the mechanical work- 
man show themselves in the results of the 
machine. Years ago it would have been 
impossible to show any proper result from 
the hand work of the individual workman 
as compared with the finished production 
of the machine made by the hand worker. 
As a general principle it may be stated 
that " ail perfection in mechanical work 
comes from hand-skilled labor." This ac- 
knowledged, it is easy to see that the 
skilled workman is at the head, and his 
productions comprise all there is of improve- 
ment in mechanics. 

But some of the improvements made by 
intelligent mechanics are of very great val- 
ue. The lathe has been so improved that 
the perpetual trial of the calliper is not ab- 
solutely necessary; only the wear of the 
point of the tool is to be attended to; the 
lathe itself, with its carefully scraped and 



adjusted ways, shows a record of exactness 
that would shame a mathematician. How 
different from the time when lathes and 
their ways and carriages were seated and 
adjusted by grinding, using emery or sand! 

The planer is a fixture as regards exact- 
ness of level. The bed is solid — so solid 
that a weight of five or seven tons does not 
bring its level down a fraction of an inch, 
and its upright and tool bar so stiff that 
the product of the work will not show a 
hair-line under the testing straight-edge. 

So much for exactness. How is it about 
convenience? Take any good, well-man- 
aged manufacturing establishment that 
makes the production of machine tools a 
specialty. There is not a movement made. 
or a method used but must be subjected to 
the most exactive tests, and they always 
meet the tests. The rapidity of work on 
the modern planer and the best style of 
lathes is equaled only by the exactness of 
the production. The introduction of the 
rotary cutter — a modification of the saw — 
on traversing platen machines has greatly 
advanced the production of tools and ma- 
chinery and appliances of useful industry, 
and has greatly improved, also, the quality 
of the work seen in the milling machine, 
the die-sinking machine, the profiling 
machine, .and all exhibits of the rotary 
cutter. Most of our taps and our reamers 
are scored by these means, and there are 
numberless methods of use of a very plain 
system that have given a spur to the me- 
chanical improvement that makes the 
methods of forty years ago appear like the 
legends of an unrecorded age. 

"What we formerly worked by hand we 
now accomplish by machinery, and in most 
cases do it better by the modern method. 
A prominent manufacturer said, recently, 
that he had constructed a machine for a 
sewing machine maker to drill holes in one 
piece of his machine. The new tool saved 
him its cost — $2,000 — in one year, and 
gave better results than his hand labor. 

DESCRIPTION OF THE CORLISS ENGINE WRITTEN 
AT THE TIME OF THE CENTENNIAL 
EXHIBITION OF 1876, AT PHIL- 
ADELPHIA, PA. 

This engine stands as a great double- 
armed giant, quietly — almost noislessly — 
and yet effectively throwing its exhaustless 
powers upon the heavy beltings, and thence 
to the innumerable shaftings — main and 






THE CORLISS ENGINE. 



149 



auxiliary — that speed ten thousand ma- 
chines from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. "We can 
not be minute in our description of this 
mighty motor, but will give a few promi- 
nent features that we trust will interest our 
readers. The engine is placed in the tran- 
sept near the center of the Hall, and where 
the building is 70 feet from the floor to 
the top of the ventilator. The gear fly 
wheel connects underneath the floor with 
the main shaft, which is 352 feet long, run- 
ning •crossways of the building. At the 
ends of this shaft, and at two intermediate 
points, connected with it by nests of bevel- 
ed gear six feet in diameter, are shafts 108 
feet long, running at right angles with the 
main shaft and parallel with the Main 
Building, to points directly under the ends 
of the separate lines of overhead shafting. 
Under each end of these overhead shafts 
are the main pulleys, eight in all, seven of 
them being eight and one nine feet in di- 
ameter, and each thirty-two inches across 
the face. There is also an extension of the 
main shaft under the floor, to reach the 
Hydraulic Annex; where a pulley six feet 
in diameter carries a belt two feet wide to 
connect with the overhead shafting of that 
department, for driving the various blow- 
ers, rotary pumps, &c. By this arrange- 
ment each pulley is directly under the end 
of a distinct main shaft overhead in the 
Hall, with which it is connected by a 
double belt, thirty inches wide and seventy 
feet long — an aggregate of twenty-two feet 
in width of double belting being required 
to transmit the whole power of the engine, 
— and eight of them in a position to drive 
a straight line of shafting 658 feet long, 
and one about 150 feet for the pump annex. 
Thus there are 784 feet of main shafting, 
four nests of beveled gear, (three in a nest, 
and each gear six feet in diameter,) and 
the large gear connecting with the gear fly- 
wheel underneath the floor and completely 
out of sight, while the main pulleys extend 
above the floors less than half their diameter. 
The main belts, instead of being an eye- 
sore and in the way, as is too often the case, 
pass through the Hall in out of the way 
places, and are inclosed in glass apart- 
ments eight by six feet in size, so as to 
make a proper exhibit of the belts. 

The engines are what are known as "beam 
engines" of the Corliss improved pattern, 
with all the latest improvements, and nom- 
inally of 700 horse-power each, or 1,400 



horse power in both, though this can be in- 
creased even to 2,500 horse power should 
occasion require. The cylinders are forty 
inches in diameter, with ten feet stroke. 
The engines are provided with air-pumps 
and condensing apparatus, and are intend- 
ed to work with from fifteen to eighty 
pounds of steam, according to the require- 
ments of the exhibition. 

The gear fly-wheel is thirty feet in diam- 
eter, two feet across the face, and has 216 
teeth, the wheel makes thirty -six revolu- 
tions per minute, and the periphery moves 
at the rate of about thirty-eight miles an 
hour. The wheel is between the two en- 
gines, and connects with gear under the 
floor. The crank-shaft is nineteen inches 
in diameter, and twelve feet long; forged 
at the Corliss Steam-Engine "Works. The 
"bearings" for this shaft are eighteen 
inches in diameter and twenty-seven inches 
in length, and look large enough almost 
for a good-sized boy to crawl into and cud- 
dle down. The cranks are of gun metal, 
highly polished, and weigh over three tons 
each. The walking beams are of new de- 
sign, and are nine feet wide in the center, 
twenty-seven feet long, and weigh eleven 
tons each. The connecting rods are about 
twenty-four feet long, and are made of 
horseshoe scrap iron, that being considered 
the best iron that can be obtained. (Nine- 
ty-six hundred horseshoes were used in 
making the connecting rods.) The piston 
rods are of steel, six and one-fourth inches 
in diameter, and the velocity of the pistons 
is 720 feet per minute. 

The large gear with which the gear fly- 
wheel connects is ten feet in diameter, and 
is a solid casting of 17,000 pounds. The 
height of the engine from the floor is 
thirty-nine feet, and every part is accessible 
by means of iron staircases and balconies, 
which add much to the artistic beauty of 
the design. The weight of the engine and 
its appurtenances amounts to 1,383.264 
pounds, making sixty-one car loads of 22,- 
676 pounds each. With regard to the 
foundation to support this immense weight 
and the connecting shafts, etc., we must be 
content with the proffered information that 
more than two thousand tons of masonry 
and building material have been carefully 
laid beneath the aisles and avenues of the 
great hall to hold in secure position the 
several bearings upon which are continually 
revolved not less than 365,000 pounds of 



150 



THE CORLISS ENGINE. 



shafts, gears, and pulleys, placed between 
the engine and the main belts attached to 
the overhead shafting. 

The engine now ruDS 600 feet of main 
belting — viz., 88 feet of 24-inch, and 528 
feet of 30 -inch. Of main shafting, it runs 
over one and a half miles. Add to this the 
side shafting and small belting and shaft- 
ing, the whole may be multiplied by five, 
and then run short of the true amount. 

It has now been running for five months, 
and shows not the least imperfection, and 
without the slightest interruption. It is 
the design and construction of Geo. H. 
Corliss, engineer, and is his individual 
property, furnished by him free of all ex- 
penses and generously run at his individ- 
ual cost. When the exhibition closes, lie 
will take it back to Rhode Island and hold 
it until an improved condition of manufac- 



turing business shall create a demand for 
such a power. 

Near this great motor is a large gear 
cutting engine, also the design of Mr. Cor- 
liss, constructed at an expense of $4,000, 
for the purpose of securing perfect accu- 
racy in cutting the bevel gear. It is used 
in this work, and is regarded, especially by 
foreign engineers, as one of the notable 
features of the exhibition. 

The extent and capacity of the Corliss 
Steam-Engine "Works can be best appreci- 
ated by considering the fact, that the Cen- 
tennial engine was constructed from the 
crude materials — transported — set up, and 
put in operation in the short space of nine 
months and twenty-six days. This engine 
is now running the Fulhnan car works at 
Chicago, 111. 



STEAM. 



151 






CHAPTER VII. 
CONCLUSION. 

To understand fully our indebtedness to 
the inventors and improvers of the steam en- 
gine, we must compare the past with the 
present. We must remember the North 
River sloops, the slow ocean packet ships, the 
lumbering coach ; then the canal boat, the 
horse boat, the horse railroad ; followed, but 
not yet entirely superseded, by the steam- 
boats of Fitch, Fulton, Stevens, and a hun- 
dred others — each an improvement on the 
last — until months are crowded into weeks 
and weeks into days. If it is true, as some 
have said, that the duration of human life is 
less in each succeeding generation, it is in- 
contestable, on the other hand, that the 
amount possible to be accomplished by each 
man in the same amount of time is increased 
many-fold. We have shown what has been 
done by steam ; but are we now to stop and fold 
our hands at the request of the few old fogies 
who have been hurried along against their 
will, and now wish to sit down and take 
breath when the great work has but just 
commenced ? No ! American genius is the 
engineer of this locomotive, "Progress ;" his 
hand is on the throttle-lever, which he opens 
wider each day. Conservatism may act as 
brakeman, but has no power to stop the train 
unless the engineer aid him. His bright, 
clear eye looks out upon the straight track — 
for the path of progress is only warped by 
foolish or selfish men — and conservatism may 
brake up and retard, but not stop the train. 
It will, it is true, take more steam to draw the 
load, while old fogies thus act as a drag, and 
they may rest assured that their action only 
renders the course of progress more danger- 
ous, but will never stop it. 

Lay down this vain opposition, then, and 
add your voice and your purse to aid the 
advance of steam; send your horses into the 
country, or retain them only for pleasure 
rides of invalids ; pave your streets with iron, 
and harness steam to your drays and cars. 
We may not live to see it, but it is our firm 
belief that the time will come when the 
foolish excuse that steam will frighten horses 
in our cities will be no longer urged, for 
there will be no horses to frighten. You 
say that we are enthusiastic ; so was John 
Fitch ; does it then follow that he was wrong ? 
You try to urge that there is more danger 
in steam than by the old mode of travelling, 
but this has long ago been proved false ; 



and if there still are accidents from boiler 
explosions, it is your fault that they have 
not long since ceased. Pass a law in each 
state providing for the inspection of all 
steam boilers, and the examination of all 
engineers, and impose a heavy fine on all 
who hire an engineer who has no certificate. 
Do not make this a political movement, 
but see that the board of inspectors is com- 
posed of experienced engineers, men who 
can themselves pass an examination of the 
most strict nature; and bear in mind also that 
steam requires close attention, and that there 
is not one man in a hundred that can have 
the care of it, and at the same time have his 
mind distracted by other duties, without 
endangering the whole neighborhood. Pow- 
der mills are always located apart from other 
buildings, for a careless act would scatter 
destruction around ; well, some of the boilers 
in New York at this present moment are 
worse than powder magazines, and yet they 
are located in the most densely populated 
parts of the city, and beneath sidewalks trod 
hourly by thousands. The engineer (?) saws 
wood, grooms horses, or works at the bench,, 
while his pump clogs, and the water gets 
low in the boiler ; or, interested in other 
work, he forgets to put the pump on, and 
soon after — longer, perhaps, than he is aware 
— he lets in the water, and wakes to find him- 
self in a neighboring yard, or never wakes to 
see the effect of his employer's false economy. 
Under such management, who can wonder at 
the accidents we read of weekly ; or, rather, 
what man conversant with the laws of steam 
does not wonder that there are no more 
" terrible calamities" fo be recorded ? 

It is comparatively easy to understand the 
great advantages that have accrued to naviga- 
tion and land transportation from the use 
of steam, for its effects are constantly before 
our eyes ; but improvements from the use 
of steam in stationary engines are less ap- 
parent, although full as great. Even in the 
immense manufactories of Manchester and 
Lowell, where the water power seems almost 
unlimited, we find the steam engine at work ; 
and all the water power of the United States 
combined would not be sufficient to carry 
out one branch of manufacture in all its de- 
tails. If we now compete with foreigners in 
the manufacture of cotton goods, in spite of 
the low price of labor abroad, it is not only 
owing to our great improvements in cotton 
machinery, but also to the competition of 
our steam mills. And the steam press ! Tiny 



152 



CONCLUSION. 



jets of steam puff forth from the offices of 
our smallest job printers, and ponderous en- 
gines work the six, eight, and ten cylinder 
presses of our large dailies. The New York 
Herald had facilities as long ago as 1860 
(which were then considered as marvel- 
ous) as follows: two engines to do the press- 
work: one built by Hoe is a beam engine of 
twenty-five horse power, the other is an 
upright engine of fifteen horse power, 
making in all forty horse. With these two 
engines they consume about one ton of coal 
per day, and throw off an average of 75,000 
impressions. The office is, however, capable 
of doing much more than this, its utmost 
capacity being 48,000 impressions per hour. 
The engine rooms are very well fitted, and 
have two of Woodworth's donkey pumps ; 
the one to supply the boilers with water, 
and the other, to be used in case of fire, is 
connected with hose in every room of the 
building. 

The first steam mill that was erected in 
England was mobbed by the populace. They 
feared this giant competitor ; they were afraid 
it would take food from their mouths ; and 
we are sorry to say that this old feeling of 
the laboring classes is not yet entirely erad- 
icated; educated Americans, who should 
know better, can yet be found to condemn 
machine labor. Last year Broadway was 
swept by a machine that would in time 
have been replaced by steam, but New York 
has taken' a retrograde step, and politics have 
so strong a hold upon her citizens that prog- 
ress must bide her time. Has the intro- 
duction of machinery hurt the laboring 
classes ? That is tire question ! Are our 
laboring men worse off than before the in- 
troduction of steam ? Look at the facts and 
the answer is plain. A few coachmen were 
thrown out of employment to make room for 
hundreds of employees upon the railroad, to 
say nothing of the thousands benefited by 
their construction, and that of the cars, loco- 
motives, station-houses, etc. A handful of 
weavers and spinners have been temporarily 
removed, to be reinstated, with thousands of 
their fellow men and women, at full as good 
pay as before. Head has aided hands every- 
where, and those who have kept up with the 
age of improvements have been, as they 
should be, the ones to profit by its advan- 
tages. But great as have been the improve- 
ments in our stationary engines, there is 
still much to do ; we are not, in fact, living up 
ito what we already know. The ordinary 



average of duty performed by our best sta- 
tionary condensing engines is one horse 
power to four pounds of good coal consumed, 
while in marine engines it requires the con- 
sumption of four and a half pounds to the 
horse power ; and yet engines are running 
that consume but two pounds to the same 
work. With these facts before their eyes, men 
continue to purchase the former, instead of 
looking for an improvement upon the latter ; 
for even these results c\a be improved upon, 
as in our best boilers there is much of the 
combustible gases wasted, and much of the 
water evaporated into steam is condensed 
before it reaches the cylinder; any percepti- 
ble heat from the engine while working is, of 
course, so much loss of fuel. Bearing this in 
mind, enter an engine or fire room, and you 
will realize the loss from that source alone. 

The first difficulty is being fast overcome 
by admitting atmospheric air above the fire, 
which unites with the gases as they rise, and 
furnishes the oxygen necessary for their com- 
bustion ; it is now necessary to get rid of 
the heavy, incombustible gases, and this will 
soon be done. The radiation of heat can 
be prevented almost entirely by inclosing the 
boiler, cylinders, steam-pipes, etc., in some 
non-conducting substance ; this is technically 
called '■'■jacketing.' 1 '' Other improvements in 
the steam engine are being made every day, 
and we believe that the consumption of only 
one pound of coal to the hors epower will 
soon be accomplished. 

In view of all the facts that have been 
adduced to prove that the steam engine 
is the best of all motors, can it be pos- 
sible that there are still those who are 
sceptical on the subject of its utility ? 
Alas, yes ! You will find them among 
those who object to the use of steam in our 
streets to replace the horse cars ; men who 
believe that new inventions must necessarily 
be humbugs, because in a few instances they 
have failed, and who cannot see that the 
greater number have added to their wealth, 
their comfort, and their pleasure. The greater 
number, say we ? We might have said all ; 
for if the first invention fail, it paves the way 
for another and better, and many of the fail- 
ures of inventors stand as sign-boards to 
show the false paths. You will find these 
incredulous men in the same position to-dav 
as were the throng of spectators who stood 
in Brown's ship-yard when the North Riv- 
er was fired up for the first time, loudlv 
calling it "Fulton's follv." Its <rreat success 



153 



soon quieted them for the time, but it was 
for a time only. A succession of surprises 
from that day to this should, it would he 
thought, have forever quieted them, but they 
" still live," and will only accept progress as 
a fact after repeated successes make it impos- 
sible to doubt ; meeting each new plan with 
the same incredulity. 

In speaking of the accessories of the 
steam engine, there is one point we omitted: 
many boilers are unprovided with steam 
gauges. In a conversation with a proprietor 
of a steam engine some time since, we asked 
him why he did not have a gauge \ipon his 
boiler. "Oh !" said he, " that is all nonsense ; 
my safety-valve is weighted at one hundred, 
and my boiler would easily carry twice that 
steam. I have been without one for three 
years, and don't need it." We asked him if 
his engine was always competent to do his 
work, and if the latter was always constant. 
"Yes," he replied, "the engine will always do 
the work, but it is just all it will do. As for 
the work being constant, it is far from that ; 
some days we do not run but half of our 
machines, and then the safety-valve tells its own 
story by ' blowing off.' " " Yes," we replied, 
" and it tells another story, which is ' loss of 
fuel.' Had you a steam gauge, the engineer 
would know how to fire, and in less than three 
months you would be able to pay for a gauge 
out of your savings." "Pooh ! nonsense," he 
replied. Insisting upon the truth of what we 
said, we prevailed upon him to try it for a 
month with, and without a gauge, and so 
well satisfied was he with the result that he 
now says a gauge is worth two hundred dol- 
lars per year to him. This may have been 
an extreme case, for the engineer always knew 
when he came in the morning what machines 
were to be run, and he soon had an exact 
knowledge of the amount of steam required 
to drive them, and, therefore, regulated his 
fires by the gauge. Gauges will get out of 
order, we know, but they must be tested at 
least every three months by some standard, 
and repaired if wrong. Who wonders if so 
delicate an instrument should get out of or- 
der under one hundred pounds pressure for 
two or three years ? and yet we can point to 
a gauge in use in this city that has not 
been tested for four. It is unnecessary 
to add, the proprietor " don't believe in 
gauges;" he probably expected it to last a 
life-time. 

With regard to low water detectors, that 
whistle when the water is dangerously low, 



they must be used with great caution, for if 
out of order they would be a source of pos- 
itive danger by the fancied security of the 
runner. After all, the only safeguard is a 
boiler in good order, and a competent engi- 
neer to take care of it ; be sure on these two 
points, and nothing is better than steam to 
do your work. Those owning small engines 
object to paying the price of such men. Is 
it not better to pay more per day for abso- 
lute safety than to risk an explosion that will 
destroy all your property, and possibly your 
life and the lives of your workmen ? If your 
work is not sufficiently profitable to pay a 
competent man, sell your engine and run 
your mill by horse power; better have a mule 
to turn the driving wheel than run the en- 
gine. But it will afford it ; nay, in nine cases 
out of ten a good man will save more than 
his salary amounts to in fuel and repairs 
alone. 

And now a word to engineers. You who 
are upon our steamships and locomotives 
think that such a law would be of no bene- 
fit to you ; but you are very much mistaken; 
once passed, it would give employment to 
hundreds that are now competing with you 
for a position that is only sought because it 
offers better wages than stationaries can 
under the present system ; under the same 
pay, men would prefer to run land engines, 
and be near home. Therefore, it is a duty 
you owe yourselves to insist, wherever you 
exercise the rights of suffrage, that your rep- 
resentative shall advocate such a law ; make 
it the sine qua non of your vote. And you, 
engineers in name only, if you wish to retain 
your present positions, study your duty ; learn 
why you do what you now mechanically per- 
form ; find out what pressure you are carry- 
ing, for yourselves, and do not trust to the 
marks on your safety-valves; read works on 
steam, and satisfy yourselves if they are true 
by, as far as in your power lies, testing them, 
for all that is printed is not necessarily true, 
as you will very soon discover. Above all 
things, be one to form an engineers' society, 
and discuss with men of experience the 
knotty points which will rise in your mind 
when you once begin the study of this po- 
tent vapor. 

We cannot finish this article without re- 
ferring briefly to another motor, which has 
for the last four or five years attracted some 
attention : we allude to the caloric engine, 
Mr. Ericsson, of whom we have already spo- 
ken, is the inventor of this machine. The 



154 



CONCLUSION. 



power made use of is the expansive force of 
heated air. For small engines this motor has 
been used with success, but in all Mr. Erics- 
son's experiments on a large scale it has 
failed. As there is no danger of explosion 
from the lack of water, the caloric engine 
has been of value on the southern planta- 
tions, as any one can run it, it being only nec- 
essary to make a fire, and see that the ma- 
chine is oiled and kept in repair. We do not 
believe, however, that it will ever supersede 
steam as a motor, even for small engines. 
Since Mr. Ericsson's invention, others have 
followed with various improvements, and 
much ingenuity has been displayed upon the 
subject ; we hear occasionally of some great 
success of a caloric engine, but it never re- 
sults in any thing permanent. The details of 
the caloric are different from those of the 
steam engine, and the heavy boiler is done 
away with, but they are not as cheap if the 
cost of the boiler be excepted, and are much 
more liable to get out of repair ; still, if prop- 
erly taken care of they are useful, as we said 
before, in situations where but little power is 
required, and water scarce. Mr. Holly, so 
well known as " Tubal Cain " of the New 
York Times, says, in speaking of the caloric 
engine : " We only wish it was a better 
rival of steam in every particular, that it 
might compel the makers and users of boil- 
ers to employ better materials, better forms, 
and greater care in the management of the 
subtle motor — steam. And as its mechanism 
improves, as we believe it will, to some ex- 
tent, year after year, it will better serve the 
public by compelling us to improve the 
smaller varieties of the steam engine, which, 
we believe, can also be made perfectly safe. 
The hot-air engine requires no constant or 
professional attendance, and for this reason 
is a valuable motor in cases where an occa- 
sional or auxiliary power is required. And 
for small purposes, the saving of engineer's 
pay more than balances the increased cost 
of fuel and repairs." 

Undoubtedly small steam engines and 
boilers can be made perfectly safe ; in fact, 
they should be the safest, and will be so, 
when the public will not look to the mere 
first cost alone, but will only buy engines of 
the best builders, and pay a fair price there- 
for ; another result that we hope to see brought 
about by an inspection law. Nor is this by 
any means a small matter, for the unthinking 
man would be astonished at the amount of 
small stationaries that are now running 



throughout the country. In New York 
there are engines or boilers in every street ; 
at our hotels and public buildings, in our 
printing offices, carpenter shops, as well as 
in all the larger manufactories and machine 
shops, engines of from two to five hundred 
horse power are daily running. Machinery 
of all kinds is driven by steam, from the 
large lathes and planers of our machine shops 
to the sewing machines of the clothiers ; 
manufacturing crinoline in one place, and 
forging huge masses of iron in another, the 
busy hum of steam-driven machinery resounds 
on every side. Stand and look at the ten- 
cylinder press, and think of Franklin work- 
ing at his old wooden one. Compare the 
speed of the former with the country press 
of only a few years back, if you would realize 
this great improvement. Has this hurt the 
printers as a class? Figure up the gross 
amount now paid to compositors, and com- 
pare it with the amount paid fifty years ago 
before you answer. Philadelphia is known 
as a manufacturing city, and one which is 
probably destined to be the greatest in this 
country. To what does she owe her pros- 
perity ? To the stationary engine, for she 
has no water power. We have already said, 
and we repeat, that imperfect though the 
steam engine may still be, it is by no means 
certain that water power is cheaper, and 
there is one disadvantage in the latter that 
is often overlooked, it is that of monopoly. 
The rich company who own the water 
power let it out at their own price, for there 
is no competition ; but with the steam en- 
gine it is very different ; if the price asked 
for power by your neighbor be too great, 
you can readily purchase an engine of just 
the power you require, and run it in- 
dependently. But the greatest advantage 
of the stationary engine is that it can be 
used by the manufacturer at the door 
of the consumer, and the goods produced 
will be thus under his direct inspection. 

Steam enters into the manufacture of every 
thing around us. The paper we write upon 
was dried by steam, our tin paper-cutter 
was rolled by steam, the chair we sit upon 
was turned and bent, the carpet was perhaps 
wove or at least dyed, and the wood work 
of the very room we are in, were all done by 
steam. Steam can warm our dwellings, and 
prepare our food. It tunnels mountains, 
and makes pins, cards, spins and weaves, 
coins our money, braids, twists, sews, 
washes, irons, and, in fact, enters into every 
branch of industry. 



COTTON MANUFACTURES. 



CHAPTER I. 

ORIGIN— HAND WORK— INTENTIONS. 

The use of cotton as a material for human 
clothing has been known since remote ages, 
not only in Asia, but among the ancient in- 
habitants of America. The kind of cotton 
used in the United States is a native of 
Mexico, and it was the principal material 
for clothing in use with the Mexicans at 
the time of the discovery of this country. 
They had neither hemp,wool,nor silk, but they 
wove the cotton into large webs, as delicate 
and as fine as those of Holland. These they or- 
namented with feathers and fur, wrought into 
the fabric in the form of animals and Mowers. 
Cortes sent a number of these magnificent 
robes to Charles V. The art was apparently 
lost in the strife that followed, but the 
material transplanted to the United States 
about the time of the organization of the 
new government, has become a bond which 
holds modern Europe in dependence on 
American industry ; a dependence which 
they would gladly shake otf if they could, 
but which only becomes more hopeless in 
their efforts to do so. The cotton culture 
has produced a web which holds the lion 
in its toils, and his efforts to free himself, 
gigantic as they may be, only make his im- 
potence more apparent. 

The growing and manufacturing of cotton 
by machine took date from the organization 
of the United States government, and its 
progress to 1800 was Yds. 

Price, 
United States Cotton of Total Liver- Yards 

crop. other sources, supply, pool. cloth, 
lbs. lbs. lbs. cts. 

1800, 9,632,268 45,071,170 54,203.433 48 162,010,299 
1880, 8,984.660,000 975.250,000 3,959,800,000 74,932,000,000 

The cotton from other sources was that im- 
ported into Great Britain from other places 
than the United States. The increase of 
supply was neanly all from the United States. 
The usual weight of cloth being three yards 
to the pound, the quantity of cotton spun 
would give in cloth the large number of yards 



seen in the table. This production employs 
a vast capital in the transportation, manu- 
facture, and sale of the fabric. More people 
were, at this time, dependent upon the man- 
ufacture for support, than there were in 
the United States at the formation of the 
government. In the United States last 
year, 953,049,105 pounds were manufac- 
tured, or equal to 2,859,147,315 yards of 
cloth, or 59 yards to every person in the 
Union. The value of this must be $215,- 
000,000. This has been the result of 
eighty years' progress from very small be- 
ginnings, and this marvelous growth has 
resulted from the extraordinary inventions 
that have not ceased to succeed each other, 
and of which we shall give a brief sketch. 
The manufacture of cotton by hand orig- 
inated in India at a time too remote for 
record, and it has there existed down to the 
present time in a rude state as far as ma- 
chines are concerned, yet of an unapproach- 
able and almost incredible perfection of 
hand production. Ancient writers speak 
of the "fairy-like" texture. Tavernier, 
275 years since, describes a calico that 
you "can hardly feel in your hand, and the 
thread is scarcely discernible." The Rev. 
William Ward states that muslins are made 
so fine that four months are required to make 
one piece, which is then worth 500 rupees 
(£250). "When this is laid on the grass, 
and the dew is on it, it cannot be seen." 
These are marvellous productions, doubtless, 
but they are possible only as a result of the 
organization of the people. They possess 
an exquisite sense of touch, and that gentle- 
ness and patience which characterize only 
an effeminate race. Even with them a long 
training is required in each district to per- 
fect the cloth peculiar to it. This is a kind 
of industry that does not minister to the 
wants of a vigorous people in other climes. 
From India the manufacture spread to China, 
in the eleventh century, and found its way 
to Europe with the Mahometan conquests. 



156 



ORIGIN HAND WORK INVENTIONS. 



It was for a long time supposed and as- 
serted by many philosophers that the Egyp- 
tians made cloth of cotton, and the mummy 
wrappers were asserted to be of cotton. It 
was not, however, until of late years, that 
the error was proved. The microscope re- 
veals the fact that the fibres of cotton and 
flax are quite different. The latter is round 
and jointed, like a sugar cane, while cotton 
is flat and twisted. The mummy cloths 
are all of the first description, and there are 
no signs of a cotton manufacture in Egypt. 

It spread through southern Europe slug- 
gishly, and is first mentioned in England in 
1641 ; but it made little progress until a cen- 
tury later. There were two obstacles to 
progress — want of the material and want of 
machines to manufacture effectively. The 
quantity of cotton imported into Great 
Britain early in the seventeenth century was 
about one million o$ pounds. 

Up to the timo- of the American revolution- 
ary war, the cotton manufacture in England in 
all its branches was in a very primitive state. 
At that date a series of inventions and discov- 
eries took place, that rapidly carried the 
cotton manufacture to a magnitude second 
to no other industry, and gave it the im- 
pulse which has since been rapidly acceler- 
ated. The cleaning, carding, spinning, 
weaving, dyeing, and printing were all con- 
ducted in slow and expensive methods, by 
which a great number of people were re- 
quired to produce small results. The only 
source for the raw material was then the 
East Indies. The quantity derived thence 
was about 40, 000 bales, or4, 000, OOOpounds, 
and this was wrought up by hand processes. 
The object in carding and spinning is to draw 
out the loose fibres of the cotton into a regu- 
lar and continuous line, and after reducing it to 
the requisite tenuity, to twist it into a thread. 
By the early method, after the cotton was 
cleaned, it was carded between two flat cards 
held in the hand. A small quantity of the 
cotton placed on one was, with the other, 
combed as straight as possible. The fleecy 
roll that resulted was called a sliver. This 
roll, or sliver, was then applied to the single 
spindle, that was driven by a wheel set in 
motion by the other hand of the operator; 
as it received a twist, it was drawn out into 
a thick thread like a candle-wick, called a rov- 
ing, and was wound on a cop. This roving was 
again drawn out and spun into a thread. Thus, 
in two operations, a single irregular and im- 
perfect thread grew slowly in two hands. In 



this manner all the cotton yarn used was 
made, in cottages and private houses, mostly 
by females. The weaving was also done by 
hand looms ; but such was the slow process 
of spinning, that the weaver's time was 
largely employed in going round to buy up 
yarn. They competed with each other in 
this, and the yarn thus cost more than it 
should. One fine morning Mr. James Har- 
greaves determined to emancipate himself 
from the spinners, by putting into practice an 
idea that had occurred to him. This was, 
to spin in his own house, and to make one 
wheel drive eight spindles, and to draw the 
rovings by means of a clasp held in the left 
hand of the operator. That was the first 
spinning-jenny, patented in 1767. In 1769, 
Arkwright added the important discovery 
of rollers, or drawing frames. This was one 
of the most important inventions. It con- 
sisted in causing the roving, on its way to 
the spindle, to pass between a pair of rollers 
about four inches long and one in diameter. 
These held the roving so firmly between 
them that it could pass only at the speed of 
their own revolution. From these the rov- 
ing passed between two other rollers, which 
revolved twice as fast as the first pair. 
The effect was that between the two sets, 
the roving was drawn out to double its 
former length, and, of course, half its tenuity. 
The rollers thus supplanted the drawing by 
hand. By this mode of drawing the cotton, 
the fibres are straightened and made parallel ; 
and the improvements that have since been 
made in the same direction are to increase the 
drawings and doublings, or the placing of sev- 
eral slivers together to be drawn down into 
one. In 1784, Crompton combined these 
two inventions into a third, called the mule- 
spinner. The machine of Arkwright was 
called the water-frame, because it was first 
driven by water power. The defect was, 
that it spun thread for warps only. It could 
not spin fine threads, because these could 
not bear the strain of the bobbins. This the 
mule remedied. Instead of the spindles be- 
ing stationary, and the rovings movable, the 
former were placed upon a movable frame 
which runs out fifty-six inches, to stretch 
and twist the thread, and runs in again for 
it to wind upon the spindles. The thread is 
thus treated more gently. The effect of this 
machine is best understood by the fact that 
a " hank" of thread measures 840 yards, and 
it was before supposed impossible to spin 80 
of these hanks from a pound of cotton. The 



COTTON MANUFACTURES. 



157 



new machine spun 350 hanks to the pound, 
thus forming a thread 167 miles in length ! 
This mule was improved to carry 130 spin- 
dles ; and when water power was applied, 
in 1790, it carried 400 spindles. These 
mules, at the present day, carry 3,000 spin- 
dles, and are now self-acting. 

The process of carding had also in this 
period undergone great improvements. The 
first improvement made in the old hand 
cards was to make one of them a fixture, 
and of a larger size than the other. The 
workman could thus work more cotton in 
the same time. He then proceeded to 
suspend the movable card by a pulley, 
with a weight to balance it. The next 
advance was to make the movable card a 
cylinder covered with cards, and turned 
by a handle, in a concave frame, lined also 
with cards, which was simply the fixed card 
curved to adapt it to the cylindrical form of 
the other. The lower part was let down in 
order to remove the cotton, by means of a 
stick with needles in it like a comb. The 
next improvement was in 1772, to attach an 
endless revolving cloth, called a feeder, on 
which the cotton was spread, and by it convey- 
ed to the cylinder. The next step was to take 
the carded wool off the cylinder by means 
of another cylinder revolving in an opposite 
direction, and called the doffer. This being 
entirely covered with cards, gave a continu- 
ous fleece of cotton, which was in 1773 re- 
moved from it by means of a steel blade like 
a saw, working by short strokes. This 
broad fleece then passed through a funnel, by 
which it was contracted into a ribbon ; it then 
proceeded through two rollers, that com- 
pressed it and let it fall into a deep can. The 
carding machine by these means approached 
perfection, but there was necessary to it 
the marvellous American invention of the 
card-making machine, which made the cards 
so perfectly and so cheaply as to make the 
cylinder carding possible. The concave 
frame in which the original cylinder re- 
volved, was soon replaced by smaller cylin- 
ders covered with cards and revolving in a 
direction contrary to the main cylinder. 
Between the action of these, the cotton was 
more perfectly combed out. 

The carding and spinning of yarn thus had 
become developed in a manner to meet the 
wishes of the weavers, but now genius was 
directed to the loom, and in 1785 the power 
loom was invented by the Rev. Dr. Cart- 
wright. This Avas improved upon, until 



in 1803 a new loom was patented by Mr. 
llorrocks. These looms but slowly sup- 
planted hand looms, notwithstanding their 
great superiority. The great obstacle to the 
success of the power loom was that it was 
necessary to stop it frequently to dress the 
warp as it came from the beam. The dress- 
ing is a size of flour and water, now used 
cold ; the object of it is to make the thread 
smooth, like cat-gut. The inconvenience of 
the frequent dressing was remedied in 1802, 
by the invention of the dressing machine. 
By this machine the thread is wound from 
the bobbins upon the weaving-beam, and in 
its passage it passes through the starch. It 
is then pressed between rollers, and pass- 
ing over hot cylinders to dry it, it is brushed 
in its progress. When wound upon the 
beam it is ready for weaving. The power 
loom thenceforth grew rapidly in favor. 
Before the invention of the dressing machine, 
one man was required to each loom ; after- 
ward, a girl of fourteen tended two, and 
produced with them three and one-half times 
as much cloth as the best hand weaver. Im- 
provements were made, until, in 1833, a 
weaver fifteen } T ears old, aided by a girl 
of twelve, would weave eighteen pieces of 
nine-eighths shirting of the same quality of 
which, in 1803, it required a grown man to 
make two in a week. 

AVhile these improvements in machines 
were made, there were discovered processes 
of bleaching quite as important. This pro- 
cess previously required six to eight months 
to steep in lyes and bleach upon the grass. 
By chemical discoveries, a bleaching powder, 
composed of manganese, salt, sulphuric acid, 
and lime, is effective in bleaching the rough, 
gray, and dirty fabric that comes from the 
weaver, in a few hours. Every thing is done 
by machinery and chemical agents. 

The printing of calico was introduced into 
England in the seventeenth century, but made 
little or no progress until its introduction into 
Lancashire in 1764, when it was taken up by 
a farmer, Robert Peel, grandfather of the late 
prime minister of England, Sir Robert l'eel. 
When lie began t<> print, he had the cloth 
ironed out by one of his family, and used a 
parsley leaf for a pattern. The method was 
to cut the pattern upon blocks of sycamore, 
like an ordinary wood engraving. On the 
back of the blo*k was a handle. The color 
was contained in a vessel, over which was 
stretched a woollen cloth, in contact with 
the liquid. To this the surface of the block was 



158 



ORIGIN HAND WORK INVENTIONS. 



applied, and it was then laid upon the white 
cloth ironed out, and struck with a mallet ; 
the figure was thus impressed. The block 
was then applied in a fresh place ; so that a 
piece of calico twenty-eight yards, required 
448 applications of the block. To make 
more delicate figures, copper plates were 
employed, with the press used for copper- 
plate printing. The copper-plate method 
was quite as slow as the block method. In 
1785, cylinder printing was invented. A pol- 
ished copper cylinder, three feet in length 
and four inches in diameter, is engraved 
with the figure on its whole surface. It is 
then placed in the press, and as it revolves, 
the lower part passes through the coloring 
matter, which is scraped from the surface as 
it rises by a steel blade nicely adjusted 
lengthwise. This blade is called the " doc- 
tor." The cloth passes between this roller 
and a large cylinder, and receives the im- 
pression by a continuous motion. Thus, 
two or three minutes now sufficed to do 
what required before 448 applications. Al- 
most any number of these cylinders may be 
used at the same time in the same press, 
and with different colors. Thus a five cyl- 
inder press will do what would have required 
2,240 applications by the block ; in other 
words, a man and a boy could now do what 
before would have required 200 men and boys. 
An American invention here made an 
important change in the printing. Mr. Jacob 
Perkins, of Massachusetts, invented the proc- 
ess of transferring an engraving from a very 
small steel cylinder to the copper. Before 
this, the whole of the copper cylinder required 
to be engraved, at great expense, and when 
done would print about 1,500 pieces of cloth 
before it was worn out. By the new 
mode, a steel cylinder three inches long 
and one in diameter, is prepared by being 
softened that it may be easily cut. The 
pattern to be engraved is so arranged and 
made to agree with the circumference of the 
copper cylinder, as to join and appear con- 
tinuous when repeated. When this is cut 
upon the steel it is hardened, and then, by 
great pressure against another soft cylinder, 
the figure is made on it in relief, or raised 
upon its surface. This being hardened, 
transfers by pressure the design upon the 
whole of the copper cylinder. The engrav- 
ing is thus multiplied fifty-four times, and 
may be renewed at short notice when the 
cylinder is worn. This was a most impor- 
tant step in advance. When many colors are 



required in the same pattern, portions of it 
are engraved upon separate dies, and the 
number of colors may be multiplied by add- 
ing cylinders. 

We have thus sketched the state of affairs 
down to about the period of the introduc- 
tion of the manufacture into the United 
States, which was about the period of the 
formation of the government. The imports 
of the raw material into Great Britain at 
that time, will show the rapidity with which 
the trade developed itself. 

COTTON IMPORTED INTO GREAT BRITAIN. 

1775.. .4,705,589 lbs. 1786.. .19,900,000 lbs. 
1781.. .5,198,777 " 1789.. .32,576,023 " 

The cotton was derived as follows in 
1786: British West Indies, 5,800,000 lbs.; 
French and Spanish do., 5,500,000 lbs. ; 
Dutch do., 1,600,000 lbs.; Portuguese do., 
2,000,000 lbs. ; Turkey, 5,000,000^1bs. The 
United States contributed nothing. They 
did not then grow cotton. 

The American invention of the cotton gin 
was more important than all the inventions 
we have described, for the reason that without 
it, and the American supply of cotton made 
possible by it, all the ingenuity of the 
English would have failed for want of ma- 
terial to work on. The sources of supply 
above mentioned have not increased in ca- 
pacity. England has derived some cotton 
from India, but not so much in the raw 
state as she sends thither in goods, and the 
United States alone keep her mills in mo- 
tion. While they have done this they have 
also developed the manufacture in a mar- 
vellous manner. We will here enumerate the 
dates of the above described inventions, in 
order to show that it was in the midst of 
the excitement they produced, that the 
manufacture was transported to America. 

Hargreaves' jenny 1767 

Arkwright's rollers 1 769 

Cromptou's mule 1784 

Feeding for carder 1772 

Doffer " " 1773 

Cartwright's loom 1785 

Water power used 1790 

Cylinder printing 1785 

Dressing machine 1802 

It was at the period so prolific in inven- 
tions, and when the use of cotton had so in- 
creased in England, that the manufacture 
was commenced in the United States. The 
first mill was at Beverly, Mass. It had a 
capital of £90,000, and was organized in 
1787, for the manufacture of corduroys and 




HAND LOOM. 




POWER LOOM. ONE GIRL ATTENDS FOUR. 



,|i|i||i|i lP^Miiiifflflgf 




SPINNING BY HAND WITH A SINGLE SPINDLE. 




THE MULE SPINNER IS GENERALLY DRAWN OUT AUTOMATICALLY RY STEAM 

OR WATER POWER. 



COTTON MANUFACTURES. 



161 



bed ticks. The capital was swallowed up 
in fifteen years. The machines were very 
rude, inasmuch as the new inventions in 
England were then unknown here. 



CHAPTER II. 

MANUFACTURE IN AMERICA— SPINNING- 
PROGRESS. 

Samuel Slater was an apprentice to 
Jedidiah Strutt, the partner of. Arkwright. 
He served his time, and when of age de- 
parted for America, where he arrived in 

1789. In the following year, he entered 
into partnership with Almey and Brown to 
start a factory at Pawtucket. Here, then, 
were put up, in the best manner, the whole 
series of machines patented and used by 
Arkwright for spinning cotton. There had 
been previous attempts at the spinning of 
cotton by water power, and some rude ma- 
chines were in existence for spinning the 
rolls prepared by hand, in private families ; 
but the machines that had been invented in 
England for the purpose were entirely un- 
known here until put up by Slater. Those ma- 
chines were so perfect that, although put up in 

1790, they continued to be used forty years, 
up to 1830, when they formed part of an 
establishment of two thousand spindles, 
which long existed in Pawtucket under the 
name of the " old mill." Slater's business 
was prosperous, and he amassed a large for- 
tune. He died in 1834. His son and heirs 
still carry on the business. It is to be re- 
marked that his business was confined to 
the spinning of cotton. The business, of 
course, spread as soon as it was found to be 
profitable ; but, up to the war of 1812, the 
New England interests were commercial, and 
when the war broke out there was an im- 
mense rise in the value of goods, which 
gave to all existing spinning interests a great 
advantage. Cotton cloth sold at forty cents 
per yard ; and Slater held almost a monop- 
oly of the supply of yarn to make it. Mr. 
Slater had, in 1807, in connection with his 
brother John, who brought over important 
knowledge of the recent improvements in 
machinery, erected a mill at Slatersville, near 
Smithfield, R I. Mr. Slater established a 
Sunday school for his operatives, and this is 
supposed to have been the first in New Eng- 
land. 

It will be observed that Mr. J. Slater got his 



mill into operation at the same period that 
the federal government was organized under 
the new constitution, a most auspicious event. 
The manufacture did not fail to attract the 
attention of the new government, and Alex- 
ander Hamilton, secretary of the treasury, 
in his famous report of 1791, remarks: — 

"The manufacture of cotton goods not long 
since established at Beverly, in Massachu- 
setts, and at Providence, Rhode Island, seems 
to have overcome the first obstacles to suc- 
cess ; producing corduroys, velverets, fustians, 
jeans, and other similar articles, of a qual- 
ity which will bear a comparison with the 
like articles brought from Manchester. The 
one at Providence has the merit of being 
the first in introducing into the United 
States the celebrated cotton mill, which not 
only furnishes material for the factory itself, 
but for the supply of private families for 
household manufacture. 

" Other manufactories of the same material, 
as regular businesses, have also been begun 
in the state of Connecticut, but all upon a 
smaller scale than those mentioned. Some 
essays are also making in the printing and 
staining of cotton goods. There are several 
small establishments of this kind already on 
foot." 

The same report proposes, as an aid to the 
factories, to remove the duty of three cents 
per pound on the import of raw cotton, and 
to extend the duty of seven and a naif per 
cent, to all cotton goods. It also remarks 
that cotton has not the same pretension as 
hemp to protection, as it is not a production 
of the country, and affords less assurance of 
an adequate supply. These few facts afford 
an idea of the notions then entertained of 
that cotton which has since overshadowed 
all other interests. 

The old mill of Samuel Slater, Esq., the 
first building erected in America for the 
manufacture of cotton yarns, is a venerable 
wood-built structure, two stories in height, 
bearing numerous evidences of its antiquity, 
having been erected in 1793. Two spinning 
fiamcs, the first in the mill, are still there, 
and are decided curiosities in their way. It 
is almost incredible to believe that this old 
building, time-worn and weather-browned, 
was the first to spread its sheltering roof 
over the young pupil of Arkwright, and that 
those dwarf frames, rusty and mildewed with 
inactivity, are the pioneer machines of that 
immense branch of our national industry — 
the manufacture of cotton goods. It may be 



162 



MANUFACTURE IN AMERICA SPINNING PROGRESS. 



remarked that down to 1828 the exportation 
of machines of all kinds, and also wool, was 
strictly prohibited in England, for fear other 
nations should benefit by English mechanic- 
al genius, of which they supposed they had 
a monopoly ; when, however, they found that 
the balance of genius was on this side of the 
pond, they liberally removed the prohibition. 
Mr. Slater, the father of American cotton 
manufactures, was so closely watched at the 
English custom-house, that he could not 
smuggle over a drawing or pattern. He had, 
however, acquired a full knowledge of the 
Arkwright principle of spinning, and from 
recollection, and with his own hands, made 
three cards and twenty-two spindles, and 
put them in motion in the building of a 
clothier, by the water-wheel of an old fulling- 
mill. Eighty-eight years have since elapsed, 
and the business has in that period increased 
beyond all precedent in the history of manu- 
factures. Our rivers and wild waterfalls, 
that then flowed and murmured in solitude, 
are now propelling thousands of mill-wheels, 
and millions of shuttles and spindles. In the 
business, hundreds of fortunes have been 
made, thousands of citizens earn a subsist- 
ence and find constant employment, while 
millions are clothed in different portions of 
the globe. A wonderful revolution has that 
old mill produced on the shores of the new 
world. When Gen. Jackson visited the 
mill, and complimented Slater on his having 
been the first : " Yes," he replied, " here I 
gave out the psalm, which is now sung by 
millions." 

The machines for the spinning of cotton 
thence spread into several states, and con- 
tinued to attract capital. The extent to 
which this was carried became evident in 
1810, from the facts collected by the secre- 
tary of the treasury, Albert Gallatin, Esq. 
The manufactures of cotton and wool were 
then principally confined to families ; and 
Mr. Gallatin thought it probable that about 
two-thirds of the clothing (including hosiery), 
of the house and table linen worn and used 
by the inhabitants of the United States, not 
residing in cities, was the product of family 
manufactures. The number of cotton mills 
returned to the secretary, which were erect- 
ed at the close of the year 1809, was eighty- 
seven, sixty-two of which (forty-eight water 
and fourteen horse-mills) were in operation, 
and worked at that time 31,000 spindles. 
The other twenty -five, it was supposed, would 
be in operation in the course of the year 



1810, and, with the former, would probably 
work eighty thousand spindles at the com- 
mencement of the year 1811. He estimated 
the amount of capital that would be em- 
ployed in these mills at 14,800,000, the 
cotton used 3,600,000 lbs., the yarn spun at 
2,880,000 lbs., valued at $3,240,000, the 
men employed 500, and the women and boys 
3,500. 

By the returns of the marshals of the 
census of 1810, the number of cotton fac- 
tories was 168, with 90,000 spindles; but 
from most of the states no returns were made 
of the quantity of cotton used and the yarn 
spun. Massachusetts had 54, most of them, 
no doubt, small, having in the whole 
only 19,448 spindles, consuming but 838,- 
348 pounds of cotton, and their produce 
valued at $931,916. Rhode Island had 26 
factories, with 21,030 spindles, and Connect- 
icut 14, with 11,883 spindles. These were 
for the supply of yarn to be used in hand 
looms exclusively. 

In this position of affairs the war took 
place ; but just on its eve Mr. Francis C. 
Lowell, of Boston, returned from Europe, 
where he had inspected the great improve- 
ments in machines for cotton manufacturing, 
and had formed the project of establishing 
the manufacture in this country- He as- 
sociated with himself in the enterprise his 
brother-in-law, Patrick S. Jackson, and they 
set about it. The country was then at war 
with England, and there was no possibility 
of getting either models or machines thence, 
nor even drawings. The memory of Mr. 
Lowell was all that was to be depended upon 
for the structure of the machinery, the 
materials used in the construction, even the 
tools of the machine shop. The first object 
to be accomplished was to procure a power 
loom. To obtain one from England was, of 
course, impracticable ; and although there 
were many patents for such machines in our 
Patent Office, not one had yet exhibited suf- 
ficient merit to be adopted into use. Under 
these circumstances but one resource re- 
mained — to invent one themselves — and this 
these earnest men at once set about. 

Unacquainted as they were with machinery 
in practice, they dared, nevertheless, to at- 
tempt the solution of a problem that had 
baffled the most ingenious mechanicians. In 
England, the power loom had been invented 
by a clergyman, and why not here by a mer- 
chant ? After numerous experiments and 
failures, they at last succeeded, in the 



COTTON MANUFACTURES. 



163 



autumn of 1812, in producing a model which 
they thought so well of as to be willing to 
make preparations for putting up a mill for 
the weaving of cotton cloth. It was now 
necessary to procure the assistance of a 
practical mechanic, to aid in the construction 
of the machinery, and the friends had the 
good fortune to secure the services of Mr. 
Paul Moody, afterward so well known as 
the head of the machine shop at Lowell. 
They found, as might naturally be expected, 
many defects in their model loom ; but these 
were gradually remedied. The project 
hitherto had been exclusively for a weaving 
mill, to do by power what had before been 
done by hand looms. But it was ascertain- 
ed on inquiry that it would be more eco- 
nomical to spin the twist than to buy 
it, and they put up a mill for about 1,700 
spindles, which was completed late in 1813. 
It will probably strike the reader with some 
astonishment to be told that this mill, still 
in operation at Waltham, was probably the 
first one in the world that combined all the 
operations necessary for converting the raw 
cotton into finished cloth. Such, however, 
is the fact, as far as we are informed on the 
subject. The mills in this country — Slater's, 
for example, in Rhode Island — were spin- 
ning mills only ; and in England, though the 
power loom had been introduced, it was used 
in separate establishments, by persons who 
bought, as the hand weavers had always 
done, their twist of the spinners. Great dif- 
ficulty was at first experienced at Waltham, 
for the want of a proper preparation (sizing) 
of the warps. They procured from England 
a drawing of Horrocks' dressing machine, 
which, with some essential improvements, 
they adopted, producing the dresser now in 
use at Lowell and elsewhere. No method 
was, however, indicated in this drawing of 
winding the threads from the bobbins on to 
the beam ; to supply this deficiency, the 
macnine called the warper was invented, 
and there was now no further difficulty in 
weaving by power looms. The " double 
speeder," answering to the fly frame for spin- 
ning roving, was then added. Mr. Moody 
then invented the machine called the filling 
throstle, for winding the thread for weft from 
the bobbin on to the quills for the shuttle. 
The manufacture, as far as machinery went, 
was now on a permanent basis. The dif- 
ficulty that presented itself was in opera- 
tives. There was here no such pauper class as 
that from which the English mills were sup- 
10 



plied, and the factories were to be recruited 
from respectable families. By the erection 
of boarding-houses, at the expense and under 
the control of the factory ; putting at the 
head of them matrons of tried character, and 
allowing no boarders to be received except 
the female operatives of the mill; by strin- 
gent regulations for the government of these 
houses — by all these precautions, they gained 
the confidence of the rural population, who 
were no longer afraid to trust their daughters 
in a manufacturing town. A supply was 
thus obtained, of respectable girls; and these, 
from pride of character, as well as from prin- 
ciple, took great care to exclude all othors. 
It was soon found that apprenticeship in a 
factory entailed no degradation of character, 
and was no impediment to a respectable con- 
nection in marriage. A factory girl was no 
longer condemned to pursue that vocation for 
life; she would retire, in herturn, to assume the 
higher and more appropriate responsibilities 
of her sex ; and it soon came to be consid- 
ered that a few years in a mill were an honor- 
able mode of securing a dower. The busi- 
ness could thus be conducted without any per- 
manent manufacturing population. The oper- 
atives no longer formed a separate caste, pur- 
suing a sedentary employment, from parent 
to child, intheheated rooms of a factory, but 
were recruited in a circulating current from 
the healthy and virtuous population of the 
country. The success which these mills met 
with of course prompted their extension. In 
1821, Mr. Ezra Worther, who had formerly 
been a partner with Mr. Moody, and who 
had applied to Mr. Jackson for employment, 
suggested that the Pawtucket canal, at 
Chelmsford, would afford a fine location for 
large manufacturing establishments, and that 
probably a privilege might be purchased of 
its proprietors. To Mr. Jackson's mind the 
hint suggested a much more stupendous pro- 
ject — nothing less than to possess himself of 
the whole power of the Merrimac river at 
that place. Aware of the necessity of se- 
crecy of action, to secure this property at 
any reasonable price, he undertook it single- 
handed. It was necessary to purchase not 
only the stock in the canal, but all the farms 
on both sides of the river, which controlled 
the water-power, or which might be neces- 
sarv for the future extension of the business. 
Such was the .beginning of Lowell, since so 
world-renowned. A new company, the Mer- 
rimac, was immediately established under 
the direction of Kirk Boott ; Esq. 



164 



MANUFACTURE IN AMERICA SPINNING PROGRESS. 



The establishment of the Lowell mills took 
place at a time when the occurrence of war 
had diverted the capital of New England 
from commerce, and it eagerly sought new 
modes of investment. These were presented 
in the promising prospects of the newly in- 
vented machine manufactures. The cotton 
growth of the south had become large before 
the war, and that event caused an immense 
accumulation of stock that sunk the price to 
the lowest point, and by so doing, offered 
an abundance of raw material at rates merely 
nominal compared with what the English 
manufacturers had been paying. This gave 
a great advantage to the new enterprise', and 
Congress aided it by the establishment of 
protective duties. The minimum cotton 
duty was invented for the purpose. The 
rate was nominally ad valorem, but the price 
was fixed at a minimum, on which the duty 
was cast — hence the duty was in effect spe- 
cific. Thus, the abundant raw material, the 
low price of cotton, and the protection of 
the government, all combined to give breadth 
to the newly awakened manufacturing fe- 
ver. The capital that crowded into it, soon, 
as a matter of course, overdid the business, 
and distress followed, which was sought 
to be relieved by a still higher tariff in 1 824. 
That seemed, however, to add but fuel to the 
flame; and in 1828, still higher rates were 
demanded. We may compane these tariffs : 
cotton goods not dyed were to be valued at 
twenty -five cents per square yard, and pay 
twenty-five per cent, duty, or six and a quar- 
ter cents per yard ; goods printed or dyed 
were to pay nine cents per square yard ; fus- 
tians, moleskins, etc., were to pay twenty-five 
•cents per square yard ; woollens were charged 
twenty-five per cent, in 1816, thirty-three 
;and a half per cent, in 1824, and forty-five 
per cent, in 1828. Under all these circum- 
stances, the manufacture could not fail to 
grow rapidly, and of course to bring on dis- 
tress as the result. In 1831, the tariff excite- 
ment had reached such a pitch that the most 
•disastrous political results were anticipated. 
It was then that the committee of the con- 
vention collected information of the existing 
manufactures. They reported the table which 
we annex. The returns are for the eleven 
states where manufactures were well devel- 
oped ; some twenty to thirty other mills 
were also reported, but so imperfectly that 
the returns were rejected. The table is very 
■valuable — -as follows : — 



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COTTON MANUFACTURES. 



105 






Such had been the immense growth of 
the manufacture in ten years from the time 
the Lowell mills were started, when but 
little machine cloth was made; but in 1831, 
there was made, it appears, 230,461,990 
yards, or nearly twenty yards per head for 
all the people. It is obvious that this large 
and sudden production of cloth could have 
found vent only by supplanting the work 
of families and hand looms, and of course 
by pressing hard upon the spinners of 
yarn. The New England mills were mostly 
carried on as one concern, spinning and 
manufacturing together. This, however, 
was not the case with the mills in the mid- 
dle or the new states. The mills there were 
mostly employed in spinning only, as were 
the first New England mills. The yarns 
were produced for sale to hand looms. The 
census of 1840 gave the number of mills 
in the whole country at 1,240, and the 
number of spindles at 2,284,631. consum- 
ing 132,835,856 lbs. of cotton; jand the 
manufacture had continued to spread into 
the southern and western states. That 
was still hand weaving, which yet obtained 
in many parts of the older states of the 
Union. Thus, while in Pennsylvania the 
capital invested amounted to about one- 
seventh of that of Massachusetts, the quan- 
tity of cotton consumed was one-fifth; the 
value of the raw material, not quite one- 
fourth; number of operatives (male and 
female), one-fourth; value of products, 
rather more than one-fourth; the number 
of pounds of yarn spun and sold as yarn 
was above thirty times greater in Pennsyl- 
vania than in Massachusetts. This, to a 
certain extent, gave a key to the differen- 
ces in the modes of manufacture in the two 
states. There could be no doubt, however, 
that domestic weaving was gradually giv- 
ing way, and those manufacturers, espec- 
ially in Pennsylvania, who formerly did a 
piosperous business as spinners only, now 
found that the eastern states supplied the 
piece goods at a rate so little above the 
cost of the yarn, that it was not worth the 
while of the farmer to continue this prim- 
itive custom of weaving his own cloth. 
Thus the domestic loom had begun to fol- 
low the spinning wheel of the early settlers, 
and those manufacturers who, a few years 
since spun yarn only, gradually introduced 
the power loom as the only means of sus- 
taining their position in the market. This 
was illustrated by the Eagle Cotton Mill, 



Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Formerly, the 
proprietors spun yarn only, and did a suc- 
cessful trade; but, by a return which they 
made, it appeared that in six establish- 
ments under their direction they had intro- 
duced already 540 looms to the 26,000 
spindles, and were manufacturing sheeting 
at the rate of 6,000,000 yards per annum, 
together with twilled cotton bags, batting, 
and yarns, and this in order to make the 
latter pay, by consuming the surplus yarns 
themselves. In the Penn Cotton Mill, 
Pittsburg, the more modern system has be- 
come the rule of the establishment, and 
with 7,000 spindles and 207 looms, 2,730,- 
000 yards of shirtings were produced annu- 
ally, besides 240,000 lbs. weight of colored 
yarns for cotton warps and cotton rope. 
At two establishments in Richmond, Vir- 
ginia, the consumption of the yarn in the 
manufacture of piece goods v a ; the rule. 
Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina 
were quoted as those in which the greater 
progress had been made, while Virginia, 
South Carolina, and Alabama were the 
next. In Tennessee, spinning would ap- 
pear to be the rule and manufacturing the 
exception; in Georgia and North Carolina, 
equal attention is paid to both; while in 
Virginia, South Carolina, and Alabama, 
the manufacture of the piece goods was de- 
cidedly more extensively carried on than 
spinning; but slave labor was largely used, 
with free whites as overseers and instruc- 
tors. The males were heads of depart- 
ments, machinists, dressers, etc., and the 
females were spinners and weavers. The 
latter were chiefly adults, though children 
from twelve to fifteen were employed. The 
average hours of work here were twelve, 
but varied a little with the season, very 
full time being the rule. The James River 
Mill produced a large weight of work for 
the extent of its machinery. The goods 
manufactured were coarse cottons, and av- 
eraged about two and one-half yards to the 
pound, shirtings, twenty-eight inches wide 
(osnaburgs), summer pantaloons for slaves, 
and bagging for export to the Brazils for 
sugar bags, running about three yards to 
the pound. Bagging of a lighter character 
for grain, and thirty-six inch osnaburgs, 
two yards to the pound, were also product » : . 
The Manchester Company manufactured 
sheetings, shirtings, and yarns, and employ- 
ed about 325 operatives; the children being 
of the same average age as at the James 



166 



MANUFACTURE IN AMERICA SPINNING PROGRESS. 



River Mill. Mr. Whitehead, of Virginia, 
in 1853, perfected a patent speeder. Its 
advantages are a greater speed, a more 
even roving, and a bobbin of any desirable 
size, which never becomes spongy in the 
winding. In Maryland, however, there 
were twenty-four establishments in 1850, 
chiefly engaged in the manufacture of piece 
goods, such as drillings, sheetings, ducks, 
osnaburgs, and bagging. The yarns pro- 
duced for domestic purposes bore but a 
small proportion to those manufactured in- 
to cloth, and these were chiefly sold within 
the state for tne home weaving of mixed 
fabrics of wool and cotton, forming coarse 
linseys. If the illustrations given show the 
early progress and position' of this manu- 
facture in the United State?, so far as dai- 
ly-recurring improvements and ever-in- 
creasing wants have permitted it to remain 
in its original form, the manufacturing 
towns of Lowell, Manchester, and Law- 
rence, strikingly demonstrate the results of 
the energy and enterprise of the manufac- 
turers of New England. At Lowell, Mass., 
the cotton m muf acture was developed in a 
form which has been a theme for many 
writers on the economy and social bearing 



of the factory system; and the plans so 
successfully put into operation here and 
carried on since 1822 have led to the erec- 
tion of large establishments, with their at- 
tendant boarding-houses, at Manchester, 
and Nashua, N. H., and at Lawrence, and 
Holyoke, Mass. The falls of the Pawtucket 
on the Merrimac river and the Pawtucket 
canal, which had previously been used only 
for the purpose of navigation and connect- 
ing the river above and below the falls by 
means of locks, presented to the original 
projectors of Lowell a site for the solution 
of an important problem, not only in 
American industry, but to a great extent 
in that of Europe itself. This was the com- 
bination of great natural advantages with 
a large and well-directed capital, resulting 
in extensive and systematic operations for 
the realization of a legitimate profit, while 
the social position of the operative classes 
was sedulously cared for, and their moral 
and intellectual elevation promoted and 
secured. 

The census of 1870 gave figures that 
show the extent of the manufacture as it 
existed at that date, in all the states. Those 
figures are as follows: — 



COTTON MANUFACTURES OF THE UNITED STATES PER CENSUS OF 1870. 



States. 


No of 
Establish- 
ments. 


Capital. 


Cost of Raw 
Material. 


Male 
Hands. 


Female 
Hands. 


Cost of 
Labor. 


Value of 
Products. 




23 

36 

8 

194 

142 

111 

81 
143 

29 
6 

22 

"7 

4 

5 

3 

3 

5 

11 

33 

12 

34 

"l3 
4 
4 
5 
2 
28 
1 


$9,839,685 

13,332,710 

670,000 

44,832,375 

18,885.300 

12,710.700 

8,511.336 

12.575,821 

2.671.500 

1,165.000 

2,734.250 


$6,746,780 
12,318,867 
292.269 
37.485,086 
13.325.938 

8,818.661 

6,990,626 
10,759.473 

2,007,408 
704,733 

3,409,426 


2.606 

3,752 

125 

13.713 

5.697 

4.443 

2,748 

3,881 

798 

225 

6S8 

216 

119 

26 

10 

107 

77 

921 

232 

289 

1,147 

301 
123 
184 
78 

8 
252 

3 


6.833 

8,790 

326 

29,883 

11.213 

7,643 

6,604 

8.882 

2,629 

501 

2,172 

246 

385 

72 

6 

254 

192 

820 

1,119 

834 

1,699 

729 
123 
107 
187 

9 
638 

3 


$2,565,197 

3,989,853 

125.000 

13.612,925 

5 210,333 

3,246,783 

2.026.131 

3,610 534 

1,018,751 

190,0(59 

671,933 


$11,842,781 


New Hampshire, 


16,999,072 
546.510 




59,679,123 




22,139.203 
14,026.344 




' 11,177,251 




17.565,028 




4,078.768 




1,060,898 




4.852,808 






Indiana, 


555,700 

651,500 

151,000 

42.000 

489,200 

405.000 

1,128,000 

1,030,900 

1.337,000 

3,433,265 


493,704 
542.875 
177,525 
7,051 
481 ,745 
375,1148 
937.820 
963,809 
761 .469 
2,504,758 

' 1,064.865 

161,485 
216,519 
123,568 
13,780 
595,789 
4,950 


113520 
113.200 

25 5 

6,309 

120,300 

67,951 
229.750 
1S2,! 51 
257.G80 
611,868 


679,885 
778,047 

279.000 
16,803 




798,050 




498,960 
1,135,800 




1,845,059 

1.529.937 




3,618,973 






931.000 
592.000 
496.000 
751,600 
13.000 
970.650 
1,500 


216,679 
60.600 
68,211 
61,833 
4,100 
175,156 
275 


1,088,768 




251.550 




314.598 
234,445 




22.662 




941.542 
7,000 




969 
1,091 


$140,907 892 
98,5C5,269 


$111,976,716 
57,285,534 


42,957 
46,859 


92,866 
75.169 


$39,103,383 
23,940,168 


$177,903,687 


Total in 1860, 


115,681,774 








—122 


+$42,322,623 


+$54,691,182 


—3,902 


+17,637 


+$15,163,215 


+ $62,221,913 




Fig. 1. — LYALL'S PATENT POSITIVE MOTION POWER LOOM — COMI'LETE. 




Fig. 4. — SHOWING MOTION OF SHUTTLE^ 




WJm. 



COTTON MANUFACTURES. 



169 



CHAPTER III. 

INVENTIONS— MODE OF MANUFAC- 
TURE—PRINTING—AGGREGATE. 

The past decade (1870-1880) has been 
remarkable for the improvements and new 
processes introduced into all departments 
of the cotton manufacture. Among these 
are, in spinning, the Clement and Goggin 
attachments, both of which combine the 
principle of the gin with that of the spin- 
ning mule, and use the seed cotton instead 
of the ginned cotton. 

It does not seem to be fully settled yet 
that these attachments are of universal val- 
ue, even in the cotton states, but, as they 
are coming into somewhat extensive use 
there, it may be well to state, in the words 
of one of the owners of the Clement attach- 
ment, Mr. F. E. Whitfield, of Corinth, 
Miss., what the process is, what it costs, and 
what is claimed for it: 

"To convert an old into a new-process 
cotton mill, little else is necessary than to 
get a cleanser of seed cotton, capacity from 
6,000 to 10,000 pounds seed cotton per day, 
cost from $75 to $100, and to substitute 
an attachment, costing about $175, for the 
lickerin and feed rollers on each card ; this 
is easily and quickly done, and no other 
piece of machinery is changed. Now let 
us see what are the advantages, savings, 
etc , of the Clement attachment. The seed 
cotton is first passed through the cleanser, 
which removes all dirt, dust, and most of 
the motes, trash, etc. ; it is then carried by 
a revolving apron directly into the breast 
of the attachment at the rate of from f to 
2 pounds of seed cotton per minute, where 
the lint is all removed from the seed ; the 
filaments, not being permitted to fly or 
leave the machinery, are passed through 
the moters of the attachment, where all 
trash, motes, and other extraneous matter 
not removed by the cleanser or saws, are 
combed out, and the filaments delivered to 
the card, passing through which they fall 
either into a revolving can (if only one 
card is used), or (where three or more are 
used) into the ordinary railway trough, 
whence, passing through the usual machin- 
ery, it is converted into yarns of any num- 
ber. 

"First. — It is claimed and practically 
demonstrated by every new process mill, 
that the attachment dispenses with nearly 
one-half the buildings, motive power, ma- 



chinery, and operatives, hitherto necessary 
to convert any given amount of seed cot- 
ton into yarn in any specific time. 

" Second. — That the card is made to do 
four times as much work, using seed cot- 
ton and the same amount of motive power, 
as it did by the old process, using lint cot- 
ton after it had passed through six or eight 
different machines. 

" Third. — That it removes all lint from 
the seed (estimated by oil men as 6 or 8 
per cent, of the cotton), saves the waste in 
the lint room of the gin and picker room 
of the factory; also saves some waste in 
the other factory rooms, on account of the 
superior strength of the sliver, rove, and 
thread. 

" Fourth. — That it produces stronger sli- 
ver, rove, and thread, the latter of any 
numbers, more sheeney, and 50 per cent, 
stronger than yarns made of bladed cotton, 
thereby enabling operatives to attend more 
machinery, and each machine to do more 
work, especially in the spinning and weav- 
ing room. 

"Fifth. — That it saves the ginning, bal- 
ing bagging, and ties, amounting to $5.50 
per bale." 

It may be added that the cleansing of 
the seed from the lint not only saves a con- 
siderable amount of excellent cotton, but 
greatly facilitates the work of the cotton 
seed oil mills, and enables them to produce 
a better quality of oil cake, and at a lower 
rate. Other improvements have been 
made in the spinning frames, by which 
greater perfection in the threads is secured, 
as well as a greatly increased production. 
Machines for combing the cotton, in or- 
der to obtain fibers of uniform length, 
have been introduced, especially in the cot- 
ton thread manufacture, and the cotton 
thread made in this country is now ac- 
counted superior to that imported. 

The drawing frames have been greatly 
improved, preventing waste, and produc- 
ing finer and better yarns, stronger, and in 
much greater quantity from the machines. 
The substitution of the "slasher," an 
English invention, for the "dresser," in the 
preparation of the warp for sizing or starch- 
ing it before weaving it, is pronounced 1 y 
Mr. Edward Atkinson the most marked 
single change in cotton machinery which 
has occurred within his experience. " The 
dresser was operated in a room at a constant 
heat of 100° to 110°, and in an atmosphere 



170 



INVENTIONS MODE OF MANUFACTURE PRINTING AGGREGATE. 



saturated with the steam given oil by sour 
starch; one machine, attended by one man, 
was needed for every forty or fifty looms. 
The slasher is operated in a cool, well-ven- 
tilated room, and one machine, attended by 
one man with a boy to aid him, will serve 
2 j ) to 350 looms, the number varying 
with the description of the fabric." 

Wo have already alluded to the double 
adjustable ring, in connection with, the 
Sawyer and New Rabbeth spindles, and 
the Draper filling spinner, as producing a 
revolution in doing away with the mule 
spinners, which so long held the ground in 
cotton spinning. 

Tha improvements in looms both for 
plain and figured weaving, and for all 
widths, have been equally remarkable. 
There are very many of these, all possess- 
ing strong claims, but perhaps for some 
purposes, especially on the narrower goods, 
the Earnshaw needle loom, perfected by 
Greenleaf, has as great merit as any, and 
advantages over most. For the widest 
goods there are several excellent looms, 
among which Lyali's patent positive mo- 
tion power loom is perhaps the best. 

The bleaching, dyeing, and calico and 
delaine printing processes have also made 
great advance during the past ten or fif- 
teen years; so great that in all these de- 
partments American goods compete favor- 
ably with any in the world, and our printed 
goods, as well as our bleached and un- 
bleached cloths are sold in Manchester, and 
preferred to the English in China, India, 
and Brazil. 

But it is not alone in the manufacture of 
the cotton fiber that the cotton plant fur- 
nishes material for the world's industry. 
The cotton seed, long regarded as a waste 
product, or at most indifferently rotted for 
a manure, is now pressed for its oil, which 
is superior in quality to linseed oil, and for 
many purposes to olive oil, and for which 
the demand far exceeds the supply. The 
oil cake, left after the expression of the oil, 
is also in great demand for the feeding of 
cattle, milch cows, and sheep, while the 
hulls, which can be separated before press- 
ing, form an admirable paper stock or 
palp, and are likewise in request for the 
packing of the pistons of steam engines. 
The stalks of the cotton are also of great 
value for paper stock. 

Mr. Edward Atkinson grows eloquent 



communication to the A. Y. Herald, in 
August, 1880, he says, "The value of the 
seed is yet an unknown quantity. It may 
seem almost the work of a visionary to 
compute it. If we make G,000,U00 bales 
of cotton fiber in a year (we made at least 
6,500,000 in 1880), the weight of cotton 
seed that will remain after enough has been 
set aside for the next year's planting will 
be 3,000,000 tons. If the whole of this 
seed be treated as a small portion is now 
treated, this seed will give the following 
results: about 90,000,000 gallons of oil, 
about 1,300,000 tons of oil cake or meal, 
about 1,500,000 tons of hulls, from which 
there is every reason to suppose, from ex- 
periments here and actual use elsewhere, 
that 750,000 tons of paper may be made. 
Otherwise, these hulls ground into meal 
with the oil cake will leave as food for 
stock 2,800,000 tons in all. Each ton of 
this ground meal will carry at least five 
sheep six months ; the rest of the year they 
would have ample food from the annual 
grasses that are the pest of the cotton plan- 
ter, or from corn fodder, cowpeas, or other 
refuse or alternate crops. The waste of 
the cotton gin and oil press, with other 
waste of the cotton farm, will therefore suf- 
fice for not less than 14,000,000 to 20,000,- 
000 sheep, probably for double that num- 
ber. These sheep folded upon the cotton 
field would so fertilize the soil as to double 
the crop of cotton on any given acre of up- 
lands; the manure of animals fed on cot- 
ton seed meal being richer than that from 
any other known variety of food." 

While the manufacture has thus spread 
over the face of the Union, the pioneer 
mills, or those which are erected in new 
localities, are generally employed in the 
spinning of yarn of coarse soi'ts; the old 
mills gradually spinning finer yarn, and at- 
taching weaving and printing to their op- 
erations. In the whole period, however, 
of the past seventy years, continued im- 
provements have been made in machines 
and in power. Those mills that came into 
operation with fresh capital and the new- 
est machines, had always advantages over 
those which still worked the old machines. 
The introduction of steam as a motor also 
favored the introduction of mills into lo- 
calities that were not provided with water, 
and many persons contended that steam 
was cheaper and better even where water 



over the uses of the cotton seed. In a power existed. The latter was improved 



j 



COTTON MANUFACTURE'S. 



171 



in its turn by the introduction of turbine 
wheels, which are a steady and sufficient 
power. The streams of New England 
were by art made to contribute in a won- 
derful manner to the work of factories. 
The works at Holyoke, Mass., are a singu- 
lar instance of genius and enterprise. In 
the machines themselves, the greatest im- 
provements have been continually made, 
in this country, as well as abroad. The 
card-sticking machine, the steel die of Per 
kins, ring spindle of Jenks, the improved 
throstle of M 'Cully, the tube-frame, the 
patent size of Mallerd, of Lowell, are among 
the most important of a crowd of inven- 
tions that have been made by American 
mechanics. The ring spindle of Mr. Jenks 
is very curious, and is producing important 
results. That gentleman was a pupil of 
Slater, and had an establishment for the 
manufacture of cotton machinery near 
Philadelphia, since 1810. On the starting 
of the Lowell mills, Mr. Moody invented 
a number of machines, viz., a loom, a fill- 
ing frame, a double speeder, a governor, 
and also what is called the " dead spindle," 
in distinction to the "live spindle," which 
was the English invention. The dead spin- 
dle is mostly used in Lowell. Mr. Jenks' 
ring spindle, however, superseded both, as 
it was found to produce more and better 
yarn. The spindle of this improved frame 
has no fly, but has a small steel ring, called 
a traveler, about a quarter of an inch in 
diameter, with a slit for the insertion of 
the thread, which is wound by the ring 
traveling around the bobbin, being held in 
its horizontal plane, during its circuit, by 
an iron ring loosely embraced by its lower 
end and fastened upon the traversing rail, 
being sufficiently large to allow the head 
of the bobbin, as well as the traveler, to 
pass through without touching. This plan 
of spindle may be driven 8,000 revolutions 
per minute with perfect security when spin- 
ning coarse yarn, and when producing the 
finer numbers, 10,000 revolutions per min- 



ute is not an extraordinary speed for it to 
attain. Since 1870, and between that date 
and 1878, the double adjustable ring has 
been perfected, and is used in connection 
with the Sawyer and New Rabbeth spin- 
dle in all the new mills. This is a great 
advance on Jenks' original ring spindle in 
speed and perfection of yarn. The Draper 
filling spinner, invented in 1877, will at no 
distant day banish the mule completely 
from the field. 

The manufacture, as at present con- 
ducted, is a most beautiful and complicated 
art. The raw material is divided into long 
staple, medium staple, and short staple. 
The staple means simply the length of the 
fiber, and it is characteristic of the origin 
of the article. The first or long staple is 
used for the warps, or the longitudinal 
threads of a cloth. These threads must be 
['made of long staple; no other kind of cot- 
ton will spin into the fine numbers. The 
medium staple is used for the ''weft," or 
cross threads of tissues. It is softer and 
silkier than the long staple, and fills up the 
fabric better. The long staple will not an- 
swer for this purpose. The quantity of cot- 
ton in the weft of cloth is from two to five 
times as much as that in the warp. The 
short staple is used for weft, but it is 
harsher and more like wool, and after wash- 
ing or bleaching it makes the cloth meagre 
and thin. It is mixed with the medium 
staple in small proportions. 

This last and almost, when alone, useless 
sort is that which comes from India, and 
the first or long staple is "sea island," 
raised on our southern coast. The medium 
staple, or that which is required for the 
great bulk of the manufactures, is alone 
found in the United States. It is that kind 
called "uplands," bowed Georgia, or New 
Orleans. The quality is a result of climate 
and soil. 

The cotton having reached the mill, it is 
requisite that all of the same staple, but of 
different qualities, should be well mixed, to 



172 



INVENTIONS MODE OF MANUFACTURE PRINTING AGGREGATE. 



give as uniform a character as possible to 
the cloth. To attain this, the contents of a 
bale are spread out upon the floor, and upon 
it another is scattered, and so on until a 
huge pile, called a " bing," has been raised; 
a rake is then used to scrape down from the 
sides, thus mixing the whole as the cotton is 
required for the mill. This cotton is matted 
together and filled with dirt, sometimes by 
design to increase the weight fraudulently. 
It must, therefore, first of all be cleaned and 
the fibres loosened. For this purpose several 
machines are used. The favorite is a patent 
AVilley, which is composed of two iron axles 
on a level with each other, each having four 
stout steel teeth. The teeth of both axles 
mesh together as they revolve, and also the 
fixed teeth attached to the inner casing of 
the box which contains them. These axles 
revolve 1,600 times in a minute, opening out 
the fibres and beating out the dirt from the 
cotton, which is blown through a tube by a 
revolving fan. 

The second machine through which the 
cotton passes is the spreading machine, 
the object of which is to perfect the clean- 
ing and loosening of the fibres. The cot- 
ton being carefully weighed and spread 
upon the feeding apron, passes in between a 
pair of rollers, where it meets the action of 
blunt knives revolving 1,700 times in a 
minute. The cotton coming from this ma- 
chine is flattened into a filmy sheet of uni- 
form thickness, and wound upon a roller. It 
is of the greatest importance tha* this feed- 
ing should be done evenly, as otherwise 
the " lap," as it winds upon the roller, will 
have thin and thick places, which will run 
through the subsequent manufacture. 

The laps that come from the spreader 
■wound on rollers, are now to go through the 
third process, that of carding. The machine 
for this purpose we have described. It re- 
ceives the end of the lap from the roller 
of the spreader, and by its operation 
combs out and straightens the cotton into a 
delicate fleece, which the " doffer" delivers 
through a funnel, whence it is drawn com- 
pressed, elongated, and consolidated by a 
pair of rollers, that drop it into a tin can. 
To the observer it appears like a stream of 
cream running into the tin can. For very 
fine yarns, this process is repeated with finer 
cards. The first carding is then called 
breaking. 

The fourth process for the cotton is the 
drawing. Hitherto the cotton has passed only 



through male hands ; with the drawing it 
passes into those of females. The slivers, as 
they arc dropped into the tin can from the 
carding machine, are exceedingly tender and 
loose, and the fibres are not yet arranged in 
the position proper for the manufacture of 
smooth yarn. This is to be perfected by the 
rollers of the drawing frame ; some frames 
have three pairs of rollers and others four. 
The distance between the pairs of rollers is 
such that the longest fibre of cotton will not 
reach from the centre of one roller to that 
of another pair. This prevents breaking the 
fibres, but the rollers must not be too far 
apart, lest the cotton separate in unequal 
thicknesses. The " doubling," by which the 
end of a new sliver is laid on the middle of 
one running in, equalizes the sliver. The 
more it is doubled and drawn, the more per- 
fect is the yarn, and this doubling is done 
sometimes 32,000 times. 

The fifth operation is the roving, or 
first spinning process. The slivers un- 
der the action of the drawing frame be- 
come so thin and tender they will no 
longer hold together without a twist, and 
many machines are used for the purpose of 
imparting it, under the names of slubbin, 
fly frame, belt speeder, tube frame, and 
others. The operation is performed one or 
more times, according to the fineness of the 
yarn desired. The cans which receive the 
slivers from the drawing frames are placed 
upon revolving wheels, and the sliver passes 
from these to the flv frame. This came into 
use in 1817. In this frame the spindles are 
set vertically in one or two rows at equal 
distances apart, each passing through a 
bobbin, which is loosely attached to it, and 
which has a play equal to its length up and 
down on the spindle ; at the top of the spin- 
dle is suspended a fly with two dependent 
legs, one solid, and the other hollow. The 
roving enters this by an eye immediately 
above the top of the spindle, and passing 
down the hollow leg attaches to the bobbin. 
The revolving spindle carries the fly with 
it, spinning and winding the roving at the 
same time. At this point enters a very nice 
calculation. The roller on which the roving 
is wound delivers it with the exact speed of 
the spindle, but as tne size of the bobbin on 
the latter increases, it going at the same speed 
would take up the yarn faster than the 
roller would deliver it, and would strain it 
too much. This is avoided by a contrivance 
which varies the speed of the bobbin to >"fiet 



COTTON MANUFACTURES. 



173 



the circumstances. The rovings having re- 
ceived this twist, are now to be spun into 
yarn, and this is done either by the throstle 
or the mule spinner. The difference in the 
motion and structure of these machines is not 
great. The former is similar to the bobbin 
and fly frame. The roving being unwound 
from the bobbin is elongated between three 
pairs of rollers, and is then spun and wound 
upon a bobbin as before. The greatest differ- 
ence in these machines is in the spindles. 
The oldest is the live spindle, and the dead 
spindle is that invented at Lowell, and that 
which has been most used here. The ring 
spindle of Jenks is fast superseding both. 
The thread being spun by any of these 
means is wound upon bobbins, and these are 
then set in a frame in such a manner that 
the threads can be wound off from them on 
to a large six-sided reel. This, one and a 
half yards in circumference, makes 560 
revolutions, giving the length of a " hank ;" 
many hanks are wound on the reel at the 
same time, and when these are removed and 
weighed they give the number of the yarn. 
The coarsest yarn weighs half a pound to the 
hank, or 840 yards ; common quality gives 
ten to forty hanks to the pound. The finest 
seldom exceeds 300 hanks to the pound. 
Previous to 1840 no yarn finer than 350' w r as 
made in England ; at the World's Fair there 
was some exhibited 600, and some muslin 
for a dress for the queen was made of 460 
yarn. This exceeds the " fairy tissues" of 
the east, mentioned in the fore part of this 
article. Thus machinery has overtaken east- 
ern hand art. It has been stated that yarn 
has been spun 900, and one specimen of No. 
2,150, or 1,026 miles for a pound of cotton! 

The finest yarns are singed by being run 
through a gas flame ; they are then passed 
over a brush and run through a hole in a 
piece of brass just large enough to admit the 
yarn. Any inequality then stops the yarn 
and is immediately remedied. Upon most 
of the machines, throstles, and feeders there 
are clocks, which, wound up once a week, 
mark the quantity of work that each ma- 
chine does. From this register the account 
is transferred to a board which hangs in 
sight of all the operatives, and from which 
the monthly wages are ascertained. 

The yarn being spun, the filling is- now 
ready for the weaver, but the warp goes to 
the dressing-room. Here the yarn is warped 
off from the spools on to the section beams. 
This is considered hard work, since it re- 



quires unremitting attention to reconnect 
the threads that are constantly breaking. 
The yarn now upon the beams undergoes 
" dressing," or the application of the size 
before mentioned, and the friction of the 
brushes. The beams containing the dressed 
yarn go to the weaving-room, which usually is 
a large mill containing one hundred and fifty 
girls, and some six hundred looms. From 
this room the woven fabric goes to the 
cloth-room, where it is trimmed, measured, 
folded, and recorded, and either baled for 
market or sent to the print-works. 

The print-works are a most interesting 
portion of the manufacture. The cloth re- 
ceived from the manufactory is covered with 
a fine nap, which, if printed, would rise up 
and give the colored parts a pepper-and-salt 
look. To get rid of this, the cloth is singed ; 
not as the cook singes a fowl, by a blaze, 
but by running the cloth over a half-cylinder 
of copper, heated red hot. The cloth is 
passed over dry, and repassed; after which 
it is moistened by wet rollers, to extinguish 
any shreds which might happen to be on 
fire. This singeing process always excites 
the wonder of the beholder, who is not a 
little astonished that the cloth is not injured. 
The next process is to bleach the cloth. On 
the success of this depends all the after- 
work. A good white is not only the soul 
of a print, but without it no good and bril- 
liant color can be dyed. The greatest diffi- 
culty is to remove every trace of grease and 
oil, imparted by the spinner and weaver. 
The cloth is, therefore, put into big tubs, 
holding five hundred pieces, and steeped in 
warm water some hours. It is then washed 
in the dash-wheel, and subjected to the follow- 
ing operations, which convert the oil to soap, 
and remove with it the coloring matter : — 

1. Boiled by steam in a creamy lime. 

2. Washed in the dash-wheel. 

3. Boiled in alkali by steam. 

4. Washed in the dash-wheel. 

5. Steeped in bleaching-powder solution 
some hours. 

6. Steeped in oil vitriol and water, about 
the strength of lemon juice. 

7. Washed in the dash-wheel. 
S. Squeezed between rollers. 

9. Mangled and dried in air, or in warm 
rooms built for this purpose. 

The cloth is now perfectly white, and 
loses not so much in weight ami strength as 
by the old process of grass bleaching. The 
bleached cloth is now printed with one or 



174 



INVENTIONS MODE OF MANUFACTURE PRINTING AGGREGATE. 



more colors. Four to six colors only could 
be applied by the printing machine up to 
1845 ; if more were wanted, they were, until 
recently, introduced by hand, with blocks, 
after the other colors were finished. By a 
Boston invention, patented in 1851, twelve 
colors may now be printed. The improve- 
ment consists in the mode of applying pres- 
sure to the print rollers. A yielding pres- 
sure of several tons is given to each roller. 
The frame is also so constructed that any one 
of the rollers may be removed from the ma- 
chine without disturbing the others. The 
machine weighs ten tons, and is ten feet 
high. This huge machine is so nicely ad- 
justed that the cloth, while passing through 
it at the rate of a mile per hour, receives 
twelve colors each with the utmost precision. 
Ordinary machines will print 300 pieces, or 
12,000 yards, per day, while, by the old 
hand process, it would have required 192,- 
646 applications of the block. The figure, 
or design, is engraved on a copper roller, 
each color having a separate roller. The 
color which the beholder sees imprinted, as 
he watches the process, is not the color that 
is to be, when the print is finished. The 
color which he sees is, with the exception of 
brown, or blue, or black occasionally, fugitive. 
It is merely what is called " sightening" — 
that is, a color imparted to the paste, or 
" thickening," which is imprinted by the 
roller to enable the machine printer to judge 
of the perfectness of the work. The paste, 
or thicketiing, contains the mordant — that is, 
the peculiar substance which, combining 
chemically with the cloth, enables it to dye a 
peculiar color, according to the nature of the 
mordant and dye-wood. The cloth dyes 
only where the mordant is applied — that is, 
on the printed figure only. The mordants 
generally used are alum and copperas, each 
of which is first changed to acetate of alu- 
mina or iron — that is, the color-maker takes 
away the oil of vitriol from the alum and 
copperas, and substitutes vinegar in its place. 
Sometimes the iron liquor, as it is called, is 
made by dissolving iron turnings in pyrolig- 
neous or wood acid. The preparation of 
color, and the thickening it with flour, 
starch, gum, etc., is a distinct branch, carried 
on in the color shop of the print-works. It 
may be added, that with madder, iron dyes 
black and purple, according to its strength ; 
alum dyes red of various shades; and a 
mixture of the two dyes chocolate. So that 
out of the same dye-kettle come various 



colors, according to the mordant, and these 
colors are all fast. 

The cloth having been printed and dried, 
is " aged," during which a chemical combi- 
nation takes place between the mordant and 
the cloth. Ordinarily, this occurs in two 
or three weeks by a natural affinity of the 
cotton fibre and mordant, but by certain 
agents, this chemical change is hastened and 
perfectly effected in two or three days ; yet 
as this process goes on in conjunction with 
the others, the visitor sees only the folding 
up and winding into rolls of the piece of 
cloth, though all the time this change is 
going on. The cloth is then passed, by 
means of rollers, through a boiling hot solu- 
tion of phosphate of soda, to render insolu- 
ble any uncombined mordant, and to wet 
the cloth evenly. It is then washed in the 
dash-wheel, and after this, to remove the 
thickening, passed for twenty or thirty min- 
utes through bran or meal and water, quite 
hot, washed, and it is now ready for dyeing. 
The dye-woods used are madder, bark, or 
logwood — the last only for mourning prints, 
or black and white. The dye-wood is put 
into large wooden vats, with a portion of 
water, and then the pieces of cloth, sixteen 
in each vat, are introduced over a winch, 
moved by water power. Steam is then 
admitted, the goods turned through and 
through, round and round, gradually heat- 
ing the water, till at the end of two hours 
it rises near to boiling, and the mordanted 
cloth is perfectly dyed. It is taken out, 
rinsed, and washed in the dash-wheel. The 
cloth after this is passed, by means of a 
winch, either through hot water and bran 
or through hot soap, for half an hour, 
washed, and then again put through these 
operations, again washed, and then rinsed 
through a hot solution of chloride of soda, 
washed again, squeezed, and dried in either 
air or in warm rooms. Sometimes they are 
mangled with some stiffening, and so are 
finished. The visitor of print works will 
see a great number of men busily employed 
dipping wooden frames, on which are 
Btretched pieces of cloth, printed with a 
brown figure, into deep vats, filled with a green- 
blue liquor. The cloth comes out with a 
greenish hue, and immediately grows blue in 
the air on all parts, except where the brown 
figure was. That resists, or throws off the 
blue vat. Now, the blue vat contains a solu- 
tion of indigo in lime water. Indigo is one 
of the most insoluble substances in water ; 



COTTON MANUFACTURES. 



175 



but by means of copperas and lime, the 
oxygen of the indigo is abstracted by the 
iron ; it then becomes greenish and is dis- 
solved by the lime-water. Exposed to air, 
it again absorbs oxygen and becomes blue. 
It is during this change from green to blue 
that it becomes chemically united to the 
cloth. The brown figure resists, because it 
is a preparation of copper, which yields its 
oxygen to the indigo on the figure while in the 
vat. The figure becomes covered with blue 
indigo in the vat ; it forms then no affinity 
with the cloth, and consequently after the 
copper has been removed by a weak acid, 
the brown spot or figure remains white, and 
so is produced the blue ground with white 
figures. The whole is a most exquisite 
chemical process from beginning to end, 
equalled only by the process for China blue, 
where blue figures are raised on a white 
ground. This is done by printing on the 
figure with fine ground indigo thickened 
with paste, and then by alternate immer- 
sions in lime water and copperas liquor, the 
indigo is dissolved and fixed on the spots 
where printed, by a play of chemical affini- 
ties similar to those described in blue dip- 
ping. Black and white, and red or chocolate 
and white, are made by passing the cloth 
through red or iron liquor, or their mixture, 
and after squeezing, while the cloth is open 
and flat, that is dried in hot flues. Every 
part of the cloth is thus imbued with mor- 
dant. The process is termed " pading." 
It is then printed with citric acid (lemon 
juice) thickened with roasted starch. This 
acid discharges the mordant, and conse- 
quently, when dyed as usual, the discharged 
figures are left white. Logwood is the dye 
for black, and madder is the dye for reds and 
chocolates. The designing of patterns is a 
distinct branch of art. Usually, one or 
more designers are employed in each estab- 
lishment. 

In the year 1840, there were thirty-six 
cotton-printing establishments in the United 
States. These were in New Hampshire, 
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, 



New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. 
They printed 100,112,000 yards, at a value 
of $11,667,512. 

Th<j exports of cotton goods from the 
United States in 1827 were valued at $951,- 
000 for plain white cloths; $45,120 printed 
and colored ; $163,293 for yarn, etc. ; making 
together $1,159,413. In 1857, the exports 
of white had run to $3,463,230 ; and of 
printed to $1,785,685 ; dark and other manu- 
facture $8 6 6, 2 62; together, $6,115,117. In 
1878, the exports of cotton manufactures 
were $11,438,660; in 1880, partly from re- 
duction in price, they were $9,981,418. 
The exports were most largely to England 
(I of the whole), to South America, Africa, 
China, and Japan. The value of cotton 
goods imported in 1856 was $25,917,999; 
and the average for sixteen years previous 
was $16,758,418. In 1880, the importa- 
tion of cotton manufactures was $29,929,- 
366. The imported goods were nearly all 
from France, Germany, Great Britain, and 
Ireland, and in 1877, '78, and '79, averaged 
$19,310,987. 

Horsepower. Spindles. Looms. Cotton used, lbs. 

1851, 134,217 25,638,114 301,445 757,379,749 

1857, 161,435 33,503,580 369,205 1,023.SS6,528 

1868, .... 32,000.014 379.329 1,005.463,536 

1876, .... 51,077,243 607,711 1,284.552,976 

The following comparative figures will 
show the decline in the cost of the yarn, as 
a result of machinery; — 

No. 40 yarn. 1812. 1830. 1857. 

Hanks per spindle per day. 200 275 275 

Cotton per lb '..$0 36 $0 14 $0 12 

Labor " " 24 15 10 

Cost yarn l: 60 29 22 

The manufacture progressed in this coun- 
try according to the wants of the population, 
and these wants increased in the two-fold 
ratio of more means and greater numbers. 
The progress here was also more steady than 
it is abroad, for the reason that the demands 
of the people were not curtailed by those 
periodical famines, which abroad cause every 
other consideration to yield to that of food. 
We may sum in the following table the pro- 
gress of the manufacture since 1809: — 



COTTON MANUFACTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 

No. of e • ,. „_„.. Cotum Yards cloth 

,-, . en mi es. Ilniuls. used. , 

Factories. ' )ljs mude. 

1809 62 31,000 4,000 3,600,(100 

1820 250,572 .. 9,945,609 

1831 795 1,246,503 57,466 77,757.316 230.461,990 

1840 1,240 2,284,631 72,119 132,835,856 398,507,668 

1850 1,074 4,052,000 97,956 276,074,100 828,222,300 

1860 1,091 5,235,727 122,028 422,704,975 1,148,252,406 

1869 831 7,023,883 .. 470,000,000 1,410,000,000 

1870 969 7,023,883 135,763 470,000,000 1,410,000,000 

1880 10,921,147 181,628 761,770,880 



Capital. 



$40.(U4,984 
51,102,369 
76,032,578 

98,585,269 

140,907,882 



176 



paper: its manufacture. 



The figures for 1809 are those of Mr. Gal- 
latin, and those of 1820 those of the United 
States marshal. Those for 1831 are taken 
from the report of the committee before allud- 
ed to, and the succeeding ones from the de- 
cennial censuses. The war, of course, effected 
material changes in the cotton manufacture, 
both in enhancing the cost of the raw material 
and the manufactured product. The manu- 
facture of cotton yarns in the south and south- 
west at one time almost entirely ceased, and 
the supply of cotton goods in that section was 
obtained from England, and only by running 
the blockade. The price of bleached cotton 
shirtings and sheetings, of good brands, 
went up to 75 or 80 cents per yard for goods 
sold at 10 cents per yard or below, in 1861. 
Spool cotton brought $1.25 to $1.50 per doz- 
en, against 35 to 45 cents, in 1861. Since 
the close of the war many new cotton manu- 
factories have been started in the south. The 
total number of factories has somewhat di- 



minished, but those running are larger, and 
the number of spindles, the amount of cotton 
used, and the number of yards made is about 
75 per cent, greater than in 1860. The 
quality of the printed goods is better than it 
was at that time, though that of the bleached 
goods is not, owing to the introduction of 
short staple cotton in the weft. The manu- 
facture will, doubtless, increase greatly, and 
especially in the southern states, where a con- 
siderable saving can be effected in the trans- 
portation of cotton, and where a demand for 
better qualities of cotton goods is springing 
up. The female operatives at the south, are 
mostly from the families of the poor whites, 
though a few factories employ colored wo- 
men. In the north, the American-born fac- 
tory girls, farmers' daughters, have almost 
wholly given place to Irish, German, Swed- 
ish, and French women of less intelligence, 
and who are willing, generally, to work at 
somewhat lower wages. 



PAPER: ITS MANUFACTURE. 



CHAPTER I. 

MATERIALS— PROGRESS. 

If the question were put, " What single ar- 
ticle has been of the greatest service to man- 
kind ?" mature reflection would, we think, 
decide upon paper as that article, since it 
has been the means by which thought and 
ideas have been diffused, not only among 
cotemporaries, but preserved, and, as it were, 
accum u lated in magazines for future expansion 
and growth. All other inventions, and per- 
haps the whole growth of civilization, are due 
to the material of paper. Every branch of 
knowledge is reached, and every avenue to 
the wisdom of great minds and the results of 
genius are explored only by means of paper, 
and its blessings are diffused through all ranks 
of society. Even he who, wrapt in his igno- 
rance, despises " book laming," enjoys a part 
of those benefits of civilization which paper has 
been the means of imparting to all. Like al- 
most all great blessings, however, it has been 
developed most rapidly and completely in the 
United States. Almost all vegetable sub- 
stances were used for the manufacture of pa- 
per by our anc«stors, but it was not until the 



fourteenth century that linen rags became 
generally the material. The first German 
paper mill was established at Nuremberg in 
1390; some English manuscripts, however, 
date as far back as 1340, on linen paper. 
The first English mill mentioned is in 1496, 
by John Tate, jun., in Hertfordshire. In 
1588 a paper mill was started at Dartford. 
It is to be conceived, however, that in that 
age, when books and newspapers were little 
used, and walls were draped with cloth, that 
paper was not much in demand, and many 
improvements were not made in the manu- 
facture. In the early part of the eighteenth 
century, the manufacture was introduced into 
the colonies. Mr. J. M. Willcox, a paper 
maker near Philadelphia, stated that in 1725 
his grandfather, who had been educated a 
paper maker, came over and settled where 
the mill now is, and he erected in 1732 a mill 
for the manufacture of paper. The kind of 
paper then made was of the description used 
by clothiers for press-boards, for the pressing 
of cloth. There existed at that time an act 
of parliament against the manufacture of any 
other kind of paper in the colonies. There 
were at that time two other mills in the same 



PAPER : ITS MANUFACTURE. 



177 



business, one near Boston and another near 
Philadelphia. The demand for paper at that 
time, either for books or newspapers, was 
small, and not of a character to attract much 
capital into the business. When the war 
came on, a demand sprung up, and Mr. AYill- 
cox manufactured the paper for the conti- 
nental money, and at the same time com- 
menced making writing paper for the first 
time in America. 

The Massachusetts Bay assembly, in 1728, 
passed an act for the encouragement of the 
paper manufacture. They granted to Daniel 
Henchman and others the right of making 
paper, on condition that within the first 
fifteen months they would make 140 reams 
of brown paper and sixty reams of printing 
paper. Of this the board of trade report of 
1731 says: "By a paper mill set up three 
years ago, they make to the value of £200." 
This, with the mill of "YVillcox and another 
near Philadelphia, were the only ones exist- 
ing at that time ; but the trade grew to a 
considerable extent. Coxe, in his "Views of 
the United States," says there were in 1794 
forty-eight mills in Pennsylvania. In 1810, 
the value of paper made in the United States 
was about 62,000,000. The general govern- 
ment, from its origin, did what it could to 
encourage the manufacture, by making rags 
free ; curiously enough, however, after the 
fall of Napoleon, a considerable quantity of 
paper came to this country, and was bought 
up by the contractors to supply Congress ; 
and for a long time, up to 1 825, the paper used 
by the United States Senate bore the water 
line, "Napoleon, Empereur et Roi, 1813." 

It was about the year 1760 that the inven- 
tion of wove moulds was made to obviate the 
roughness of laid paper. This led to the 
manufacture in France of what is called 
vellum paper. In Holland, soon after, the 
manufacture was improved by the invention 
of cylinders with long steel knives to reduce 
the lags to pulp, thus superseding the old 
plan, which was by stampers. It was then 
Customary to pile the rags in large stone 
vats, and let them remain for a month or six 
weeks t<> ferment and rot by soaking and 
stirring in water. By these means the fibres 
became loosened, and sufficiently soft to be 
reduced to pulp in the large wooden stampers. 
The vats were now supplanted by engines. 
These aroarranged in pairs. That which first 
receives the rags is called the washer, working 
the rags coarsely, while a stream of water runs 
through them. The contents of this vat, 



when ready, is called half stuff, and is lex 
oft' into the other engine, which is on a 
lower level, and this beats or grinds the 
whole into pulp for making paper. 

From the date of the Revolution untd the 
year 1820, there was very little improvement 
in the mode of making paper by machinery. 
The number of mills increased in proportion 
to the demand for material for newspapers 
and book-making. This grew in such a man- 
ner, that by the year 1810 the ordinary sup- 
plies of material for paper making began to 
fail, and rags from Europe were imported in 
greater quantities for that purpose. The 
principal supplies of rags in the United 
States came from the economy of families, 
purchased by ragmen who called — some- 
times paying money, and at others exchang- 
ing tinware and other commodities. It is 
only of late years, and that in the large 
cities, that the European chiffonniers, or rag- 
pickers, have made their appearance. These 
are now to be seen, male and female, with 
the early dawn, armed with a bag and a long 
iron hook, watching the opening and sweep- 
ing out of stores, to pick up every shred of 
rag or paper, and following the gutters the 
live-long day, thrusting the iron hook into 
filth of all descriptions to fish out matter for 
the paper maker. This they rinse in the 
nearest puddle, and deposit in their bag. Many 
of them earn a fair living at this unpromising 
occupation. Nevertheless, the supply is \ ery 
inadequate, and large importations are re- 
sorted to. The quantity of imports is as fol- 
lows : — 



IMPORTATION OF RAGS INTO THE 
UNITED STATES. 





Rags imported. 


Of which 


Value 


Per lb. 




lbs. 


from Italy. 


' 


Ct6. 


1846, 


9,897,706 


8,002,865 


$385,020 


3.89 


1848, 


17,014,587 


13,803.036 


686,186 


3.6S 


1850, 


20,696,875 


15,861,266 


747.157 


3.61 


1851, 


26,094,701 


18,518,678 


908,876 


3.46 


1854, 


32,615.753 


84,240,999 


1,007,886 


3.69 


1S57, 


44,582,080 


27.317.580 


1,448,186 


3.27 


1S60, 


43,300,000 


80,810,000 


1,448,400 


3.27 


1862, 


5,(188,449 


7,667,708 


241.738 


2.69 


1869, 


75,617.849 


20,662,880 


2,800,619 


3.71 


1872,* 


168,467,488 


80,382,481 


6.007,738 


3.91 


1875,* 


124.573,243 


87.688,096 


4,77(1,715 


3.87 


1877,* 


198,978,667 


15.172.785 


3,916.799 


3.16 


1879,* 


121.s94.109 


i:i.87:i.7-.'9 


8,196,848 


2.62 


1880,* 


243,920,964 


25,327,121 


7,037,197 


2.88 



It may be remarked that the export of 
linen rags is strictly prohibited from Hol- 
land, Belgium, France, Spain, and Portu- 
gal. The import from Italy has ranged 
from 20 to 70 per cent. The rags thence 
derived are mostly linen which has been 



* Including other paper stock imported. 



r 



MATERIALS — PROGRESS. 



used for outer garments, and which have 
become whitened by exposure to sun and 
air. That circumstance formerly gave 
them a value which they have lost since 
the improvements in bleaching all descrip- 
tions. The linen rags from the north of 
Europe are stronger and darker. The 
quantity of rags used in the United States 
in 1850 was, according to the value re- 
ported in the census, nearly 200,000,000 
lbs., and 20,696,875 lbs. were imported in 
that year. The importation in 1880 was 
more than ten times this amount. 

There have been apprehensions that the 
supply of available paper stock would, 
within a few years, be so far inadequate to 
supply the demand that the cost of paper 
would be gi-eatly enhanced. Rags proved 
insufficient as long ago as 1862 or 1863, 
and resort was had to other materials. 
But these apprehensions seem to have been 
groundless, for the lack of rags has led to 
the utilization of other materials, and 
though paper and pulp are now used for a 
thousand purposes not then dreamed of, 
the supply seems to be adequate, and the 
manufacturers of some classes of papers 
have been compelled to restrict the produc- 
tion in order not to glut the market. There 
was a scarcity and consequent high prices 
during the war, but prices are not now ma- 
terially higher than they were twenty years 
ago. A book written in Germany by M. 
Schaffer, so long ago as 1772, contains 
sixty specimens of paper made of as many 
different materials. Many of these mate- 
rials are of no practical value, because they 
cannot be procured in large quantities and 
at a cheap rate ; but there have been added 
to the catalogue: straw, which, after many 
years of experiment to retain the tenacity 
of the fiber, while depriving it of most of 
its silicious particles, is the principal source 
of supply for news and the cheaper book 
papers; wood pulp, which is also largely 
used, and considerable quantities imported ; 
hop-bind, licorice root, the stalks of several 
species of mallow, the husks of Indian 
corn, the broken and unbroken stalks and 
fibrous covering of the flax and hemp, es- 
pecially of the former, when raised for 
the seed; the stalks of the cotton plant, 
and the hulls or outer covering of the cot- 
ton seed, which has been found to be ad- 
mirably adapted for making some qualities 
of paper; the canes, brakes, and giant 
rushes of the Carolina coast; the tulc rush 



of California; the okra plant; the esparto, 
or Spanish grass, now so largely used in 
Great Britain, but not imported here 
to any practical extent; the bagasse, or 
crushed stalks of Indian corn and sorghum 
from which the juice has been expressed 
for sixgar making; the palmetto, particu- 
larly the saw" palmetto, so common on bar- 
ren lands at the south, the spartina fiber 
of the Mississippi valley, and the aloes and 
agaves and some of the cacti of Texas, Ari- 
zona, New Mexico, and California. There 
is no difficulty in making paper from any 
fibrous plant. But for practical purposes 
it is necessary to know, in regard to any 
of these articles, whether the fiber can be 
furnished in sufficient quantity, and at a 
price so low as to compete successfully with 
other paper stock. Enormous as is the 
importation of rags, waste, etc., from Eu i 
rope, and great as is the increase in the 
production of these articles in our own 
country, they do not supply one-third of 
the demand, and all the better sorts are re- 
served for writing papers. The industri- 
ous, but not particularly aesthetic or clean- 
ly, chiffoniers gather from every ash barrel 
and from all the gutters and street sweep- 
ings every bit of rag or waste paper, and 
carefully sort these and sell them to the 
dealers in paper stock. All the newspa- 
pers, magazines, imperfections in book stock 
and government documents which are not 
needed for other uses, are gathered by 
these dealers, and the printer's ink being 
discharged from them by a bleaching pro- 
cess, they are transformed into white pa- 
per, or mingled with the straw and wood 
pulp to make printing paper of somewhat 
greater strength than that made from these 
materials alone. Of the other substances 
we have enumerated as adapted to paper 
making the following are now in .use, or 
can be obtained in a quantity sufficiently 
abundant, and at a price low enough to 
warrant their extensive use : straw of most 
of the cereals; much of this is now burned 
in Minnesota, Dakota, California, and Ore- 
gon ; wood pulp, mostly of the linden or 
basswood, birch, or soft maple; the stalks 
of the cotton plant, and hulls or outer cov- 
ering of the cotton seed; it is estimated by 
Mr. Edward Atkinson, that 1,500,000 tons 
of this material could be furnished in the 
south from the annual cotton crop, an 
amount more than sufficient for all the 
paper made in the country. It is now 



paper: its manufacture. 



179 



practically valueless. On the Atlantic 
coast, below the Virginia line, the brakes, 
reeds, or bamboos of the Carolinas and 
Georgia, and the saw palmetto, are found 
in almost inexhaustible quantity; these 
make the best of paper. In the Mississippi 
valley, and on the plains of the region 
east of the Rocky Mountains, there is, in 
addition to the straw and the bagasse of 
the corn and sorghum stalks, and which 
latter will be a constantly increasing quan- 
tity, the spartina grass of the Mississippi 
and its tributaries, and the stalks of the 
flax which is largely sown for its seed in 
the new lands after the first breaking. The 
Pacific coast might furnish hundreds of 
thousands of tons of straw, and pulp from 
its fibrous woods and plants, and the 
southwest, as far east as Texas, has an 
unfailing supply of the finest paper stock 
in its giant cacti, which form dense jungles 
or chaparrals, which could be swept down 
by large mowing or reaping machines, 
greatly to the advantage of the inhabitants. 
There are also aloes, agaves, and tampico 
grasses, all of the best quality for this 
manufacture. There are, very possibly, 
still other materials equally well adapted 
for paper making, but these are certainly 
sufficient to supply our present necessities, 
and ought to relieve us from any obliga- 
tion to import 7,000,000 lbs. of rags and 
other paper stock from Europe annually. 
The paper made from the cactus fiber is of 
unrivalled purity, beauty, and strength ; no 
linen paper can compare with it. It can 
communicate no disease or poison, while 
the rags we import are a fruitful source 
of the propagation of smallpox and other 
contagious diseases. 

The experience of the English paper 
manufacturers in the use of the esparto 
grass should lead our manufacturers to 
give more attention to the use of these 
fibers than they are doing. It is easier, 
no doubt, to use wood pulp (even if it is 
imported, as much of it now is) than to en- 
ter upon new manufacturers of fibrous ma- 
terial requiring a considerable plant, even 
though that material may produce a better 
and more satisfactory paper. Wood pulp 
does not make a very satisfactory paper; it 
answers for want of something better for 
newspapers, but the ragged and forlorn 
character of the daily newspaper after a 
day's handling testifies most forcibly to its 
lack of fibrous adhesion. Our English 



neighbors found this out, and yet what 
could they do? A paper made of rags 
would be too costly for the use of the cheap 
daily press, and there seemed at first to 
be no substitute. At length they learned 
from their French competitors to import 
the espaito grass, a tough fibrous heath 
from the plateaus of Algeria, Tunis, and 
Tripoli, and though the price of this has 
been greatly enhanced by the demand, 
they imported in 1879 more than $3,500,- 
000 worth of it, and they use it in writing 
as well as in printing paper with great ad- 
vantage. Our cotton stalks and seeds fur- 
nish a better paper stcck in eveiy respect 
than the esparto grass, and the saw pal- 
metto and cactus fiber are better still. 

The increase in the consumption of pa- 
per and paper pulp in the United States in 
the past thirty years has been enonncus, 
amounting probably to tenfold the quanti- 
ty consumed in 1850. As lately as 1872 
we imported paper (aside from papier rra- 
che and other manufactures of paper pulp) 
to the amount of $1,235,000, while our ex- 
ports were merely nominal; now cur im- 
portations are only about $235,000, and 
some years not half that, while we export 
about $1,100,000 worth of paper annually. 
But though there has been a very great 
increase in the number of books, maga- 
zines, and newspapers printed, and in the 
writing papers consumed, the consumption 
of paper for other purposes than printing 
and writing has been vastly greater than 
for what we have been accustomed to re- 
gard as its more legitimate use. We have 
enumerated on a previous page many of 
these uses; we may add to the list, sheath- 
ing papers for houses and ships; roofing 
felt (so called); a soft manilla paper for 
stereotyping newspapers; paper combined 
with plaster for the inner walls of houses, 
for globes, and for all papier mache pur- 
poses; paper for doors, window frames, 
car wheels, boats, barrels and hogsheads 
for the transportation of sugar, lard, petro- 
leum, oils, etc., soles of boots and shoes, 
twine, artificial flowers, bags for flour, 
meal, groceries, grain, and the lighter dry 
goods ; indeed, bags for every purpose for 
which they can be used; for bridges, domes 
of observatories, for carbons, for electric 
lamps, for gas-fixtures, for brackets, and to 
replace all our hardest woods. 

When the rags arc received at the mill, 
they are sorted according to their respective 



180 



paper: its manufacture. 



qualities ; for if rags of different qualities 
\\T3re ground together at the same engine, 
the finest and hest parts would be ground 
and carried off before the coarser were suffi- 
ciently reduced to make a pulp. In the 
sorting of rags intended for the manufacture 
of fine paper, hems and seams are kept apart, 
and coarse cloth separated from fine. Cloth 
made of tow should be separated from that 
made of linen ; cloth of hemp from cloth of 
flax. Even the degree of wear should be 
attended to, for if rags comparatively new 
are mixed with those which are much worn, 
by the time the first are reduced to a good 
pulp, the others are so completely ground up 
as to pass through the hair strainers, thus 
occasioning not only loss of material but loss 
of beauty in the paper; for the smooth, vel- 
vet softness of some papers may be pro- 
duced by the finer particles thus carried off. 
The pulp produced from imperfectly sorted 
rags has a cloudy appearance, in consequence 
of some parts being less reduced than others, 
and the paper made from it is also cloudy or 
thicker in some parts than in others, as is 
evident on holding a sheet up before the 
light. When it is necessary to mix differ- 
ent qualities of materials, the rags should be 
ground separately, and the various pulps 
mixed together afterward. The rag mer- 
chants sort rags into five qualities, known as 
Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. No. 1, or superfine, 
consisting wholly of linen, is used for the 
finest writing papers. No. 5 is canvas, and 
may, after bleaching, be used fur inferior 
printing papers. There is also rag-bagging, 
or the canvas sacks in which the rags are 
packed, also cotton colored rags of all colors, 
but the blue is usually sorted out for making 
blue paper. Common papers are made from 
rag-bagging and cotton rags. An operation 
sometimes required after unpacking the 
rags is to put them into a duster, which is a 
cylinder four feet in diameter and five feet 
long, covered with a wire net, and inclosed 
in a tight box to confine the dust. A quan- 
tity of rags being put into this cylinder, it 
is made to rotate rapidly on its axis, and 
thus a great deal of dust is shaken out, which 
might otherwise vitiate the air of the rag- 
cutting room. The sorting is done by wo- 
men and children in a large room. The rags 
are sorted, according to their fineness, into 
the superfine, the fine, the stitches of the fine, 
the middling, the seams and stitches of the 
middling, and the coarse. These divisions 
arc more or less observed at the present day. 



The very coarse parts are rejected, or laid 
aside for making white-brown paper. 

The paper was formerly made into sheets 
by means of the mould and deckle. The mould 
was a square frame or shallow box of ma- 
hogany, covered at the top Avith wire cloth ; 
it is an inch or an inch and a half wider 
than the sheet of paper intended to be made 
upon it. The wire cloth of the mould varies 
in fineness with that of the paper and the 
nature of the stuff; it consists of a number 
of parallel wires stretched across a frame very 
near together, and tied fast through holes in 
the sides ; a few other stronger wires are 
also placed across at right angles to the 
former; they are a considerable distance 
apart, and are bound to the small wires at 
the points of intersection by means of fine 
wires. In several kinds of writing paper the 
marks of the wires are evident, from the pa- 
per being thinner in the parts where the 
pulp touches the wires. In what is called 
wove paper, there are no marks of the wires; 
these are avoided by weaving the wire in a 
loom into a wire cloth, which is stretched 
over the frame of a mould, and being turned 
down over the sides is fastened by fine 
wire. 

The water-mark in paper is produced by 
wires bent into the shape of the required 
letter or device, and sewed to the surface ol 
the mould ; it has the effect of making the 
paper thinner in those places. The old 
makers employed Avater-marks of an eccen- 
tric kind. Those of Caxton and other early 
printers Avere an ox head and star, a collared 
dog's head, a croAvn, a shield, a jug, etc. A 
fool's cap and bells employed as a water- 
mark gave the name to foolscap paper ; a 
postman's horn, such as Avas formerly in use r 
gave the name to post paper. Connected 
with the sizing of papers is the blueing, 
which is said to have originated in the sug- 
gestion of a paper maker's Avife, avIio thought 
that the practice of improving the color of 
linen Avhile passing through the Avash, by 
means of a blue-bag, might also be advanta- 
geously applied to paper. A blue-bag Avas 
accordingly suspended in the vat, and the 
effect proved to be so satisfactory that it led 
to the introduction of the large and impor- 
tant class of blue Avriting paper. It was soon 
found that smalt gave a better color than 
common stone-blue, and smalt continued to 
be used for many years; but when artificial 
ultramarine came to be manufactured at a 
very low cost, and in a great variety of tints, 



INVENTIONS MANUFACTURE. 



181 



this beautiful color gradually superseded 
smalt in the manufacture of writing paper. 

From 1820 to 1830, some efforts were 
made to introduce into the United States 
machinery from Europe. England and 
Fiance were before us in its introduction. 
Several machines were sent out from Eng- 
land ; some very imperfect, and the cost too 
great for our manufacture. The patronage 
then offered was no inducement to our own 
machinists to construct so expensive a ma- 
chine until 1830, about which time Phelps 
& Spofford of Windham, Connecticut, made 
one which answered very well. Soon after, 
the country was supplied at a reasonable 
cost, and equal in quality to the best English. 
Not long afterward, Howe & Goddard, of 
Worcester, Massachusetts, commenced mak- 
ing the Fourdrinier — the shaking endless 
wire-web machine. The cylinder machine, 
more simple and less costly than the other, 
is in more general use ; but the paper made 
on it is not equal in quality. Notwith- 
standing, it does very well for news, and the 
various purposes which a coarser article will 
answer for. These are made in various 
places throughout the United States. The 
interval from 1830 to 1840 was important 
for the vast improvements in the manufacture, 
by the application of this kind of machinery 
for that purpose ; also, by the introduction 
of the use of chlorine in the form of gas, of 
chloride of lime, and the alkalies, lime and 
soda-ash, in bleaching, cleansing, and dis- 
charging the colors from calicoes, worn out 
sails, refuse tarred rope, hemp bagging, and 
cotton waste, the refuse of the cotton mills. 
These articles, which heretofore had been 
considered only applicable for the manufac- 
ture of coarse wrapping paper, have, through 
the application of this bleaching and cleans- 
ing process, entered largely into the com- 
position of news and coarse printing papers, 
and consequently have risen in value 300 
per cent. A few mills possess machinery 
and adopt a process by which they are pre- 
pared for the finest printing and letter paper. 
A beautiful paper is made of cast-off cable 
rope. Hemp bagging is an excellent ma- 
terial for giving strength, and is in great de- 
mand, especially for making the best news 
paper. The cost of making paper by ma- 
chinery, compared with that of making it by 
the old method (by hand), not taking into 
account the interest on cost and repair of 
machinery, is about as one to eight. The 
mills which have been using straw in great 
11 



quantities within a few years past, found 
some modification of their machinery neces- 
sary to enable them to succeed with their 
new material. The manufactories using the 
North Carolina brake or swamp cane, (a spe- 
cies of bamboos,) reduced it to paper pulp or 
fibre, by subjecting it to steam in an iron 
cylinder for some time and then suddenly 
exploding it as they would a cannon, by the 
propulsive force of steam, against a solid 
stone wall. It was in this way torn into a 
mass of tine fibres, suitable for paper pulp. 
The other materials now used for paper, all 
require a somewhat different treatment from 
rags ; some of them are much stronger than 
even the best linen rags. The spartina fibre 
found in the marshy bottoms of the Missis- 
sippi River and its tributaries, makes a re- 
markably tough and handsome paper under 
proper treatment, sufficiently strong for bank- 
note purposes, and its coarser qualities make 
excellent flour bags. Paper is now made in 
all sections of the country. Some of the best 
specimens of paper come from the Mississippi 
valley, where formerly it was thought that the 
water was not pure enough to make fine paper. 



CHAPTER II. 

INVENTIONS— MANUFACTURE. 

The slow and difficult process of moulding 
the separate sheets of paper by hand, has to 
a very great extent been superseded by the 
introduction and gradual improvement of 
the very beautiful machinery of Fourdrinier. 
By means of this machine, a process which, 
under the old hand system, occupied a couple 
of weeks, is now performed in a few min- 
utes. Within this brief space of time, 
and the short distance of thirty or forty 
feet, a continuous stream of fluid pulp is 
made into paper, dried, polished, and cut up 
into separate sheets ready for use. The 
paper thus produced is moderate in price, 
and, for a large number of purposes, superior 
in quality to that which was formerly made 
by hand. In fact, the machine-made papers 
can be produced of unlimited dimensions ; 
they are of uniform thickness ; they can be 
fabricated at any season of the year ; they do 
not require to be sorted, trimmed, and hung 
up in the drying-house — operations which 
formerly led to so much waste that about 
one sheet in every five was defective. The 
paper machine moves at the rate of from 



182 



paper: its manufacture. 



twenty-five to forty feet per minute, so that 
scarcely two minutes are occupied in con- 
verting liquid pulp into finished paper, a 
result which, by the old process, occupied 
about seven or eight days. If the machine 
produce ten lineal yards of paper per minute, 
or six hundred yards per hour, this is equal 
to a mile of paper in three hours, or four 
miles per day of twelve hours. The paper 
is about fifty-four inches wide, and suppos- 
ing three hundred machines to be at work on 
an average twelve hours a day, the aggregate 
length of web would be equal to 1,200 
miles, and the area 3,000,000 square yards. 
Paper is sent into market in various forms 
and sizes, according to the use for which it 
is intended. The following table contains 
the names and dimensions of various sheets 
of paper. 

Inches. 

Foolscap 14 by 17 

Crown. 15 " 20 

Polio post 16 " 21 

Demy 17 " 22 

Medium 19 " 24 

Royal 20 " 25 

Super-royal 22 " 27 

Imperial" 22 " 32 

Medium and half 24 " 28£ 

Eoyal and half 25 " 29 

Double Medium 24 " 38 

Double super-royal 27 " 42 

Double imperial 32 " 44 

Many of the papers above enumerated 
are made by hand of the exact size- indica- 
ted, but if made by the machine, the roll 
of paper has to be cut to the required di- 
mensions. In order to do this with pre- 
cision and expedition, various cutting ma- 
chines have been contrived, in which the 
paper, as it comes from the manufacturing 
machine, is cut to any size required. Fine 
papers are, in many cases, hot-pressed and 
glazed. In hot-pressing, a number of stout 
cast iron plates are heated in an oven, and 
then put into a screw press in alternate 
layers, with highly glazed paste-boards, 
between which the paper is placed in open 
sheets ; and the hard-polished surface of the 
pasteboards, aided by the heat and pressure, 
imparts that beautiful appearance which be- 
longs to hot-pressed paper. A yet more 
smooth and elegant surface is produced by 
the process of glazing. The sheets of paper are 
placed separately between very smooth, clean, 
copper plates. These are then passed through 
rollers, which impart a pressure of twenty to 
thirty tons. After three or four such pres- 
sures the paper acquires a higher surface, 



and is then called glazed. The general in- 
troduction of steel pens has increased the 
demand for smooth papers, and has led to 
improvements in finishing them. As an 
improvement in the manufacture of paper 
sized by the machines now in use, it is pro- 
posed to conduct the web of paper, after it 
has been either partially or completely dried, 
through a trough of cold water, then to pass 
it through a pair of pressing rollers, and after- 
ward to_ dry it on reels, or over hot cylin- 
ders. The paper which has been thus treated 
will be found to "bear" much better, and 
admit of erasures being made on its surface, 
and written over, without the ink running in 
the way it does when the paper is sized and 
dried in the usual manner. It has been 
found that when paper is dried, after sizing, 
by the drying machines in present use, the 
paper is very harsh, and until it stands for 
some time to get weather (as it is technically 
termed) great difficulty is experienced in 
glazing the paper. This inconvenience is 
proposed to be overcome by passing the 
paper partially round a hollow cylinder, 
through which a small stream of cold water 
is made to run. By this means the heat is 
carried off, and the paper is rendered more 
tractable, and brought to a proper state for 
undergoing the glazing operation. 

We may describe the modern process of 
paper making, by detailing the operations 
as carried on in large mills. The visitor 
goes up to the second story, into a room 
some sixty by eighty feet, in which girls are 
engaged assorting the rags. Here are nu- 
merous bales of white rags, foreign and do- 
mestic. The imported are linen, the others 
cotton. In the same room these rags are 
cut by a machine, driven by power, which 
fits them for the subsequent processes. They 
are next sent into a rotary boiler of about 
two tuns capacity, into which steam is ad- 
mitted, and the rags boiled. Next they are 
cast down on a floor in the first story, where 
they are put into cars, on which they are 
conveyed to the washing engines. Two 
engines are employed in washing, called rag 
engines. These engines play in tubs of an 
oval form, of large capacity, each containing 
perhaps 200 lbs. of rags. The impelling 
power, steam or water, causes the revolution 
of a roller, set with knives or bars of cast 
steel inserted in it longitudinally. This 
roller is suspended on what is called a lighter, 
by which it may be raised or lowered at 
pleasure upon a plate, consisting of bars of 



INVENTIONS — MANUFACTURE. 



1S3 



steel, set up edgewise. Passing now between 
this and the plate, the rags are reduced to 
fibre. A stream of pure water is then con- 
veyed into the rag engine, and, by means of 
a cylinder covered with gauze wire, the dirty 
water is passed off. This cylinder, called a 
patent washer, is octagonal in shape, some 
thirty inches in length, revolving in the en- 
gine, and having buckets within it, corres- 
ponding with the sides of the washer. By 
this process the rags are washed perfectly 
clean in from three to six hours. 

The bleaching process is performed by the 
insertion into this engine of a strong solution 
of the chloride of lime and some acid, to cause 
a reaction. The pulp is then emptied into 
large cisterns, covered with the bleach liquor 
it contains, where it is allowed to remain 
from twelve to twenty-four hours to bleach. 
It is then drained, put into the beating en- 
gine, and reduced to a pulp, the consistency 
of milk, which it much resembles. This 
pulp is emptied into a large cistern, in a 
vault beneath, and kept in motion by means 
of an agitator revolving in it. It is then 
raised by a lifting pump into a small cistern, 
from which it is drawn off by a cock — which 
is opened more or less, according to the 
thickness of the paper intended to be made — 
on to a strainer, which removes the knots, 
sand, or hard substances that may damage 
the paper, and then flows upon a leathern 
apron, which conducts it to an endless wire 
cloth, over which the web of paper is form- 
ed. This wire cloth is kept constantly 
vibrating, which both facilitates the escape 
of water and the felting together of the 
fibres of the pulp. The wire cloth, with the 
pulp upon it — the edges being protected by 
deckle-straps — passes on until it comes to a 
couple of toet-press cylinders, as they are call- 
ed, the lower of which is of metal, but cover- 
ed with a jacket of felting or flannel ; the 
upper one is of wood, made hollow, and cov- 
ered first with mahogany, and then with 
flannel. These cylinders give the gauze with 
the pulp upon it a slight pressure, which is 
repeated upon a second pair of wet-pross 
rolls similar to the first. The paper is then 
led upon an endless felt or blanket, which 
travels at exactly the same rate as the wire 
cloth, while the latter passes under the cyl- 
inders, and proceeds to take up a new supply 
of pulp. The endless felt conveys the paper, 
still in a very wet state, between cast iron 
cylinders, where it undergoes a severe pres- 
sure, which rids it of much of the remaining 



water, and then between a second pair of 
press-rollers, which remove the mark of the 
felt from the under surface ; and finally it is 
passed over the surface of cylinders heated 
by steam, and when it has passed over about 
thirty lineal feet of heated surface, it is 
wound upon a reel ready for cutting. Forty 
years ago three men could by hand manu- 
facture 4,000 sheets in a day. The same 
number now by the aid of machinery will 
make 60,000. 

From the time of the Revolution the quan- 
tity of paper imported has been gradually 
decreasing ; and before the revision of the 
tariff in 1846, had dwindled to perhaps nut 
more than 2 per cent, of the amount con- 
sumed, with the exception of wall papers, of 
■which considerable quantities were and 
still are imported from France and Eng- 
land. The importations now of writing 
and drawing papers consist of moderate 
quantities of thin French and German pa- 
per, mainly for foreign or fancy correspon- 
dence, and drawing paper and bristol boards 
from England, France, and Austria. The 
reduced price of machine paper has forced 
almost all manufacturers to abandon the 
old hand method. There were, a few years 
since, only two mills in operation in the 
United States in which it was made by 
hand — one in Massachusetts and one in 
Pennsylvania. There is a limited quantity 
of peculiar kinds, that can be better made 
by hand than on a machine, such as bank- 
note, laid letter, deed parchments, and such 
as are used for documents that are much 
handled, and require great strength and 
durability. "Within the last few years some 
improvement has been made in the finish 
of writing and printing papers, by the in- 
troduction of iron and paper calenders for 
the purpose of giving a smooth surface. 
The finish of American papers is now equal 
to any in the world. 

The quantity of paper required for the 
newspaper service of the country is proba- 
bly 320,000,000 lbs. per annum, which 
would allow a circulation of 1,600,000,000 
sheets. There would remain 280,000,000 
lbs. of paper for the service of the book 
trade, and the trade and publications of the 
religious societies, and about 100,000,000 
lbs. for other purposes. 

The use of paper in part or wholly for 
collars, cuffs, shirt fronts, etc., etc., has at- 
tained its present magnitude almost entirely 
since 1860. It now employs a large capital 



184 



paper: its manufacture. 



and uses between five and six millions 
of dollars' worth of paper. Its use for build- 
ing purposes is also very large, being 
coated with a composition and used for 
sheathing, in the place of boards; satu- 
rated with tar, and under the name of roof- 
ing felt made the basis of the "felt and 
gravel roofs;" combined with gypsum and 
made into blocks for the walls of the 
rooms; made into papier mache and com- 
pressed into doors and window-sash of 
great beauty and cheapness, and moulded 
into door-knobs and trimmings. 

The use of paper-hangings, which has 
become so common in the past twenty 
years, superseding hard finish and painted 
walls, for city dwellings, absorbs a large 
amount of paper. In Philadelphia the 
consumption of paper for hangings has 
been yearly 1,500 tons, or 3,000,000 lbs. 
The paper used for this purpose is heavy, 
and comes from the mill in rolls of 1,200 
yards long, and from 20 to 35 inches wide. 
It costs from 6 to 12 cents per pound. In 
the preparation of this paper the pattern is 



first carefully drawn from original designs, 
and then printed. The outlines of the va- 
rious tints were made each upon a separate 
block, made of pear-tree, mounted with 
pine. The color was contained in sieves, 
and the blocks thus applied to these were 
laid upon the paper, following each other 
upon the guide-marks left by the previous 
impressions. I«t is stated that a paper- 
hanging exhibited at the World's Fair, 
and representing a chase in a forest with 
birds and animals, required 12,000 blocks. 
The manufacture of wall papers has greatly 
improved in the last decade. Many of 
them are now of very rich patterns, and 
all the better qualities are printed from 
cylinders, block printing being almost en- 
tirely abandoned. The quantity manufac- 
tured here has largely increased. 

In making what is called flock (shear- 
ings of broadcloth) paper, the pattern is 
printed in size and varnished; the wool 
then being sifted on the varnished pattern, 
adheres to it. Satin papers are finished 
with powdered steatite and polished. 



STATISTICS OF PAPER MANUFACTURE IN 1850, 1860, AND 1870. 



1850. 


No. of 
Estab- 
lish- 
ments. 


Hands Employed. 


Capital. 


Wages. 


Material. 




Classes. 


All. 


Males. 


Fe- 
males. 


Youth. 


Products. 




443 

2 

38 


6,785 
35 
803 


3,835 

13 

753 


2,950 
22 

50 




$7,260,864 

21.000 

547,700 


$1,497,792 

7,320 

166,2S8 


$5,555,929 

21,350 

314,291 


$10,187,177 


Paper Card Factories, . 
Paper Staining, 


37,500 
741.540 




483 


7,623 


4,601 


3,022 




$7,829,564 


$1,671,400 


$5,891,570 


$10,966,217 







1860. 


No. of 

Estab- 
lish- 
ments. 


Hands Employed. 


Capital. 


Wages. 


Material. 




Classes. 


All. 


Males. 


Fe- 
males. 


Youth. 


Products. 




555 

2 

26 

1 


10,911 

14 

1,294 

6 


6,519 
5 

1,203 
6 


4,392 
9 
91 




$14,052,683 

11,000 

1,037,600 

10,000 


$2,767,212 

2.460 

328,224 

6,300 


$11,602,266 

12.200 

1,153.670 

5,000 


$21,216,S02 




21.500 


Paper Hangings, 


2,148,800 
25,000 






Totals, 


584 


12,225 


7,733 


4,492 




$15,111,283 


$3,104,196 


$12,773,136 


$23,412,102 







1870. 


No. of 
Estab- 
lish- 
ments. 


Hands Employed. 


Capital. 


Wages. 


Material. 




Classes. 


All. 


Males. 


Fe- 
males. 


Youth. 


Products. 


Paper, n. s.. 


163 
235 
225 

46 
15 


2,770 
8.167 
3.111 
3.862 
869 


1.902 
5.107 
2.462 
1,450 
558 


741 
2,553 

47.". 
2,384 

145 


127 
507 
174 
28 
166 


$5,001,820 

16,771.920 

6.276.600 

fi.814.674 

1,415,500 


$1,028,208 
3,400.038 
1.2'9.821 
1,470.446 

329,267 


$3,478,709 

16.120.363 

4.120,240 

6,009,751 

1,315,106 


$6,406,817 
25,200,4W 




7.706,317 

9.363.384 


Paper Hangings, 


2,165.510 


Totals, 


684 


18,779 


11,479 


6,298 


1,002 $35,780,514 


$7,477,780 


$31,344,167 


$50,842,435 


















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INVENTIONS MANUFACTURE. 



187 



STATISTICS OF PAPER MANUFACTURE IN 1872. 
Lockwood's Tables. 



No. of 


Value or 
Capital. 


Machines. 


Engines. 


Hands Employed. 




Annual Product. 


Paper 

Mills. 


«- Cylinder. 


Washing 
& Beating. 


All. 


Men. 


Wo- 
men. 


Chil- 
dren. 


Wages. 


Tons. 


Value. 


812 


$35,500,000 


299 


690 


3,296 


22,049 


13,427 


7,700 


992 


$9,500,000 


317,637 


$66,500,000 



Classes of Paper. 



Writing paper, rag 

Book and best printing paper, rag mostly, 

Straw printing paper, 

Manilla paper, 

Straw wrapping paper 

Wood pulp paper , 

Paper for paper collars 

Straw and tar boards, roofing, sheathing, building, and paper hangings 



Tons. 



22.970 
91,446 

14,000 
39,177 
39,597 
19,700 
3,800 
86,947 



Value. 



$12,000,000 
25,000,000 
3,000,000 
8,500,000 
3,000,000 
2,000,000 

13,000,000 



In 1875, number of mills, 892; capital, 
$40,500,000; annual product, 345,000 
tons; value about $68,000,000, prices be- 
ing much lower; proportion of wood pulp 
paper increased to more than 40,000 tons. 
Number of hands employed, about 25,000. 

Statistics of 1880 : At the close of 1 880, 
according to the tables of Mr. Howard 
Lockwood, the highest authority on the 
subject, there were 959 paper mills, run by 
771 firms. At the present time (Sept. 
1881) there are very nearly 1,000 mills. 
The caDacity of these mills for production 
i3 about 812,000 tons per annum. The ac- 
tual production does not probably exceed 
700,000 tons, and the value of production 
is between $130,000,000 and $140,000,- 
000. The number of hands employed 
must be largely a guess. It cannot be less 
than 30,000, and may be considerably 



more. 33 states and two territories (Utah 
and Dist. of Columbia) report paper mills; 
one, Alabama, having but one, and that 
not in operation. All the other states and 
territories, except Missouri, make book and 
news paper; that state makes only wrap- 
ping paper. New York has the largest 
number of mills, and makes the greatest 
quantity of paper of all descriptions except 
writing paper. Massachusetts follows close- 
ly, and makes three-fourths of all the writ- 
ing paper produced in the United States. 
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Connecticut are 
rivals in the amount of their production as 
well as the number of their mills. After 
these come in order, New Hampshire, 
Maine, New Jersey, Illinois, Vermont, 
"Wisconsin, Maryland, Michigan, etc. The 
capital employed is not far from $75,000,- 
000. 




HAND CARDING. 



WOOLLEN MANUFACTURES. 



CHAPTER I. 

WOOLLEN MANUFACTURES — CARDING — 
WEAVING— FELTING. 

The manufacture of woollen, or any other 
goods, having been prohibited in the colo- 
nies under that harsh principle which 
prompted the Earl of Chatham to exclaim 
that the " colonists had no right to manu- 
facture so much as a horse-shoe nail," much 
progress could not have been expected. 
Nevertheless, progress was made, since the 
home manufacture of woollen cloth became 
very general. The people spun and wove 
their own cloth, and the merchant found 
little sale for the imported article. The 
oppressions of the home government were 
continued, until finally, in 1765, a society 
was started in New York with great zeal, 
not only repudiating all foreign goods, but 
taking measures to encourage the home 
manufacture of cloth from sheep's wool, and 
from all other materials. This was very pop- 
ular ; and an agreement was extensively en- 
tered into, in order to encourage the growth 
of wool, to eat no mutton or lamb, and to 
purchase no meat of any butcher who should 
kill a sheep or lamb. The economist of the 
present day will smile at such a mode of en- 
couraging the farmer to keep sheep, viz. : by 
cutting off his market for the mutton. Never- 
theless, it showed zeal. Manufactures are 
not, however, to be established by resolu- 
tion. For their development there are neces- 
sary, 1st, the supply of skilled labor ; 2d, the 
material for its use ; 3d, the capital to em- 



ploy it ; and 4th, the demand for the goods. 
This latter existed to a considerable extent, 
on certain conditions, among which was, that 
it should come within the means of the con- 
sumers. There does not appear to have 
been much scarcity of wool, since home-made 
goods were generally used. There was an 
absence, however, of capital, and of that 
skilled labor which is always the result of 
extensive experience in the same employ- 
ment. There came great numbers of art- 
isans from Europe, and it was stated that 
30,000 weavers left Ulster in 1174. The 
war came, peace succeeded, and the new 
government was formed in 1*791 ; on which 
occasion, Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of 
the Treasury, made his famous report on 
manufactures. He stated, that of woollen 
goods, hats only had reached maturity, and 
supplied the demand. At Hartford, a mill 
for cloths and cassimeres was in operation, 
and produced excellent wares, under the cir- 
cumstances ; but he remarked, that " it 
was doubtful if American wool was fit for 
fine cloths." The quality of wool grown 
in the country must, since then, have chang- 
ed very much, since the American wool is 
used entirely for the fine goods, and the 
imported wools only are used for carpets and 
coarse manufactures. The manufacture of 
cloths did not progress rapidly, since we find 
that, in 1810, according to the report of the 
Treasury department, ordered by Congress, 
the manufacture of wool was still mostly in 
families. The progress of the manufacture, 
since that report, has been as follows: — 



Woolen manufacture, 



1810. 1820. 1830. 1S-10. 1850. 1SG0. 1870. 

$25,608,788 4,413,068 14,528,166 20,696,699 43,542,288 61,896,917 217,578,824 



1880. 
237,587,163 



This value, in 1810, was nearly all in fam- 
ilies, and the figures subsequently are the 
product of regular manufactures as the busi- 
ness progressed. The family manufacture 
was necessarily of a rude description. The 
wool, being washed, was carded between 



two cards held in the hands of the operator, 
who continued to card until the wool was 
formed into a long roll, which was then spun 
upon the Bingle spindle, driven by the wheel 
that the busy hand of the housewife kept in 
motion. There arc* many still living who 



190 



CARDING WEAVING FELTING. 



were employed in sticking the teeth for those 
cards, and in tending the wheel. The cloth, 
woven also by hand, was subsequently sent 
to mill to be fulled, and dyed, and dressed ; 
which was the first regular business branch 
of the manufacture. The dyeing was rather 
an imperfect process. The operator did not 
then understand the art of fixing colors. 
Daniel Webster somewhere relates his mis- 
fortune, when, dressed up in a new suit of 
home-spun blue, he accompanied his father 
on the way to a new school, and, being over- 
taken by a shower, had the color washed 
from his new coat into his shirt. With the 
lapse of time dyeing became better under- 
stood. Not many years have elapsed, how- 
ever, since the distinctive mark of American 
cloth was, that it wore " white on the edges ;" 
in other words, its color was not fast. With 
the introduction of machinery, and the im- 
proved condition of the people, home manu- 
factures necessarily gave way to machine 
work. Other occupations paid the time of 
the farmer better, and the use of machines 
gradually made a market for the raw wool, 
at a price which, compared with falling 
prices of the cloth, would give the wool- 
grower his cloth without labor. This we 
may illustrate by extreme figures. Suppose, 
there being no factories, wool is worth 10 
cts. per lb., and cloth imported, $2 per yard, 
a pound of wool will make two yards, or 84 ; 
if not as good cloth, at least good enough. 
The farmer, by turning his wool into cloth, 
makes a large saving. Soon, however, ma- 
chine labor sinks cloth to 50 cts. per yard, 
and raises wool to 60 cts. The farmer can 
now no longer afford to make his own cloth, 
but his wool trade has become profitable. 
Thus, machine goods supplant hand goods. 
In this line, the inventions have been very 
remarkable. 

In 179V, Asa Whittemore, of Massachu- 
setts, invented a machine for making cards. 
Instead of sticking them by hand, as before, 
a strip of leather, by passing between a 
cylinder and a scraper, becomes of equal 
thickness. This strip of leather, in passing 
through the machine, is stuck full of teeth, 
that are also made from steel wire by the 
machine at the same time. The ingenuity 
of this machine was such, that the famous 
John Randolph, on inspecting it, exclaimed, 
that " it operated as if it had a soul !" There 
have been 100 patents since issued for im- 
provements in this machine. The hand 



machine. This has a drum of about 3 ft. 
diameter, and as many long, covered with 
the cards. Smaller cylinders, also covered 
with cards, are placed so as to revolve against 
the circumference of the cylinder, and in the 
contrary direction. There is a feed apron, 
on which the wool is laid, and, being, drawn 
in between two rollers, is caught by the cards 
of the revolving drum, and combed out be- 
tween it and the smaller cylinders. The 
wool is thus spread on the surface of all, 
and is finally taken up by the " doffer," or a 
cylinder in front of the main drum ; from 
this it flows in a broad, thin, gauzy fleece, 
which passes through a funnel, and in so 
doing is contracted into a ribbon, or sliver, 
which is delivered into a can, ready for the 
" drawing frame." Long wools and short 
wools are subjected to different treatment in 
this stage of the manufacture. The long 
wools are sometimes called combing wools, 
in consequence. 

In the manufacture of worsted, the long 
staple is used mostly, because a smooth, fine 
yarn is required, not much liable to full, or 
shrink, or curl. In order to fomi such a 
thread, the first object is to lay or stretch 
the fibres into lines, as parallel as possible. 
If it were possible to procure a single fibre 
of wool of a length sufficient to weave like a 
fibre of silk, the beauty and finish of the 
fabric would be as nearly perfect as could 
be desired. As that, however, is not pos- 
sible, the object of the manufacturer is to 
draw out the fibres into parallel lines, in 
order that they may twist into a thread as 
fine and smooth as can be obtained. The 
old mode of doing this was by hand. When 
the wool has been washed with lye, or soap 
and water, and dried, it passes into a ma- 
chine called the "picker," tended by a boy, 
who lays the wool as evenly as he can upon 
the feed apron, which carries the wool be- 
tween rollers, when it is caught by revolving 
teeth, torn asunder, and scattered in the air. 
The fibres are thus cleared and straightened 
to some extent. They were then taken to the 
comber, who, in a close room, employed 
combs with long, heated teeth. The work- 
man oiled the wool, and combed it with these 
heated instruments, until it became suitable, 
when it was arranged in " slivers." This 
was a very laborious and unhealthy task, and 
many machines have been invented to super- 
sede the hand labor. Some of them are very 
ingenious, and they have advanced the 



cards were then supplanted by the carding j stage of the manufacture in an eminent de- 



"WOOLLEN MANUFACTURES. 



191 



gree. When the " slivers" are thus pre- 
pared, they are carried to the " breaking 
machine." There the first sliver is placed 
upon an apron, which carries it between two 
rollers, that seize and draw it forward, and it 
passes from them through other sets of rollers, 
which move three times as fast. As a con- 
sequence, the sliver is drawn out to three 
times its original length. When it has half 
passed into the first set of rollers, the end of 
another sliver is laid upon it, passing 
thence with it, and becoming incorporated 
with it in the drawing. All the slivers thus 
become incorporated in one of three times 
the aggregate length of all the original sliv- 
ers, and it is coiled in a can. Three of 
these cans are carried to the " drawing 
frame," which has five sets of rollers, oper- 
ating in the same manner as the breaking 
frame. As fast as the sliver comes through 
one set of rollers, it coils into a can, and the 
slivers of three cans are then united, and pass 
through another set of rollers. These draw- 
ings thus take place 1,500 times with some 
wool, and the process reduces the sliver to 
one-fourth its original bulk. There are many 
variations of the detail of drawing by differ- 
ent machines, but the result is the same. 
After the drawing is finished, a pound of the 
sliver is taken and measured, in order to 
test the accuracy of the drawing. This 
done, the sliver is passed to the " roving" 
frame, where two slivers are drawn, as be- 
fore, into a " roving," which has now become 
so attenuated, that it must have a twist to 
hold it together. This twist is imparted to 
it as it is wound upon spindles, of which the 
frame contains a great many. The bobbins 
from the roving frame spindles are then car- 
ried to the spinning frame. They are placed 
upon skewers, and the roving proceeds from 
them between rollers, of which there are 
three sets : the first pair turns slowly, the 
middle twice as fast as the first, and the 
third from twelve to seventeen times as fast 
as the first pair. The spindles that receive 
the thread from the rollers must turn very 
fast to give the required twist to the thread. 
The hardest thread is tammy warp, and, 
when this is of size of twenty-four hanks to 
the pound, the twist is ten turns to an inch. 
The least twist is given to thread for fine 
hose, and it is then five to the inch. The 
threads are then reeled. The bobbins are 
placed in a row upon wires, before a long 
horizontal reel, which is exactly a yard in 
circumference. When this has revolved 



eighty times, it rings a bell. It is then 
stopped, and a thread passed round the 
eighty turns of each thread. The reel then 
proceeds. Each of these eighty turns is 
called a ley ; seven such are a " hank :" 
which is, consequently, 560 yards. When 
this quantity is reeled, the ends of the 
threads are tied together, and each hank is 
weighed by a machine, which denotes the 
number of hanks to a pound, and this is the 
number of the yarn : thus, No. 24 means 
that twenty-four hanks of 560 yards each 
will weigh 1 lb. A hank of cotton measures 
840 yards. 

Short wool, for the cloth manufacture, re- 
sembles cotton in some respects. The wool 
being oiled and " picked," is passed through 
the carding machine, whence it proceeds 
through the drawing process, as with the 
long staple, until it assumes the form of yarn 
for the weaver. 

In woollen cloths, cassimeres, broad cloths, 
narrow cloths, etc., all wool is used : that is, 
both warp and weft are wool, but the wool 
is combined with many other articles, ac- 
cording to the dearness of each. The cotton 
warp is used in satinets ; and in most descrip- 
tions of dress goods there is a combination 
of wool with silk or cotton. If these articles 
are very high, more wool is used ; and the 
reverse, if wool is high, and cotton is cheap, 
more cotton is introduced into the fabric. 
There are also a great variety of styles and 
patterns constantly produced, to attract at- 
tention. 

The weaving process on the improved 
power-looms has been greatly facilitated of 
late years, and the labor has been diminish- 
ed. Thus, formerly, one person was re- 
quired to tend one loom, at a certain speed ; 
but, by various improvements, one person 
may now tend four. In large factories, great 
numbers of looms are placed in one room, 
and, as the cloth-rolls become full, they are 
placed upon a little rail-car, which carries 
them off to the dyeing and finishing depart- 
ment. 

The woven cloth is carried to the fulling- 
mill, to have the oil applied in spinning, and 
other greasy matters removed, and, by a 
partial felting, to give the fabric more com- 
pactness. The first process is to scour the 
cloth. This is done by placing it in troughs, 
so arranged as to contain the liquids — stale 
urine and hog's dung, then urine alone, and 
to be followed by fullers' earth and urine. 
Heavy oaken mallets, or pounders, slide 



192 



CARDING WEAVING FELTING. 



down with force into one end of the trough, 
and mash, or roll over the cloths. The 
pounders are lifted by wooden cams, kept in 
motion by horse-power for many hours. In 
this process the oil is detached from the 
wool, the urine is absorbed by the earth, 
and both washed off by the water. When 
this is complete, soap is applied liberally, 
and the pounding continued, to full the cloth. 
Instead of soap, in some cases steam is applied, 
and the pounders made of iron. The process 
of fulling is also effected without pounders, 
the cloth being pushed, or squeezed, through 
a long trough. After the fulling, the soap is 
washed out, and the cloth is ready for 
teasling. To full a piece of broadcloth re- 
quires sixty to sixty-five hours, and 1 libs, of 
soap are usually applied. In the process, 
the cloth will shrink in length from fifty -four 
to forty yards, and from twelve quarters 
wide to seven quarters. 

When cloth is returned from the fulling- 
mill, it is stretched upon the tenter frame, 
and left to dry in the open air. As cloth in 
the fulling-mill shrinks nearly one-half, it 
must be woven nearly double its intended 
breadth. Superfine six-quarter broadcloths 
are therefore woven twelve quarters wide. 

The cloth is minutely examined, when dry, 
in every part, freed from knots and uneven 
threads, and repaired, by sewing any little 
rents, or inserting sound yarns in the place 
of defective ones. 

In order to raise up the loose filaments of 
woollen yarn into a nap upon one of the sur- 
faces of the cloth, it is scratched with the 
heads of the teasle plant, or with teasling cards 
made of wire. In large factories the operation 
is performed in the gig-mill, which is a cylinder 
covered all over with tcasles, and made to 
revolve rapidly, while the cloth is drawn 
over it. This operation requires attention, 
lest the goods become tender. Indeed, 
every branch of the wool manufacture re- 
quires the supervision of a practical man. If 
a piece of cloth comes from the press dam- 
aged, or inferior, he must be able himself to 
discover where the fault lies, without taking 
any other man's Avord for it ; if the wool is 
not properly cleaned and dyed, the dyer 
must be called to account, not the carder, or 
the weaver ; and if, through the carelessness 
of the shearer or gigger, the goods are made 
tender, they must answer for it, not the 
spinner. Therefore, the manager of a wool- , 
len establishment must be a thorough prac- 
tical manufacturer, conversant with all the 



branches of his business, and able to assume 
and maintain the responsibility of each and 
every one. This individuality of the manu- 
facturer is well divided among the different 
branches of the manufacture in England, 
where the business has grown up in the 
hands of practical men ; but in this country, 
where manufacturing Avas, as it were, im- 
provised on the formation of the govern- 
ment, it came, necessarily, under the con- 
trol of corporations, where the supervising 
power could not be so well exercised as 
Avhere each branch is produced by an in- 
dividual on his own responsibility, and to 
meet the consequences of defect himself. 
In a corporation, many of the appointments 
are independent of the general direction, 
and the resulting defects in fabrics are placed 
to the account of the wrong party, or not 
fixed upon any. 

The art of dyeing and printing fabrics is 
one of the most progressive connected with 
manufacturing. The materials of human 
clothing are mostly from silk and wool, of 
animal origin, and cotton and flax, of vege- 
table origin. These tAvo classes differ in the 
facility Avith which they imbibe coloring 
matter. The animal fibre takes much more 
brilliant shades than the A T egetable, and the 
color may be applied to either class in the 
raw state, in the spun yarn, or in the fabric : 
hence, great diversity in the processes. The 
coloring matters are themselves of the most 
various origins — animal, vegetable, and min- 
eral — and their substances, brought together, 
act upon each other, and produce the most 
intricate changes. The leading vegetable 
colors are yelloAv, brown, and red ; blue is 
derived only from litmus and indigo ; black 
is afforded by nutgalls, sumach, and cashew 
nut. These are generally obtained by water; 
but some of the substances require either 
alcohol or some of the fixed oils. From the 
animal kingdom come, from the bodies of 
the cochineal and kermes insects, the bril- 
liant scarlet and crimson dyes. The ancient 
dye, called Tyrian purple, Avas long supposed 
to be lost ; but a French chemist has lately 
discovered it. Hoofs, horns, etc., give Prus- 
sian blue. Many brilliant colors are derived 
from the salts of various metals. The same 
metal is caused to give various colors. Iron 
gives that buff known as nankeen ; it gives 
various shades of blue, and is made to yield 
black, slate color, and other shades. Chrome, 
and lead salts, give an interesting variety of 
colors. The materials to be dyed, of what- 







CROMPTON IMPROVED FANCY LOOM. 




MARBLE'S GIG. OR, OLOTH-NAPPING MACHINE. 



WOOLLEN MANUFACTURES. 



195 



ever nature, are seldom found to have such 
an affinity for the dyes used that they will 
retain them. They will soon wash out, un- 
less a remedy is applied. Chemistry dis- 
covered this in certain substances that will 
fix themselves permanently upon the fibre, 
and then, by uniting chemically with the 
color, " fix" that permanently also. These 
applications are called "mordants," from the 
Latin, mordeo, because they were thought to 
bite into the fibre. It is sometimes the case 
that, in thus combining with the color, the 
mordant will modify or alter its tone, and 
those having this effect, are sometimes called 
" alterants." 

Thus, if a decoction of madder be applied 
directly to cloth, it gives a dirty red color, 
that will not remain. If the cloth is first 
prepared with acetate of alumina, the color 
will not only become entirely fast, but 
will assume a fine red hue, which will re- 
sist the action of air, light, and water. If, 
instead of the alumina, oxide of iron is used 
as a mordant, a purple color will be ob- 
tained. In dyeing with cochineal, if crim- 
son is required, alumina is used for a mor- 
dant ; if oxide of iron is used, the color 
will be black. It follows, that mixing mor- 
dants will multiply shades, and the variations 
of proportions and strength of solution give 
a wide field for the production of effects. It 
sometimes is the case, that two solutions, 
neither of which will give any color at all to 
the fabric, will impart a fast color by follow- 
ing each other in the application. Thus, a 
solution of nitrate of potash gives no color to 
cloth, and may be washed out ; the same is 
true of bichromate of potash ; but if one 
of these is applied after the cloth has receiv- 
ed the other, a fast yellow is obtained. In 
the process of mandarining, an acid is made 
to act directly upon the fibre of the wool. 
In a large factory, the dye stuffs are ground 
and mixed in an appropriate room. The in- 
fusions arc made in tubs or vats, some in cold 
water, and others in boiling water. Some 
of the dyes are introduced in the shape of a 
coarse powder, and others in bags, through 
which the color oozes. The cloth is first 
prepared by thorough cleansing, in order 
to remove all extraneous matters that may 
be attached to the fibre. When this is com- 
pleted, the mordant is applied by soaking 
the cloth in appropriate solutions. It is 
then hung up to dry in long folds, if intend- 
ed for printing, as in the case of muslin-de- 
laines, a fabric in which the American 



manufacturer has come to surpass the im- 
ported article, and to monopolize the market. 

The art of printing goods may be said to 
have been created in the last fifty years. As 
practised in the early part of the century, 
it was comparatively rude. The figures to 
be impressed upon the cloth were engraved 
upon a square block of wood, and the color 
being applied to this, it was impressed upon 
the cloth, which was then drawn forward, 
and a new application of the block made. 
This was the style of printing practised orig- 
inally by Robert Peel, grandfather of the late 
prime minister of England, and founder of 
that family. An improvement was then 
made by engraving the pattern upon a cop- 
per cylinder, and by passing the cloth over 
this, the work was done with more pre- 
cision and continuity. This was costly, how- 
ever ; and one such cylinder laboriously en- 
graved, would print only 1,500 pieces of 
cloth. Perkins, of Newburyport, Massachu- 
setts, then invented the die. This is a small 
steel roller, on which the figure is engraved, 
and made exceedingly hard. From this, the 
figure is conveyed to a soft steel roller by 
pressure. From this last the design is im- 
pressed upon a copper roller by pressure. 
This last prints the cloth. In this manner, 
the design on the steel die, once engraved, 
may be multiplied to any number. The 
original block-printing would take but one 
color. Numbers of improvements were made 
to increase the number of colors that might 
be printed. This is now done by engraving 
the dies and rollers with portions of the 
designs that are to take different colors. 
The rollers are placed upon the printing 
machine in such a manner, that the cloth 
passes up slowly over the large drum of the 
machine. They each, in succession, impress 
it with the design and color with which they 
are fed. Almost any number of colors may 
thus be printed. The style and quality of 
ladies' dress goods of wool, have thus made 
rapid strides in the last few years. 

The faculty of felting possessed by the 
wool, arises from the barbs upon each fibre, 
like those that arc to be seen on each fibre 
of a feather, locking into each other. The pro- 
cess of rubbing in hot water causes those in 
the wool to become more closely interlocked, 
until the whole becomes a compact mass. 

The making of hats of wool was a la rue busi- 
ness in the New England colonies early in the 
18th century — so much so, as to draw upon 
them the interference of the government for 



196 



CARDING WEAVING FELTING. 



the suppression of the business. It con- 
tinued, however, locally, and was, in 1791, 
mentioned by the Secretary of the Treasury 
as one of the most successful. The manu- 
facturing process was mostly the same, al- 
though the form of the hat underwent many 
changes, from the " cocked" to the " stove- 
pipe/' and latterly to " Kossuth," " Der- 
by," and other styles. The wool — mostly 
Iambs or short wool — was washed in urine 
to remove all grease that prevented felting. 
The wool then, bei^g dried, was " bowed." 
This was performed by the operative, who 
laid about 3 oz. of wool upon a board, and 
then, holding in h>s left hand a bow with a 
stiff string, he vibrated the string in such a 
manner as to strike the wool, and cause it to 
fly out clear and loose. When quite clear, 
it was formed by hand into a cone form 
nearly three tiroes as large as the proposed 
hat body. To keep the light wool to- 
gether, it was placed between two cloths. 
It was then immersed in water, and con- 
tinually rolled in different directions upon a 
short round stick held in the hands of the 
operator. This operation caused the hat to 
felt or shrink into the proper size and shape. 
Being then in the sugar-loaf form, it was 
stretched upon the hat block that gave it its 
shape, and the manufacture proceeded with, 
until, napped with fur and trimmed, it was 
ready for sale. About 30 years since, machines 
for forming the bodies were introduced, and 
these soon supplanted the old hand system. 
The wool was washed with soft soap as a 
substitute for urine, the lye of the soap being 
equally efficacious in removing the grease. 
When dry and clean, the wool was passed 
through the " picker," made with a cylinder 
covered with long teeth. As this revolved 
with great velocity, it took from a pair of 
rollers the wool, separated it, straightening 
the fibres, and cleaning it of dust at the 
same time. This wool was then passed 
through the breaker, or carding machine, 
as in preparation for spinning; but as the 
broad fleece comes off the doff'er, instead of 
being drawn into a ribbon, it is received 
upon a pair of light wood cones, placed with 
their bases together. To these a vibratory 
motion is given at the same time that they 
revolve. The result is, that the fleece of 
wool winds over them in contrary directions, 
until they appear like a large cocoon. When 
about 3 oz. are wound upon the cones, the 
boy who tends cuts them apart with shears, 
and by a rapid movement removes the 



woolly cap from the cone, which instantly 
resumes its motion. These caps, so removed, 
are perfectly formed " bodies," ready to be 
felted in the usual manner. The regularity 
and rapidity of the formation enables a 
" body" to be formed with much less wool 
than by the hand system. Instead of 3 to 
4 ozs. for a hat, a perfect body was now 
formed of 1 oz. weight. This process of the 
wool manufacture grew rapidly, until a ma- 
chine was invented to form hat bodies of 
fur. The difficulty in that respect had been 
that the fur could not be carded into a fleece 
like the wool. A machine was then in- 
vented, by which the air was exhausted 
under a fine wire gauze, and the fur flying 
was drawn upon this and partly felted into 
a ribbon, which was wound upon cones for 
the hat bodies. The next process was to 
form the cone itself full of holes, and, by ex- 
hausting the air, the fur is caused to settle 
upon it evenly, in weight sufficient for a 
body. These fur hats caused those of wool 
to rank second. 

The felting qualities of wool have, how- 
ever, caused it to be used for many other 
purposes, such as piano-covers, drugget, and 
for the manufacture of cloth without weav- 
ing. This is called beaver cloth, and is 
difficult to detect, by the eye, from woven 
cloth. Several manufactories of this descrip- 
tion are in operation in Connecticut. The 
wool being worked and "picked," is carded 
in a machine which is double the width of 
the ordinary one, in order to deliver a fleece 
or web six feet wide instead of three. This 
" web" is, as it is delivered by the machine, 
carried out, in a horizontal direction, 21 
feet, and so doubled in folds until it gets a 
proper thickness for felting. Inasmuch as 
the process of felting causes a web to 
contract more in breadth than in length, it 
becomes necessary, to give the cloth a proper 
consistency, that the webs should cross. 
To do this two machines are placed at right 
angles with each other, and as the web of 
one is extended, that of the other crosses it. 
When the proper thickness is thus attained, 
the whole is rolled upon a beam, and trans- 
ferred to the felting table. Here a number 
of cloths are laid together upon an endless 
apron, the movement of which carries them 
forward over an iron plate, perforated with 
holes, through which steam ascends, and 
thoroughly heats and saturates the cloths, 
which proceed under a platen, to which 
steam power imparts a rapid vibratory mo- 




MARBLES IMPROVED PERPETUAL SHEARING MACHINE, 
(For Woolen Goods.) 




IRON FRAME DOUBLE-ACTING BRUSHES, 
(For the last operation in Cloth finishing. ) 



WOOLLEN MANUFACTURES. 



199 



tion, which felts the cloth. When this is com- 
pleted, the cloth is dyed of the requisite color, 
and then subjected to the fulling and teasling 
process, like a woven cloth. For those heavy 
coat cloths that arc in the style called Peter- 
shams, another process is substituted. It 
consists in passing the cloth under a sort of 
press, of which the lower side, on which the 
cloth rests, is stationary, and the upper, 
being covered with sand, receives a rapid, 
rotatory, vibratory motion, which rolls up 
the nap into those little knots that are the 
distinctive feature of Petersham. The nature 
of these cloths permits of giving them two 
colors. Thus a dark and a drab color may 
be felted together to form one cloth, of 
which the inside is of a different color from 
the outside. These cloths are used to some 
extent by the clothiers, but their durability 
is said not to be such as to recommend them. 
Of all people, the American shows the 
most remarkable inclination for good car- 
pets. It seems to be impossible for him to 
walk comfortably through life without a 
carpet under his feet. Every man who oc- 
cupies a few square feet of house-room must 
have the brick or the boards protected from 
his tread by so much carpeting. Here car- 
peting appears in a thousand places where, 
in other parts of the world, it is never seen. 
The English shopkeeper thinks the bare 
boards good enough for the reception of 
his customers, and seldom does the mer- 
chant think of adding to the elegance of his 
counting-room by laying down a square of 
Brussels. Only those churches devoted to 
the service of the more aristocratic worship- 
pers, are furnished with the comforts of Kid- 
derminster — the bare wood, or bricks, or 
stone, being considered more consonant with 
"the self-denying duties of the sanctuary." 
Widely different is it with the well-to-do 
American. He believes in enjoying life ; 
and considering that carpets contribute to 
life's enjoyment, he does not hesitate to 
spread every place where he is accustomed 
to tread with a covering of three-ply, ta- 
pestry, Brussels, Moquette, or Axminster. 
The number of yards, of all descriptions, 
imported, per year, averages, for the five 
years, 1876-1880, 726,351 yards— -less than 
one half whai it was in 1850, and our ex- 
ports average 20,000 yards. Our manu- 
facture of carpets in 1870 amounted to 
21,485,233 yards, or more than 30 times 



our present importation, and within the 
last decade it has increased with wonderful 
strides, amounting, according to the bulle- 
tins of the census office, in 1880, to 

yards. The carpets most in use in 
this country are known as " rag carpets," as 
ingrain, super two-ply, three-ply, Vene- 
tian, tapestries, Brussels, velvets, Wilton, 
Turkey, Axminster, Persian, Aubusson, 
and Moquettes. The ingrain carpet is 
made with two sets of worsted warp, and 
two sets of woollen weft. It consists of 
two distinct webs, incorporated into each 
other by the warp, threads passing from one 
to the other to bring the required colors to 
the surface. Each web is, however, a 
cloth of itself, which, if separated by cut- 
ting from the other, would present a coarse 
surface, like baize. Two colors only are 
used with effect in this kind of carpet. 
The three-ply is similar, but produced by 
three webs, making a thicker carpet with 
a greater number of colors. The pattern 
in this does not appear in opposite colors, 
as in the two-ply. This fabric was long 
thought not adapted to power looms, but 
in 1839 Mr. Bigelow, of Lowell, improved 
these looms, so that weavers who were 
then making 8 yards per day by hand 
could make 12 yards per day by power. 
This plan has since been so improved 
that power looms are now wholly used, 
with such economy of labor as greatly 
to reduce the cost of carpets. The judg- 
ment and skill of the weaver was a great 
element in the production of the goods. 

Mr. Bigelow, in his first loom, contrived to 
take up the woven cloth by an unerring 
motion, the same amount for every beat of 
the lathe. His next step was to regulate 
the tension of the threads, so as to keep the 
selvage smooth, and the figure regular. In 
this he succeeded so as to bring the two- 
ply loom to 27 yards per day, and the 
three-ply loom to 18 yards. His method 
of producing figures that will match was 
patented in 1845. The same machine was 
found to be applicable to Brussels and tap- 
estry carpets, the weaving of which by 
power was before thought to be impractica- 
ble. They were made at the rate of 4 yards 
per day by hand. This has been increased 
to 20 yards per day by the new process. 
The figures of the carpets are also made so 
as to match perfectly, and surpass the best 
carpets made in any other part of the world. 



200 



CARDING WEAVING FELTING. 



These looms are used in factories built for 
them in Lowell and Clinton, Massachusetts ; 
Thompson ville and Tariff ville, Connecticut; 
Auburn and Yonkers, N. Y. ; there are 
three large factories in New York, as many 
in Philadelphia, and a number in other 
towns and cities. The Brussels carpet 
is made upon a ground of linen weft, 
which is concealed by the worsted threads 
that interlace and cover it. The threads 
are of two, three, four, or five different 
colors, and, each being brought up to 
its place by a " frame," the fabric is 
called two, three, four, or five-frame 
Brussels. In weaving, these run the 
length of the web, and are so managed 
that all those required by the pattern are 
brought up together across the line of the 
carpet. Before they are let down, a wood- 
en instrument called a sword is passed 
through, to hold up the threads. This is 
replaced by a wound wire, which being at 
last removed leaves a row of loops across 
the carpet. In a yard there are sometimes 
320 successive lifts of the sets of colors re- 
quired, each of which forms a row of 
the loops. The Wilton carpet differs from 
Brussels in that the loops are cut before 
the wire is removed. A groove runs in the 
wire to receive the edge of the cutting knife. 
The soft ends of the cut loops give the car- 
pet its velvet appearance. In Imperial Brus- 
sels, the loops of the figures only are cut. 
Here a new invention was brought into use 
to make " tapestry and velvet pile." This 
is a combination of the arts of printing and 
weaving. The principle is this : if a rose- 
bud occurs a thousand times in the length 
of a web, at 4 feet apart, the block-printer 
must apply his block a thousand times to 
print the bud. By the new process the 
thread is wound a thousand times round a 
cylinder 4 feet in circumference, and a turn- 
ing wheel charged with color passes across 
the coil. The thread unwound is found to 
be marked in a thousand places exactly 
where it is wanted. The threads are thus 
all parti-colored, and singly show no regular 
figure; but when arranged in the proper 
order for the weaver's beam, the figures 
come into view much elongated. Some- 
times 1 8 feet of warp will be gathered into 
4 feet of cloth, in order to secure the due 
proportion of the intended object. By this 
system the number of colors, that could 
not exceed 6 or 7 by the old plan, is now 
increased to 20 or 30, or any number ; 



and instead of a change of blocks for every 
pattern, the same blocks serve for all pat- 
terns. Aubusson, Moquette, and Axmins- 
ter are very similar in appearance and con- 
struction. They are made with a high 
tufted pile, thick, durable, and expensive. 
They are constructed with a firm ground- 
work of linen or cotton, upon which is 
woven the body of the fabric — the warp 
and woof, to which the tufts supplied from 
a series of rollers corresponding in number 
to the picks or wefts, completing one pat- 
tern and of a length equal to the width of 
the carpet are attached. As these tufts 
are of soft woolen yarn and form a surface 
altogether independent of the body of the 
carpet below, the employment of an al- 
most unlimited number of colors is admiss- 
ible, and the designs in these grades are 
therefore generally of the most perfect and 
elegant description. It is only within the 
past ten or fifteen years that American 
manufacturers have succeeded in sur- 
mounting the difficulties attending the pro- 
duction of these goods; but the American 
goods are now fully equal to the imported. 

The wool used for the manufacture of 
carpets comes from Russia, near the Black 
Sea, from Turkey (Smyrna), from the East 
Indies, from Cordova, Buenos Ayres, Monte 
Video, and Valparaiso, S. America; from 
Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, and some 
from Mexico. The Combing Donskoi (a 
Russian wool, washed fleece) and the 
Smyrna, also washed, bring the highest 
price, from 23 to 25 cents a pound, E. India 
white, washed, from 16 to 18, the South 
American wools, not washed, from 14 to 
15, and our own South Western, not 
washed, about the same. If these wools 
have not been washed or scoured, they are 
first put through that process, and then 
sent to the combing machine to be separa- 
ted into long and short-fiber wools. 

The long are passed through rollers, and 
assume a form entitled a "sliver," which 
is allowed to fall into a hollow cylinder set 
for the purpose, while the short fibers dis- 
appear in a mysterious-looking box at one 
side of the room. These slivers are then 
passed through a drawing frame, twenty 
or more of them united, and drawn out so 
as to equalize the thread; eight or ten of 
these threads are again subjected to the 
drawing process and reduced to one, which 
operation is repeated as often as is neces- 
sary to produce uniformity. These long 







THE MURKLAND INGRAIN CARPET LOOM. 



WOOLEN MANUFACTURES. 



203 



fibers, so carefully put through this pro- 
cess, are intended to form the warp of the 
carpets, while the short fibers are used for 
the "woof " or " filling." In the spinning- 
room, both staples of wool come together 
to be spun on the long, clashing, clattering 
"spinning jacks," twelve in number, some 
of them spinning 256 and others 308 
threads at once. When it leaves the "jacks" 
it is in the form of coarse yarn, tightly 
rolled on large spools, from which it is 
wound into skeins and is ready for the.dye 
house. By a curious system of folding, of 
a recent American invention, part of the 
yarn skeins are, after being scoured (a pro- 
cess applied to all yarns to free them from 
their natural oil) subjected to a parti-col- 
ored dyeing — and thus the same skein, or 
frame of skeins, may sometimes bear half a 
dozen different colors. These parti-colored 
yarns are used for warp. Other bundles 
of yarn are submerged in rolling, steaming 
floods of colored liquids of every hue. 
That portion intended to be used white is 
bleached by means of sulphur in houses 
erected for the purpose on the river bank. 
From the dyeing-room, the yarn is con- 
veyed to the drying-room, immediately 
over the engine boilers,- and after it has be- 
come thoroughly dried is conveyed to the 
winding room, where winding machines, 
worked by girls, are at work, filling spools 
and bobbins from the skeins; and no sooner 
are the spools filled than they are unfilled 
by the warping machines, five of which are 
constantly in operation. The threads are 
here wound upon the large cylinders for 
the printers, and each filling of this great 
cylinder makes but a single thread in the 
warp of a single pattern, so that for a piece 
having 208 threads in its width, the cylin- 
der must be filled and carefully printed a 
corresponding number of times. These 
monster skeins, after being printed, some- 
times with 100 or more shades of colors, 
each laid on in straight lines by a small 
printing roller, traveling across beneath the 
large cylinder, are packed at full length in 
rice chaff, and having been placed in boxes 
on a little railroad car, are shoved into a 
boiler, where from 4 to 6 lbs. pressure of 
steam is applied. When the colors have 
been thoroughly fixed by this means, the 
skeins are dried and passed through what 
are termed setting machines, when the yarn 
is ready for the Bigelow loom. These have 
on the end of each of the little wires used 







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204 



CLOTHING TRADE TOTAL MANUFACTURE. 



to raise the pile of the Brussels carpet a 
small knife, which, while it weaves, cuts 
the pile and makes it " velvet." The next 
machines to which the fabric is subjected 
are for shaving the velvet, and girls are 
employed in trimming the under side of the 
goods and preparing them for the rolling ma- 
chine. Here the carpets are rolled, marked 
with the number of the pattern of each roll, 
number of yards, etc., and thus prepared for 
removal to the warehouse. The lengths of 
the pieces usually are: velvets, from 40 to 
50 yards; tapestries, 50 to 60 yards; and 
ingrains, from 100 to 110 yards. 

The manufacture of long shawls, for men's 
use, was pushed to a great extent a few 
years since. The Bay State Mills became 
famous for these shawls, and used for them 
3,000,000 lbs. of wool per annum. 

The production of hosiery and fancy knit 
work has become very important in the 
last twenty or twenty-five years. The sup- 
ply of these articles came formerly from 
England, but of late the manufacture of 
these articles has received a great develop- 
ment, particularly in Philadelphia. The 
fine American wool is well adapted to the 
manufacture. The business is largely car- 
ried on in families as well as in hundreds 
of factories. There are eight or ten knit- 
ting machines, all of American invention, 
which have rendered the business of knit- 
ting wool goods of all kinds almost a pas- 
time. They are mostly automatic and 
fashion every description of knit goods 
perfectly, and so rapidly as to reduce the 
cost almost to nothing. The Nelson ma- 
chine completes a pair of stockings at a cost 
for labor of only a sixth of a mill a pair. 
Other machines make other kinds of knit 
goods. Zephyr worsted is used in much 
of this work and the demand for that yarn 
causes frauds to enter into the salj. Each 
pound of zephyr is divided into 16 laps, 
which are sold without weighing, as con- 
taining each one ounce of wool. Full 
weight would be 16 drachms to the ounce 
lap, or if stored in over dry atmosphere, 
15 J drachms; but the fraud consists in put- 
ting up only 15, 14, 12, or 10 drachms in 
each ounce lap, the number of laps in a 
pound being the correct number — 16. 
These frauds are difficult to detect, as the 
dishonest dealer is provided with false 
weights, which make his goods appear on 
trial to be correct. The ounce of the 
apothecary shops contains more grains than 



the true standard avoirdupois ounce, so 
that it cannot be tested there. The proper 
remedy would be to inquire continually of 
dealers whether their goods are full weight 
or short weight, to show that public atten- 
tion is directed to the matter, and to com- 
pare articles bought at different stores, by 
putting them on the opposite scales of a 
balance, and noticing where goods are sold 
by true or best weight. 



CHAPTER II. 

CLOTHING TEADE— TOTAL MANUFAC- 
TUEE— SHODDY. 

Until within the last forty-five years, 
the ready-made clothing trade was confined 
almost entirely to the furnishing of sailors' 
sea fit-outs. The stores for this purpose 
were mostly kept by sailor landlords, whose 
business philanthropy led them to coax 
: 'poor Jack" into their "cribs" on his arri- 
val, and feast him high while his earnings 
lasted ; and as soon as these were gone, ship 
him on board some vessel, obtain his ad- 
vance pay, varying from $12 to $20, ac- 
cording to the demand for seamen. If this is 
not all due the landlord, he supplied slops 
at enormous rates for the balance, got Jack 
dead drunk, and put him on board at the 
last moment in that condition. In such a 
business, ready-made clothing was indis- 
pensable, but otherwise there was little 
market for made-up goods. Most families 
in the country made their own clothes. 
But as taste and wealth improved, the 
difficulty of "cutting out" called into be- 
ing a special trade, and most villages and 
towns in the country were visited by pro- 
fessional persons, who boarded round in 
the families where cutting and fitting, as 
well for males as females, was in requisition. 
Another trade also grew up in the cities; 
it was the dealing in second-hand clothing, 
mostly by Jews. These industrious per- 
sons bought up all the old clothing that 
could be had, cleaned, repaired, and re- 
dressed them, and sold them to those who 
sought to economize. The cleaning and 
repairing of these clothes occupied great 
numbers of poor people. The repairing soon 
grew into fabricating very cheap cloths 
bought at auction, "half-burnt," "wetgoods,'' 
etc., to sell them in connection with the old 
garments. Visitors from the country found 
that garments could be bought in this way 
to better advantage than even to have them 



WOOLEN MANUFACTURES. 



20- 



made at home, and the boarding- round sys- 
tem began to wane. It was soon found in 
New York that the great crowd of visitors 
who passed rapidly through the city, and 
had little time to wait for measures, or to 
be inconvenienced with tailors' delays and 
misfits, would become buyers of a better 
class of ready-made clothing, and the man- 
ufacture began to spread by tailors keeping 
assortments, and in 1834 and 1835 the 
wholesale manufacture commenced in New 
York. One of the first of these, a shrewd 
judge of cloth and a close reckoner, com- 
menced with little capital, slept under his 
counter, and kept his personal expenses 
very small, devoting his whole time to the 
cheap purchase of cloth, and the most 
economical way of making it up. This 
trade grew rapidly to an expenditure of 
$80,0C0 per annum for labor, mostly to 
sewing girls, at ridiculously low prices. 
It was obvious that where the purchase of 
goods, the cutting, and making are attend- 
ed to by experienced men, on a large scale, 
the cost of the goods would be very much 
less than that at which individuals could 
get them up. There were many in the 
trade when the revulsion of 1837 ruin- 
ed them. The trade was soon again re-es- 
tablished, and it has continued to increase, 
not only in New York, but has spread into 
all the cities of the Union. The census of 
1870 gave the clothing business for both 
sexes as follows: — 

Number 9,685 

Capital, $53,417,098 

< ost of material, $92,955)309 

Males employed, 48.089 

Females employed, 70,336 

Cost of labor $33.0 18,835 

Value produced, $160,550,961 

The decade 1 870-1880 has been marked 
by a great increase in the clothing trade. 
All the large dealers in dry goods are en- 
gaged in the manufacture and sale of 
under-clothing to the extent of tens of hun- 
dreds of thousands of dollars, and most of 
them also in women's clothing in similar 
amounts. The purchases of the clothiers, 
a distinct feature in the goods markets, 
take place many months before the goods 
are sold. The cloths for winter goods are 
bought in the previous spring, in order to 
give time for the making up. In a large 
clothingestablishment the business proceeds 
with great method. The cloth, as soon as it 
comes in, is subjected to a rigid scrutiny, 
and blemished portions are removed. Tlie 
piece is then taken to the superintendent, 
12 



a statement of the number of yai-ds, the 
cost, and of whom purchased, is then en- 
tered in a book kept for the purpose. 
There is also entered the number and des- 
cription of the goods to be made, how they 
are to be trimmed, the name of the cutter, 
the price of making, etc. The cloth is 
then transferred to the cutter, with direc- 
tions as to kind of garment, style of cut, 
sizes, etc. The garments being cut, are 
passed to the trimmer, who supplies but- 
tons, thread, lining, etc. The goods then 
come under the control of the foremen, of 
whom there are several, and these give 
them out to be made. The number who 
do this part of the business is very large, 
and are mostly females. They take home 
pantaloons, vests, etc., and when not well 
known to the foreman, are required to 
leave a deposit in money for the return of 
the goods. This is necessary in large cities, 
since it happens that if there is no deposit,, 
the person may be tempted to pawn or sell 
the goods; or, if she is honest, she may 
have a drunken husband, who will seize 
and pawn the goods. It often happens, 
however, that poor, deserving women have 
no money to deposit, and go hungry in face 
of work that they might do. There are, on 
the other hand, knavish dealers, who, taking 
advantage of the position of the depositor, 
require it, and when the goods are returned, 
declare the work ill done, and retain the 
deposit to pay for the alleged spoiling of 
the cloth. There are also great numbers, 
of men employed in doing the heavy work, 
and since the introduction of sewing ma- 
chines, these have been largely used 
Among the numerous immigrants into 
New York, are many German and other 
families, who take in sewing, and these 
nearly all have a sewing machine. This 
demand for the machines is supplied by 
the liberality of the competing patentees. 
They deliver a machine upon the payment 
of a small sum, and allow the buyer to pay- 
up three to five dollars a month until the 
purchase is completed. In this manner the 
supply of labor in the manufacture of cloth- 
ing is greatly increased, but the pressure 
is harder upon those who have no ma- 
chines. The women may, however, earn 
from $G to $12 per week; the former 
price on coarse work was as low as 25 to 374- 
cents for common silk vests, and as much 
for pantaloons, of which two pair a day is 
a large production. For custom-made silk 



206 



CLOTHING TRADE TOTAL MANUFACTURE. 



vests, $2 is paid. The finer coats are made 
by regular tailors, employed in fashionable 
city shops during the dull season, and 
these earn $14 to $20 per week. The sup- 
ply of labor is not, however, confined to 
the city, but embraces a broad circle of 
country, to which goods are sent by rail 
and express to be made up. Many cloth- 
ing concerns have agencies in the country 
towns. These keep vehicles to travel round 
to farmers' and other dwellings where 
good sewing is done in the winter, with his 
goods, and bring them back when done. 
This reverses the old system of boarding 
round to cut out family goods, since the 
goods go round to get made up. 

The cutting is an "art " of itself, and re- 
quires a certain talent. It is, in fact, the 
most important part of the manufacturing, 
since the style and "set" of the goods de- 
pend upon it. The large New York clothing 
stores employ the best " talent " in this line. 

The manufacture of women's clothing, 
dresses, suits, cloaks, waterproof and re- 
pellent garments, &c, &c, has sprung up 
almost entirely since 1860; and since that 
time also the manufacture of under-clothing 
for both sexes has become a business of 
great magnitude. In 1850 and perhaps 
earlier, the production of men's fine shirts 
had attained considerable magnitude, but 
all other under-clothing for both sexes is 
at least ten years later. 

The clothing trade of Boston has also re- 
ceived a great development of late years, 
and by a combination of circumstances 
which have had their influence everywhere. 
In 1840 there were only two houses in the 
trade in Boston, and the aggregate sales 
were about $200, 000. The supply of cloths, 
&c, is large in Boston — as well from the 



manufacturers direct, as through commis- 
sion houses who advance on them to the 
manufacturers. The cutting is done in Bos- 
ton, but the sewing mostly in the farmer's 
families throughout New England, and about 
60,000 females in such situations are em- 
ployed. The numerous railroads that trav- 
erse the country, make commodities cheap; 
and as sewing machines improve in the 
quality of the work they do, and in the 
cheapness with which they can be furnish- 
ed, hardly a house is without one, and all 
seek employment for them. In 1857, when 
the financial pressure caused so many mills 
to stop, throwing hands out of employment, 
these sought sewing as a substitute; and 
their savings enabled them to buy ma- 
chines. The same event threw large quan- 
tities of goods upon the market, through 
the auction houses, and also through the 
hands of the commission houses, to whom 
the manufacturers pledged them for money. 
Thus, there was a large supply of goods 
and labor at less than former rates; cloth- 
ing could be furnished much cheaper, and 
this circumstance was not advantageous to 
the old stocks. That circumstance gave 
an impulse to the clothing business, as 
bringing more within its scope. 

The following table gives the most com- 
plete history of the progress of woolen 
manufactures, importation of woolen goods 
and raw wool, and the production of wool 
in this country at each decade of the last 
forty years which has ever been attempted. 
For many of the items in it we are indebted 
to John S. Hayes, Esq., LL.D., the able 
and learned Secretary of the National As- 
sociation of "Wool Manufacturers, and to 
Geo. Wm. Bond, Esq., the special agent of 
the Census Bureau on Wool Manufactures: 









STATISTICS OF WOOL MANUFACTURE AND IMPORTATION 


1840-1880. 




M 


3 

| 

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Hands 
Employed. 


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males. 


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4.005* 




$15,765,124 




lbs. 
50,808,524 








$20,696,699 








lbs. 
35,802,114 


1840 


21,432 


$11,001,939 $1,091,953 15,006,410 


1350 


2,447 


22,678 


16,574 


28,056,220 




67,762,829 


$25,755,938 






43,542,288 


17,151,509 1,690,380 18,695,294 


52.516,969 


1860 


1,975 


24,841 


16,519 


30,862,65* 


$9,808,254 


83,608,468 


36.586,887 




3,209 


61,895,217 


37,876,945 4,843,385 28,509,211 


60,511,343 


1870 


3,041 


47,569 


32,528 


98,824,531 


26,908,691 


172,078,919 


96,910.9:16 


1,845,496 


10,073 217,578,824 


34,435,659 6,798,959 49,740,991 


100,102.387 


1880t 


2,983 


60,000 


42.000 


180,000,000 


45,959,012 


187,616,605 


146,141,798 


2,471,500 


12,000 237,587,671 

1 


33,623,887, 5,056,666 129,519,980 

1 1 


232,500,000 



•Of these 1,4?0 were woolen factories and 2,fSR5 fulling mills for fulling domestic cloths, employing generally only one or two hands. 

tThe statistics of 1K80, so far as the wages, pounds of wool consumed, value of raw mat'-rial and value of annual product are concerned, are 
from figures ftin-Uhed by John L. Hayes, Esq.. LL.D., and by Geo. Win, Bond, Esq., special agent of the Census Bureau in advance of their pub- 
lication in the Census Bulletins. They are liable to some alight corrections from further information. The importations are from the reports of 
i Commerce and Navigation. The other items are estimates bused on reliable data. 

JThe wool production is from the census reports. 



WOOLEN MANUFACTURES. 



207 



It appears, then, from the above, that 
the manufacture of woolens in the United 
States increased from $20,696,699 in 1840, 
to $234,587,671 in 1880, according to the 
national census. 

The production of cloths labors under 
disadvantage from the sharp competition 
which the English, Belgians, and French 
have kept up to obtain the American mar- 
ket. Up to 1840, 19-20ths of the cloths 
and cassimeres imported into the United 
States were of English manufacture. The 
importations have been as follows: — 

IMPORTS OP CLOTH? AND CASSIMERES INTO THE 
UNITED STATES. 

Germany. Belgium. France. England. Total. 

1840 16,612 93.135 89.767 4,490,830 $4,690,344 

1851 1,411,282 478,532 1,988,181 3.785,070 7,463.065 

1857 2,574,871 909,331 1,659,470 5.711,933 10.855,605 

1868 . . . . . . . . 7,139 605 

1870 2.930,941 165,483 273.276 4,274,927 7,671,013 

1875 2.506,628 415,347 2,868.041 7.853.941 13,680,288 

1879 1,314,109 211,710 1.458,322 3.209,955 6,255,195 

1881 2,792,374 699,858 2,639,623 5,692,143 12,078,733 

The tariff of 1841 and 1842 approached, 
by the biennial reductions, the 20 per 
cent, limit, and on these goods there was 
not much increase of duties till 1860, 
when the Morrill tariff went into effect, 
and which was succeeded, in 1867, by 
another giving nearly as great protection. 
Under these successive tariffs, our produc- 
tion of cloths has increased, notwithstand- 
ing the sharp competition of foreign manu- 
facturers, who were bound to hold our 
market, even if they did not make any 
profit themselves. They had the advan- 
tage of cheap labor, and of machinery; 
and since 1851, at the time of the Crystal 
Palace exhibition, they have persistently 
attempted to occupy our markets with 
tlieir cloths and cassimeres. As the above 
table shows, the Germans and Belgians, 
learning what our market demanded at 
that exhibition, made their goods so much 
superior to the English in their dyeing 
and finishing that they gained materially 
on Great Britain in the amount of their 
sales, for some years; but by increased ex- 
ertions and a larger outlay of capital that 
country measurably recovered its ground. 
The sharp competition of Germany, Bel- 
gium, France, and England has kept 
down prices for the last thirty years, and 
our manufacturers have had hard work to 
hold their own; but the long fight seems 
to be drawing to a close. Although our 
population has more than doubled since 
1857, we are not importing many more 
cloths and cassimeres than we did at that 
time (in 1880 we imported $82,000 less 



than in 1851); while our own manufac- 
turers are having orders for all the goods 
they can make, and are now producing 
four times as many of these goods as they 
did twenty-five years ago; the foreign 
goods have not held their own in quality, 
as the price at which they were exported 
did not warrant their using the best ma- 
terial; while our manufacturers have 
been constantly improving the quality of 
their goods, which are now admitted by 
good foreign judges to be equal to any 
manufactured anywhere. Our manufac- 
turers deserve great credit for the cour- 
age they have manifested in this long con- 
flict, and their success is due in part to two 
circumstances: they have used for their 
warp the best quality of Merino wool, an 
American product, which, as Dr. George 
B. Loring well says, " can hold together in 
the manufactured article more feeble wool 
than any other similar fiber in the world;" 
they could thus use cheaper wools for filling, 
and yet produce first-class goods; they have 
had the advantage also of American im- 
provements in machinery, and the American 
machines for the production of cloths and 
cassimeres are very far in advance of any 
others in the world. Shawls which so 
lately as 1872 were imported to the value 
of $3,424,309 had fallen off in 1881 to 
$1,079,780; blankets, which in 1872 were 
imported to the value of $38,785, have 
ranged in the last three years from $1,675 
to $6,062; dress goods in 1872 amounted 
to $20,439,481, and in 1881, a year of 
great business prosperity, to only $12,514,- 
962; the importation of hosiery and knit 
goods has increased slightly from 1872, 
when it was $658,193, being in 18S0 
$611,912, and in 1881, owing to a large 
demand from immigrants, rising to $1,- 
000,372; but the home production has in- 
creased in a still greater degree; while 
carpets which 25 years ago were imported 
to the value of over $20,000,000 fell to $5,- 
727,183, and in 1881 to $1,064, 076— and as 
the Persian and Smyrna rugs so largely 
manufactured in England and Scotland 
are now manufactured in this country of 
equal excellence and genuineness, and all 
the other qualities of imported carpets 
also, there is no good reason why the im- 
portation of carpets should not wholly 
cease. It is worthy of remark also that 
we are now exporting woolen goods, and 
that our exports have risen from $124,099 
in 1874 to $331,083 in 1881, and that this 
includes a considerable amount in carpets. 



208 



CLOTHING TBADE — TOTAL MANUFACTURERS. 



The fact has 
been developed by the most elaborate sci- 
entific researches, that the climate and soil 
of the United States are better adapted to 
the growth of fine, long stapled wools, suit- 
able for the cloth manufacturer, than any- 
other manufacturing country, and the article 
produced exceeds the Australian wool. 
Under the appliances of increased capital, 
and the stimulus which the competition of 
England with the continent may impart to 
the quality of the fabric, the United States 
will probably assume the superiority; and 
our manufacturers have not neglected the 
necessary exertion to procure as fine a 
finish and as durable a dye for their cloths 
as those of the continent exhibit. The 
United States wools are rapidly gaining a 
character which will bring the foreign 
manufacturers into such competition for 
their purchase as will permanently sustain 
their price. 

The supply of wool in the United States 
has never been equal to the demand. 

The wools imported into the United 
States, are mostly of the coarser descrip- 
tions used for carpets, etc., and the average 
value is about 12 to 21 cts. There are 
also combing wools of somewhat higher 
prices, imported from Canada, as we do 
not yet raise these in sufficient quantity 
for our growing worsted manufacture. In 
consequence, Congress, in 1857, made all 
wools costing less than 20 cents at the place 
of growth, free of duty. These had paid 
30 per cent., ad valorem, previously. This 
law had not much effect in increasing the 
supply, for the reason that the supply is 
everywhere short. There were quantities 
of South American wool imported of a 
fine quality, but so filled with the burr pe- 
culiar to that country, as to make them 
nearly useless. Many machines were in- 
vented to remove these burrs, but with 
partial success. One was of the form of a 
number of circular saws, 8 to 1 inches in 
diameter, set close together upon a shaft, 
which revolved with much velocity. The 
wool was fed to this cylinder, through two 
rollers. The saw teeth seized the wool, 
which, passing between the saws, left the 
burr on the surface, whence it was re- 
moved by the motion of the cylinder 
against a stationary knife placed longitud- 
inally across it. The general impulse given 
to manufactures at home and abroad, has 



caused the demand to outrun the supply of 
wool. This was the more the case that 
manufactures spread in those countries that 
formerly were most depended upon for 
raw wools. The supply of England has 
been kept up by the extended exports of 
Australia and the Cape of Good Hope. 
Hence, the lower duty did not improve the 
supply in the United States, and the home 
supply, though at one time diminished has 
been of late increasing rapidly. At first 
it seemed that the demand for the flesh of 
sheep and lambs would diminish the pro- 
duction of wool; but the introduction of 
the worsted manufacture, by bringing 
about for combing wools has rendered the 
production of mutton sheep an advantage. 
The price of wool, however, rose for a 
time, and the manufacturers naturally 
sought to reduce the cost of the raw mate- 
rial by hunting up a substitute. This is 
usually found in substituting one of these 
four chief materials of human clothing — 
cotton, silk, wool, and flax. The one of 
these that is relatively dearest is mixed 
with larger proportions of the others. 
Hence, the value of the whole becomes in 
some degree equalized. 

Out of these circumstances has grown 
one of the most curious manufactures that 
have sprung up of late years. This is the 
shoddy manufacture. It has recently been 
imported from England; and there are now 
in New York state six factories — in Water- 
vliet, Newburg, Troy, and Marlborough. 
These turn out about 100,000 lbs. of shod- 
dy per annum. 

Many people, remembering the expres- 
sion as used to designate anything not con- 
sidered remarkably fine and good, will ask, 
" But what is shoddy ? " 

In the somewhat hilly district of York- 
shire, between Huddersfield and Leeds, 
stand on two prominences the pretty little 
towns of Dewsbury and Batley Car. The 
stranger, on alighting from the railway 
car, is struck with the unusually large 
warehouses, built of stone by the railway 
company. For such small stations, these 
are mysterious erections. But if he enter 
the principal warehouse, he will probably 
find piled up hundreds of bales, containing 
th* cast-off garments of Great Britain and 
the continent of Europe. Here, in fact, 
from all parts of the world, are brought 
the tattered remains of the clothes, some 
of which have been worn by royalty in 



WOOLLEN MANUFACTURES. 



>09 



the various courts of Europe, as well as by 
the peers and peasants. The rich broadcloth 
of the English nobles here commingles with 
the livery of their servants and the worsted 
blouses of the French republicans; while 
American undershirts, pantaloons, and all 
other worsted or woollen goods, may there 
be found, all reduced to one common level, 
and known by one common appellation of 
•' rags." 

The walls of the town are placarded with 
papers announcing public auctions of" Scotch 
shoddies," " mungoes," "rags," and such 
like articles of merchandise, and every few 
days the goods department of the railway is 
besieged by sturdy-looking Yorkshiremen, 
who are examining, with great attention, the 
various bales, some of which are assorted 
into "whites," "blue stockings," "black 
stockings," "carpets," "shawls," "stuffs," 
"shirtings," " linseys," "black cloth," etc. 
A jovial-looking man, of doubtful temperance 
principles, at last steps forward and puts the 
goods up to auction. The prices which 
these worn-out articles fetch are surprising to 
the uninitiated. Old stockings will realize 
from $35 to $50 a ton ; while white flannels 
will sometimes sell for as much as $100 a ton, 
and even more. The "hards," or black 
cloth, when clipped free from all seams and 
threads, are worth from $100 to $150 a ton. 
There are common mixed sorts of coarse 
fabric which can be bought as low as from 
$15 to $25 a ton; while the "rubbish," 
consisting of seams, linseys, and indescrib- 
ables, are purchased by the chemists for the 
manufacture of potash crystals for from $10 
to $15 a ton. 

It will be seen that assorting these old 
woollens is equally important with the assort- 
ing of the different qualities of new wool ; 
and there is the additional consideration of 
colors to render assorting still more neces- 
sary. It is surprising, however, with what 
rapidity all this is accomplished. There are 
some houses where old woollen rags are 
divided into upward of twenty different sorts, 
ready for the manufacturer. The principal 
varieties are flannels, of which there are 
" English whites,!' "Welsh whites," "Irish 
whites," and "drabs." Each of these com- 
mand a different price in the market: the 
English and Welsh being much whiter than 
the Irish, and of finer texture, arc worth 
nearly double the price of the Irish. The 
stockings are the next in value to the flan- 
nels, on account of the strength and elas- 



ticity of the wool. The peculiar stitch or 
bend of the worsted in stocking manufac- 
ture, and the hot water and washing to which 
they arc submitted during their stocking 
existence, have the effect of producing a per- 
manent elasticity which no after process 
destroys, and no new wool can be found to 
possess. Hence, old stockings are always in 
great demand, and realize, for good clean 
colored sorts, as much as $80 a ton in busy 
seasons. The white worsted stockings are 
the most valuable of the "softs," and, when 
supplied in sufficient quantity, will sell for as 
much as $140 a ton. Carpets, and other col- 
ored sorts, are generally, owing to their rapid 
accumulation, to be had at very low prices. 

" Shoddy," so well understood in York- 
shire, is the general term for the wool pro- 
duced by the grinding, or, more technically, 
the " pulling" up of all the soft woollens ; 
and all woollens are soft, except the super- 
fine cloths. The usual method of convert- 
ing woollens into shoddy, is to first carefully 
assort them, so as to see that not a particle 
of cotton remains on them, and then to pass 
them through a rag machine. This has a 
cylinder 3 ft in diameter and 20 inches long, 
with steel teeth half an inch apart from each 
other, and standing out from the cylinder, 
when new, one inch. This cylinder revolves 
five hundred times in a minute, and the rags 
are drawn gradually close to its surface by 
two fluted iron rollers, the upper one of 
which is packed with thin stuff or skirting, 
so as to press the rags the closer to the 
action of the teeth. The cylinder runs up- 
ward past . these rollers, and any pieces of 
rag which are not completely torn into wool, 
are, by their natural gravity, thrown back 
upon the rags which are slowly creeping 
into the machine. The rollers are fed by 
means of a creeper, or slowly moving, end- 
less cloth, on which a man, and in some 
instances a woman, lays the rags in proper 
quantities. One of these machines is com- 
monly driven by a seven-inch band, and re- 
quires at least five horse power. Half a ton 
of rags can be pulled in ten hours by one of 
these machines. The dust produced sub- 
jects the workpeople on first commencing 
the occupation, to what is there called the 
" rag fever." But after a time the imme- 
diate effects are warded off, and although it 
no doubt shortens lite, the remuneration 
being considerable — in England, 2s. for every 
240 lbs. of rags pulled — there is never any 
difficulty in obtaining workpeople. 



210 



CLOTHING TRADE TOTAL MANUFACTURE. 



The " mungo" is the wool produced by 
subjecting the hards, or superfine cloths, to a 
similar operation as that above described. 
The machine, however, for the mungo trade, 
is made with a greater number of teeth, 
several thousand more in the same sized 
cylinder, and the cylinder runs about 700 
revolutions in a minute. The rags, previous 
to being pulled in this machine, are passed 
through a machine called a " shaker." This 
is made of a coarsely-toothed cylinder, about 
2^ ft. in diameter, which revolves about 300 
times in a minute, in a coarse wire cylinder. 
This takes away a large portion of the dust, 
which is driven out at a large chimney by 
means of a fan. The mungo pulling is, 
therefore, a cleaner business than the shoddy 
making, and, as a general rule, is more prof- 
itable. The power required for a mungo 
machine is that of about seven horses. 

Both the better kinds of shoddy and the 
mungo have for some years been saturated 
with oil ; but recently, milk has been applied 
to this purpose, and found to answer exceed- 
ingly well. The consequence is that milk 
in that locality, in England, has risen 100 
per cent, in price ; and even in that district, 
where cows are kept in large numbers, it was 
feared there would be a great scarcity of 
milk for the supply of the towns. 

When well saturated with oil or milk, the 
shoddy or the mungo is sold to the woollen 
manufacturer. There are scores of men who 
attend the Huddersfield market every Tues- 
day to dispose of their mungo. It is as 
much an article of marketable value there, 
as cloth is here. It is not unusual for good 
mungo to realize as much as eight English 
pence per pound, while the shoddy varies in 
price from one penny to sixpence per pound, 
according to quality. 

The common kinds of shoddy require, of 
course, to be subjected to the scouring pro- 
cess, for which large wooden heaters, or 
" stocks," are employed. The dung of hogs 
is largely employed in this purifying pro- 
cess, as well as human urine, which is exten- 
sively used in the blanket manufacture of 
Yorkshire. 

The white shoddy is capable of being 
used either for light-colored goods or for 
the common kinds of blankets, while the 
dark-colored shoddy is worked into all kinds 
of coarse cloths, carpets, etc., which arc 
dyed any dark color, so as to hide the vari- 



ous colors of the old fabrics. It is mixed in 
with new wool in such proportion as its 
quality will permit, without deteriorating 
the sale of the material. 

The mungo is used in nearly all the York- 
shire superfine cloths, and in some very ex- 
tensively. It produces a cloth somewhat 
inferior, of course, to the West of England 
goods in durability, but, for finish and ap- 
pearance, when first made up, the inferiority 
would only be perceived by a good judge 
of cloth. This substance is largely intro- 
duced into all felted fabrics. Blankets, car- 
pets, druggets, table-covers, and Petersham 
coats, are sometimes entirely made from it, 
and the trade is rapidly extending. 

The effect of shoddy in the cloth of an 
overcoat, in the wear, is to rub out of the 
cloth and accumulate between it and the 
lining. We have seen a gentleman take a 
handful of this short wool from the corners 
of his coat. 

The grounds on which this shoddy and 
mungo business can be justified are the 
cheapening of cloth, and the turning to a 
useful purpose what would be otherwise 
almost useless. 

The business in Yorkshire is dignified 
by the title of the " Dewsbury trade ;" 
and to it Dewsbury certainly owes its 
wealth, and we might almost say its ex- 
istence. In twenty years it has grown 
from a village to a town of some 30,000 in- 
habitants, and some immense fortunes have 
been made by this extraordinary trans- 
formation of old garments into new. 

Considerable quantities of white shoddy 
were sent from England and Scotland to this 
country, and finally a machinist sent several 
of his rag machines, and several factories 
were successively started. The sale of the 
product is now largely conducted in Cedar 
street, New York. 

The shoddy trade is somewhat fluctu- 
ating, being affected very much by the state 
of the wool market. So great is the com- 
petition in the markets, that as soon as a 
rise takes place in the price of new wool, the 
small manufacturers, instead of raising their 
prices, commonly regulate their expenditure 
by using a larger proportion of the old 
material, and they are thus enabled to com- 
pete, in prices at least, with the larger manu- 
facturers, who can lay in a large stock of 
new wool when the prices are low. 



_-, 



LEATHER. 



CHAPTER I. 

TANNING— BOOTS AND SHOES. 

On the formation of the federal govern- 
ment, much solicitude was apparent in rela- 
tion to the growth of the more important 
branches of manufactures. That the im- 
perial government had so persistently pre- 
vented the establishment of any considerable 
branches, was a great drawback, because it 
had prevented the development of the neces- 
sary experience and skill in manufacture re- 
quired for large operations. The removal 
of those prohibitions by the act of inde- 
pendence, attracted attention to the forbid- 
den industries, and they began to flourish. 
The tanning and manufacture of leather, in 
all its branches, was one of the first that be- 
gan to thrive, and naturally, because the 
slaughter of animals for food furnished a 
greater or less supply of skins, that required 
to be wrought up into boots, shoes, harness, 
etc. Parliamentary committees, early in the 
eighteenth century, mentioned tanning in 
the colonies as a branch of individual in- 
dustry, which supplied most of the local 
demands for leather and shoe-making, as one 
of the leading handicrafts. 

In 1791, the Secretary of the Treasury, 
Mr. Hamilton, in his report on manufactures, 
mentions : " Tanneries are not only carried 
on as a regular business in numerous parts 
of the country, but they constitute, in some 



places, a valuable item of incidental family 
manufacture." He went on to mention, that 
encouragement had been asked of the gov- 
ernment in two ways, viz. : by prohibiting 
both the import of the leather and the ex- 
port of the bark. It was alleged that the 
leather trade had raised the price of bark 
from $3 to $4<l per cord. He ascribed the 
rise, however, rather to the increase of tan- 
neries than to the export, of which, he said, 
there was no evidence. Glue was then a 
large item with the tanners, who used up 
the refuse portions of the skins in that way. 
From that time to the present, tanners have 
increased in all the states, in the proportion 
nearly of the growth of the population. 
The importation of boots and shoes was 
always insignificant, comprising high-priced 
articles from Paris mostly. Thus, the year 
1822 was one of the largest import: there 
were then 14,979 pairs of shoes, mostly kid 
and morocco, imported, for $9,192; and 207 
pairs of boots, for $792, or nearly $4 per 
pair. In 1858 the importation was oidy 
39,826 pairs of leather boots and shoes, at a 
value of $87,101 ; and the export of do- 
mestic boots and shoes in this year was 609,- 
988 pairs, or a value of $663,905 : showing 
a large excess of exports over imports. 

The manufacture of boots and shoes has, 
therefore, been in the double ratio of the 
number of people, and their ability to buy, 
in proportions as follows : — 



LEATHER MANUFACTURE OF THE UNITED STATES IN 1S70. 





Establish- 
meuts. 


Capital. 


Raw Material. Male. 

1 


Female. Labor. 


Product. 


Boots and Shoes 

Gloves 


23,699 

221 

91 

113 

26 

7,607 

7,438 


$49,852,926 

2,340,550 

2,118,577 

3,854,072 

906,000 

13,935,961 

56,632,740 


$95,399,556 
1,884,146 
3,231,204 
6,623,066 
3,211,749 
16,068,310 

108,870,494 


116,385 

1,146 

792 

2,782 

518 

22,949 

31,544 


22,378 

2,912 

16 

224 

10 

608 

359 


$52,765,669 

980,549 

454,187 

1,678,226 

341,445 

7,046,207 

12,524,464 


$185 033,181 
3,998,521 


Leather Belting. . . 

Morocco Dressers 

Talent Leather 

Baddies and Harness. 
Tanners and Curriers. 


4,558,043 

9,997.460 

4,018.115 

82,709,981 

143,464,522 


Total 


39.195 


$129,640,826 


$235,288,525|l76,114 


26,507 


$75,790,747 


$383,779,823 



The total value was thus raised to $383,- 
779,823. The value produced by the tan- 



ners and curriers was $143,464,522. Of 
this leather so produced, the harness-makers 



212 



TANNING BOOTS AND SHOES. 



and shoemakers used $ 1 1 1 ,467,866. The 
tanneries lie at the foundation of the whole. 
They use the skins and hides of animals 
slaughtered in the whole country, and re- 
quire, in addition, an average of some $ 14,- 
400,000 worth of foreign hides, imported 
mostly from Central and South America, 
and the British East Indies, to make good 
the demand. The census of 1870 gave the 
sides of sole leather tanned at 17,577,404, 
and of upper leather, 9,133,330. 

The supply of hides in the country orig- 
inally was derived mostly, if not altogether, 
from the slaughter of animals for food. 
Tanneries were started where bark, mostly 
hemlock, was most easily accessible, and 
the tannery became the market for hides 
and skins for many miles around, as well 
for the farmers as butchers. In the 
neighborhood of the large cities, foreign 
bides became the main resource. Thus, in 
1880, the value imported was $30,002,254, 
as follows: Boston and Salem, $7,391,416; 
New York, $20,430,171; Philadelphia, 
$182,182; Texas ports, 876,016; San Fran- 
cisco, $235,140; Baltimore, $149,736. The 
importers of hides sell to the tanners for 
cash or short time, and then tanning takes 
place in localities best suited to the combi- 
nation of the materials. The greater part of 
the bark now used in the New York tan- 
neries is obtained from the central counties 
of Pennsylvania; but with the destruction 
of the forests there has come a great change 
in the methods and materials of tanning. 
The process is much shortened, and ex- 
tracts of bark, catechu, sumac, wattle, mez- 
quite, hardback, and other trees, shrubs, 
and gums, containing a large amount of 
tannin, are used in place of the bark itself. 
Sumac is becoming one of the most impor- 
tant materials for tanning, and is largely 
imported from Sicily, Italy, and France, 
though some of our native species, if prop- 
erly prepared, are fully equal to the for- 
eign. The ailantus, which belongs to the 
same family, might also be used. 

The census has not furnished in any defi- 
nite manner the number of hides that are 
produced each year in the country, although 
it is a very important item. That of 
1840 gave the number of sides tanned in 
1839 at 3,463,611, which would account 
for 1,731,805 hides. The number of neat 
cattle in the country was then 14.971,586, 
and of horses and mules 4,335,669. The 
deaths among them would give about 400,- 



000 hides, and the neat cattle would give 
3,000,000 hides. The number of horses, 
cattle, and other domestic animals in the 
United States, in 1870, according to the 
census of 1870, was: — 

Horses and Moles, 8,815,634 

Cattle 28.(171,582 

Sheep 28.477,1151 

bwiiie, 25,134,569 

According to the census, the number of 
cattle slaughtered in a given year is about 
25 per cent, of the whole number. This 
would make the slaughtered cattle of 1869, 
according to the estimate, 7,018,645, and 
the horse hides (10 per cent.) would be 
881,563. The number of skins dressed of 
native animals, which includes sheep and 
goat-skins, calf-skins, kid, horse, hog-skins, 
and also a very considerable number of 
deer, buffalo, and alligator skins, was 13,- 
879,115. The sheep-skins dressed in 1850 
alone numbered 6,000,000. The numbers 
of live stock in the autumn of 1880, accord- 
ing to the report of the Agricultural De- 
partment, were as follows: — 

Horses and Mules, 13,825,800 

Cattle, &3,945,700 

Sheep and Goats, 60,863.700 

Swine, 34,967,400 

Our importation of hides and skins, most- 
ly from Central and South America, in 
1868, was valued at $9,961,999, and in 
1880 amounted to 30,002,254. As these 
hides and skins had to undergo the pro- 
cesses of tanning and dressing after their 
arrival here, they probably represented in 
1880 a value of at least $65,000,000. The 
price of leather has nearly doubled since 
1860, and while the importation is increas- 
ing in amount, the home product does not 
decline in price. The statistics of the tan- 
neries in 1840, 1850, 1860, and 1870 are 
as follows: — 

•„ „ .. , Sides ciri„a Value of 

No. Capital. tauned . Skins. productioil> 

1840 8 229 15.650.929 3,643.611 3.781.868 $20,919,910 
1850', 6,263 18,900,557 12,257,940 8,653,S65 3i,S61,796 

Cost of | 
1860, 5,040 &5,655,370 

1870, 7,438 56,632,740 26,710,734 73,879,115 143,464,523 

The skins of domestic animals, or 
" green hides," are rated of higher value 
than the foreign or salted hides; yet 
these latter will give a greater weight 
of leather, because of the water in the 
green hides, which, on the other hand, are 
more easily handled. The largest oxen 
make the best sole leather. The skins of 
the bull are thickest about the neck and 



raw ( - $44,720,737 67,306,459 
material. \ 



213 



parts of the belly ; but the back is thinner, 
and are inferior in fineness of grain to oxen 
or cows. The best are made into the heavy 
leather, used for the best trunks, shoe-soles, 
machine-belts, harness, etc. The lighter 
qualities serve for uppers of common boots 
and shoes. Kips, or skins of young cattle, 
make the uppers of fine boots and shoes. 
Those hides of the best quality only are 
split or shaved for the thin enamelled leather 
used for dress shoes, and are made into 
"lace leather," or thongs for belts. In 
preparing the hides for tanning, the heavy 
ones are soaked for months in lime-water. 
The hair, at last, can be removed, with the 
epidermis, by the two-handed scraping-knife, 
rubbed over it as the hide is laid flat clown 
on the bench prepared for this purpose. 
The fleshy substance on the other side is 
then scraped off, and, like the head, cheeks, 
and other waste, used for making glue. In 
large establishments, machines are used for 
this scraping. The lime that remains in the 
pores of the hide must be removed by soak- 
ing in some solution, like chlorine, that will 
form a soluble compound with the lime. 
Sometimes hides are laid in piles, and allow- 
ed to begin to putrefy, great care being 
taken to stop it as soon as the hair starts. 
By the United States plan, the object is 
more effectively obtained, with less labor, 
and no injury to the leather. The hides are 
suspended in a cool vault, protected, like an 
ice-house, against the entrance of warm air, 
and furnished with a covered channel-way, 
that answers as a drain and as a conduit for 
cool damp air. Cool spring water is then 
conducted into the vault, to fall round its 
sides like spray. The hides are thus kept 
in a mist, at a temperature of 44 to 40 deg., 
and, in six to twelve days, are found freed 
from all superfluous matter. The cold vapor 
has been absorbed, and its action by melting 
has distended and removed the epidermis 
with the roots of the hair. As soon as this 
is effected, the hides are ready for tanning. 
This American plan, it will be observed, is 
far in advance of that of the old systems, 
still practised in Europe. 

Of the hides brought into New York in a 
year, the disposition was as follows : — 

Domestic hides, slaughtered 250.000 

Imported 1,902,000 

Stock, Jan. 1 376,000 

Supply 2,527,000 



Taken for sole leather 1,877,000 

" upper " 250,000 

" patent " 100,000 

" by western tanners . . . 100,000 

" neighboring cities . . 150,000 2,477,000 

Stock, Dec. 31 50,000 

These figures show the relative disposition 
of the hides sold in New York. 

Leather, tanned, is generally divided into 
three kinds, namely : hides, kips, and skins. 
The stoutest leather employed. for trunks 
and soles of boots and shoes, is made from 
butts or backs. Buff' leather was formerly 
made for defensive armor from the hide of 
the buffalo, but it is now furnished by the 
cow-hide, and is used chiefly for soldiers' 
belts. Bull-hide is thicker than cow-hide, 
while kip-skiu, from young cattle, is lighter 
than the latter. The name kip is also giv- 
en to Calcutta, Brazil, and African hides. 
Calf-skin supplies the great demand for the 
upper part of boots and shoes ; sheep-skins 
form a thin, cheap leather ; lamb-skins are 
used for gloves ; goat and kid-skins form a 
light leather of fine quality ; deer or ante- 
lope are usually bi-dressed in oil ; horse-hide 
is prepared for harness work, etc., and this, 
with seal-skin, is used for making enamelled 
leather ; dog-skin makes a thin, tough leath- 
er, but most of the gloves sold as dog- 
skin are made of lamb-skin. Hog-skin 
makes a thin, porous leather, and is used for 
covering the seats of saddles ; ass and mule- 
skins are for shagreen leather, used mostly 
for scabbards. There is a large import 
trade in skins. The great demand for 
leather for the best gloves is supplied by 
lamb-skins from Italy, Spain, the south of 
France, and other parts, where, in conse- 
quence of the lamb being killed quite young, 
the skin is small, fine, and thin, and is used 
instead of kid ; but it is neither so strong 
nor so glossy. The skins of lambs that die 
soon after their birth, are sometimes dressed 
with the wool, and are used for lining gloves 
and shoes. The best kid-skins are from the 
south of France ; they are also imported 
from Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Ire- 
land. It is said that as soon as the kid be- 
gins to feed on herbage, the skin suffers in 
fineness and delicacy, and is no longer suit- 
able for the best gloves. The best morocco 
leather is made from Swiss goat-skins; 
another kind is from Mogador and Fast In- 
dian goat-skins, which are often made into 
black morocco, known as " black Spanish 



214 



TANNING BOOTS AND SHOES. 



leather," from the circumstance of the first 
supplies having been obtained from Spain. 
The leather from the Cape sheep-skin is 
nearly equal to morocco. Hippopotamus 
hides are exported from South Africa, and 
when tanned with oak bark they make an 
extremely thick and cqmpact leather. In 
Canada, in 1860, leather was made from 
the white whale which visits the St. Law- 
rence. An excellent quality of goat and 
kid leather is made from the skins of the 
Angora goat and kid, which are now largely 
reared at the Cape of Good Hope, and in 
some of our western states. 

The vegetable substances used in tan- 
ning have of late years become very num- 
erous. The active vegetable principle, 
tannin, varies according to the source from 
which it is derived; it is always marked 
by an astringent taste, a bluish-black or 
dark green precipitate in aqueous solution 
by admixture with a solution of one of the 
salts of iron; while, with a solution of gel- 
atine, it gives a dirty white or brown pre- 
cipitate. During a long period the princi- 
pal tanning material was oak bark and 
hemlock bark. That which was stripped 
in the spring was the most esteemed, for 
it then contained a larger quantity of tan- 
nin than that stripped in autumn, and this 
more than the bark stripped in winter. 
The best bark was obtained in a warm 
spring, from coppice trees about twelve 
years of age. Oak bark contains from 4 
to 22 per cent, of tannin, which is con- 
tained in the inner white layers next the 
alburnum, as in the case of other astrin*- 
gent barks. The tannin of bark is not 
identical with that of galls, not yielding 
pyrogallic acid when subjected to destruc- 
tive distillation; from four to six pounds 
of oak bark were required for every pound 
of leather. After the stripping, the bark 
was stacked to dry; should the season be 
rainy, a portion of the tannin was washed 
out, and the bark thus deteriorated. When 
the tanned leather is taken in hand by the 
currier, it is softened by being soaked in 
water. It is next beaten by a mallet upon 
a hurdle, and then placed over a plank 
called a beam, which projects slantingly 
from the floor. The workman leans over 
this and against the leather, so as to keep 
it in its place, and with abroad knife shaves 
off all the irregularities from the flesh 
side. The knife is held firmly in both 
hands, and the operator continually exam- 



ines the skin, and moves it to bring all parts 
under the knife. After it is shaved, it is 
thrown into cold water, the flesh side laid 
next to a stone slab, and the other well 
rubbed with a tool called a stretching iron. 
This process forces out a whitish matter 
(bloom) gathered in the tan pit, and reduces 
inequalities. Many tools are employed, 
having the same object. The skin then un- 
dergoes " dubbing ;" an ointment of cod 
oil boiled with the skins of sheep, is well 
rubbed in on both sides, and the leather 
hung up to dry. It is afterward rubbed 
with the graining board — an instrument 
shaped somewhat like a brush, but grooved, 
and made of hard wood. The leather is then 
ready for sale ; or, after shaving the flesh 
side with a very sharp knife, it is waxed. 
A color, composed of oil and lamp-black, is 
well rubbed in on the flesh side, with a hard 
brush, until the surface is thoroughly black ; 
upon this is applied a size and tallow with a 
stiff brush, and when dry, it is rubbed with 
a broad, smooth lump of glass ; this is re- 
peated. This leather is called "waxed," or 
" black on the flesh," and is used for the 
uppers of men's boots and shoes. If curried 
on the other side it is called black on the 
grain, and is used for ladies' uppers. In 
preparing such leather, the waxing is per- 
formed as follows : a solution of sulphate of 
iron, called copperas water or iron liquor, ia 
applied to the grain side of the wet skin, 
when the salt, uniting with the gallic acid 
of the tan, produces an ink dye ; stale urine 
is then applied to the skin, and when dry, 
the stuffing is applied. The grain is raised, 
and when dry, the skin is whitened, bruised, 
and again grained ; after which, a mixture 
of oil and tallow is applied to the grain 
side, and it undergoes carefully the treat- 
ment with the pommel or graining-board 
again, and several other processes of rubbing, 
polishing, and dubbing, or oiling. These 
duly performed, with due regard to time and 
circumstances, complete the process. 

For many years it was found difficult to 
cause a bright varnish to adhere to leather 
without cracking, an effect which is now 
produced by means of boiled linseed oil 
mixed with vegetable black and Prussian 
blue. This composition, of the consistence 
of a thick paste, is rubbed upon the surface of 
the leather, and then dried at a temperature 
of from 150° to 170° Fahr. The process is 
repeated from three to seven times, and 
when quite dry, the varnish adheres very 



LEATHER. 



215 



firmly, and will bear considerable flexure 
and tension without cracking. By mixing 
colored pigments with the varnish, enamelled 
leather of various colors may be produced. 

The process of tanning differs considerably 
in the mode of treatment with the kind of 
skin and the result desired. A large num- 
ber of thin leathers which are intended to be 
dyed, are tanned in various ways. White 
leathers are not tanned, but tawed, or treated 
with alum, salt, and some other matters. 
Wash leather is dressed with oil, or sham- 
oyed ; but whatever may be the subsequent 
treatment, the preparatory steps somewhat 
resemble each other — whereby hair, wool, 
grease, and other matters, are removed, and 
the skin is reduced to the state of a gelatinous 
membrane called pelt ; the hair is removed 
from kid and goat-skin, by means of cream 
of lime ; the wool is generally removed by 
the feltmongers before the skin is passed to 
the tawers. 

Foreign lamb-skins, which are received 
with the wool on, are washed, scraped on 
the flesh side, and sweated in a close room, 
until, in consequence of the putrefactive fer- 
mentation, the wool can be easily removed. 
After this, fatty matters are got rid of by 
subjecting the skins to hydrostatic pressure ; 
they arc next worked at the beam and pared 
into shape, treated with lime, and next with 
dogs' or pigeons' dung, if the skins are to be 
tanned, and with bran and water if they are 
to be tawed, the object being, in either case, 
to get rid of the lime. During these opera- 
tions, the skins are worked a few times at 
the beam, and are finished by washing in 
clean water. Morocco leather is prepared 
by tanning goat-skins with sumac, and 
dyeing on the grain side. Inferior moroccos 
are prepared from sheep-skins similarly 
treated, for which purpose each skin of pelt 
is sewed up into a bag, the grain side outer- 
most, distended with air, and placed in a 
mordant of tin or alum. They are next 
placed in a warm cochineal bath for red, in- 
digo for blue, orchil for purple, and are 
worked by hand until the dye has properly 
struck. For certain colors the tanning pre- 
cedes the dyeing. The tanning or sumac- - 
ing is carried on in a large tub, containing a 
weak solution of sumac in warm water ; 
another and stronger solution is contained 
in an adjoining vessel, a portion of which, 
together with some sumac leaves, is poured 
into the bag ; some of the weak solution 
is then added, the bag is distended with 



air, and the skin thrown into the vat. In 
this way about 50 skins are treated, and are 
kept in motion a few hours in the sumac 
tub, by means of paddles worked by hand, 
or by machinery. The skins are then taken 
out and heaped upon a shelf at the side of 
the tub, the pressure thus produced causing 
the liquor to escape slowly through the pores 
of the skin, the bags being shifted about 
from time to time. The bags are next 
passed into a second vat, containing a 
stronger solution, where they remain for 
nine hours. The bags are now opened and 
washed ; fine red skins being finished in a 
bath of saffron. All the skins are next struck 
on a sloping board until they are smooth 
and flat, and in order to improve their ap- 
pearance in the currying, a little linseed oil 
may be rubbed on the grain side ; they are 
then hung up in a loft to dry, when they be- 
come horny and are in the crust, as it is 
called ; they next pass through much labor- 
ious friction with the pommel, and with a 
glass ball ; while the peculiar ribbed ap- 
pearance of morocco is given by means of a 
ball of box-wood, on which is a number of 
narrow ridges. Sheep-skin morocco is pre- 
pared from split skins; the skin-splitting 
machine resembles in principle that hereafter 
described, only as the membrane is thinner, 
certain variations are required. Instead of 
stretching the skin on a drum, it is passed 
between two rollers, the lower one of gun - 
metal, and solid, and the upper made of man 
rings; while between the two rollers, and 
nearly in contact, is the edge of the sharp 
knife, which is moved by a crank, as hereafter 
mentioned. When a skin is introduced be- 
tween the two rollers, it is dragged through 
against the knife edge and divided, the solid 
lower roller supporting the membrane, while 
the upper one, being capable of moving 
through a small space by means of its rings, 
adjusts itself to inequalities in the mem- 
brane ; where this is thin the rings become 
depressed, and when it is thick they rise up, 
so that no part escapes the action of the 
knife. The divided skins arc 1 1 « ■ t sewed up 
into bags, as, from their thinness, they can 
be sumached quickly. 

In preparing white leather by "tawing," 
the pelt is made as pure as possible ; the 
best kind of leather being prepared from kid- 
skins, while sheep or lamb-skins make the 
inferior kinds. They are first fed with alum 
or salt in a drum or tumbler made like a 
huge churn ; about three pounds of alum 



216 



TANNING BOOTS AND SHOES. 



and four pounds of salt being used to 120 
skins of average size. The alumina of the 
alum forms some definite compound with 
the gelatine of the skins, while the salt serves 
to whiten them. When taken out, the skins 
are washed in water, then allowed to ferment 
in bran and water to remove the surplus 
alum and salt, and to reduce the thickness. 
They arc next dried in a loft, and become 
tough and brittle, but they are made soft 
and glossy by means of a dressing of twenty 
pounds of wheat flour and the yolks of eight 
dozen eggs. By rotating the skins in drums 
for some time the dressing is absorbed, and 
scarcely any thing but water remains. This 
dressing is usually repeated, and the skins 
hung up to dry. The beautiful softness and 
elasticity of leather is now given by manip- 
ulation. The skins are first dipped in clean 
water, worked upon a board, and staked upon 
a stretcher or softening iron, consisting of 
a rounded iron plate fixed to the top of an 
upright beam, by which the skins are ex- 
tended and smoothed ; they are then finished 
by being passed over a hot iron. 

The tanning of leather, more than almost 
any other manufacture, is a chemical process, 
the success of which depends almost wholly 
upon the skill and judgment with which its 
complicated manipulations are conducted. 
To attain the requisite skill in the laboratory 
of the chemist is evidently impossible ; it 
can only be acquired in the tanning itself, 
by long and careful attention and observa- 
tion ; and perhaps there is no description 
of manufacture where so much depends upon 
practical knowledge, and so little upon mere 
theory, as in the tanning of leather. The 
tanning of leather consists in effecting a 
combination between the gelatine, which is 
the main constituent of raw hides, and tan- 
nin, a peculiar substance, found in the bark 
of several species of trees — the oak and 
hemlock chiefly. The processes employed 
are so various, and the modifications occa- 
sioned by temperature, strength of the 
liquor, and quality and condition of the 
hides, are so numerous and so different, that 
hardly any branch of business requires for 
its successful conduct a greater degree of 
judgment and experience, and in few arts 
have there been effected greater improve- 
ments. Within twenty years the gain of 
weight in converting hides into leather 
has increased nearly fifty per cent. ; that 
is, from a quarter to a third more 
leather can now be obtained from a given 



quantity of hides than in the old-fashioned 
way. 

The great improvement in weight seems 
to have been gained by the judicious use of 
strong liquors, or " ooze," obtained from 
finely-ground bark, and by skilful tanning. 
In order to produce heavy weights, the hides 
should not be reduced too low in the beam- 
house, and should be tanned quickly with 
good strong liquors, particularly in the latter 
stage of the operation. To green hides, par- 
ticularly, nothing can be more injurious than 
to suffer them to remain too long in weak 
" ooze." They become too much reduced, 
grow soft, flat, and flabby, lose a portion of 
their gelatine, and refuse to " plump up." 
On the other hand, however, the effects of 
an early application of " ooze," that is too 
strong and too warm, to green hides, is very 
injurious. It contracts the surface fibres of 
the skin, tanning at once the external layers, 
so " dead," as it is termed, as to shut up 
the pores, and prevent the tanning from 
penetrating the interior. This renders the 
leather harsh and brittle. 

In softening hides, and preparing them 
for the process of tanning, a great deal also 
depends upon the judgment of the person 
superintending the operation, inasmuch as 
the diversities in the qualities and charac- 
teristics of hides render it impossible to sub- 
ject them to any thing more than a general 
mode of treatment. In "sweating," the 
character of the hides and the temperature 
are essential, but ever-varying considerations. 
As a general rule, however, the milder the 
process of preparing the hides for the bark, 
the better. Unnecessarily severe or pro- 
longed treatment is inevitably attended with 
a loss of gelatine, and a consequent loss of 
weight and strength in the leather. Too 
high a temperature is particularly to.be 
avoided. 

In almost every lot of hides, particularly 
the Orinocos, however, there are generally 
some that prove very intractable, resisting 
all the ordinary modes of softening. For 
such, a solution of ashes, potash, or even 
common salt, will be found to be bene- 
ficial. 

As we have said, no precise rule can be 
given as to the length of time required for 
the preliminary process of soaking and 
" sweating" — so much depending upon the 
qualities of the hides, and the tempera- 
ture at which these operations are con- 
ducted. 



LEATHER. 



217 



The following table, however, may be 1 to a definite idea of the practice in a large 
found useful in conveying an approximation I tannery : — 

SOAKING. SWEATING. 

Temperatures. 40° 50° 60° 70° 40° 50° 60° 70° 

Days. Days. Days. Days. Days. Days. Days. Days. 

Buenos Avres hides 10 to 12 8 to 12 6 to 8 3 to 6 15 to 20 12 to 16 8 to 12 2 to 3 

Cartliagena and Laguayra... 8 12 7 9 5 7 2 5 15 20 10 15 6 8 2 3 



Salted hides do not require more than 
about two-thirds the time to soak, but 
about the same time to sweat. In sweating, 
the temperature rises as the hides sweat, so 
that the operation is seldom performed un- 
der 50°. It is particularly recommended 
that, for the tougher hides, the heat should 
never be greater than 60° or 65°. 

After the hides are prepared for tanning, 
the next process is what is commonly called 
" handling," which should be performed two 
or three times a day in a weak ooze, until 
the grain is colored, new liquor being prefer- 
able to old. They are then, after a fort- 
night, laid away in bark, and changed once 
in two to four weeks until tanned. Much 
care and judgment is requisite in proportion- 
ing the continually increasing strength of 
the liquors to the requirements of the leather 
in the different stages of this process. The 
liquors should also be kept as cool as pos- 
sible, within certain limits; but ought never 
to exceed a temperature of eighty degrees. 
In fact, a much lower temperature is the 
maximum point, if the liquor is very strong 
— too high a heat, with the liquor too 
strongly .charged with the tanning principle, 
being invariably injurious to the life and 
color of the leather. From this, it would 
seem that time is an essential element in the 
process of tanning, and that we cannot make 
up for the want of it by increasing the 
strength of the liquor, or raising the tem- 
perature at which the process is conducted, 
any more than we can fatten an ox or a horse 
ly giving him more than he can eat. It 
may be questioned whether any patented 
schemes for the more rapid conversion of 
hides into leather, will be found, on the 
whole, to have any practical utility. 

We have mentioned the injurious effects 
resulting from too strong a solution of the 
active principle of the bark; on the other 
hand, the use of too weak solutions is to 
be avoided. Hides that are treated with 
liquor below the proper strength, become 
much relaxed in their texture, and lose a 
portion of their gelatine. The leather neces- 
sarily lose- in weight and compactness, and 



is much more porous and pervious to water. 
The warmer these weak solutions are ap- 
plied, the greater is this loss of gelatine. To 
ascertain whether a portion of weak liquor 
contains any gelatine in solution, it is only 
necessary to strain a little of it into a glass, 
and then add a small quantity of a stronger 
liquor. The excess of tannin in the strong 
solution, seizing upon the dissolved gelatine 
in the weak liquor, will combine with it, and 
be precipitated in flakes of a dark, curdled 
appearance, to the bottom. In the best 
tanneries, the greatest strength of liquor 
used for handling, as indicated by Pike's ba- 
rometer, is 16°. Of that employed in laying 
away, the greatest strength varies from 30" 1 
to 45°. 

After the leather has been thoroughly 
tanned and rinsed, it will tend very much to 
improve its color and pliability to stack it 
up in piles, and allow it to sweat until it 
becomes a little slippery from a kind of 
mucus that collects upon the surface. A 
little oil added at this stage of the process, oi 
just before rolling, is found to be very useful. 

Great caution is necessary in the admis- 
sion of air in drying, when first hung up to 
dry. No more air than is sufficient to keep 
the sides from moulding should be allowed. 
Too much air, or, in other words, if dried 
too rapidly in a current of air, will injure 
the color, giving a darker hue, and rendering 
the leather harsh and brittle. To insure 
that the thick parts, or butts, shall roll 
smooth and even with the rest of the piece, 
it is necessary that the leather should be 
partially dried before wetting down for 
rolling, and that, when wet down, it should 
lie long enough for every side to hecome 
equally damp throughout. 

In the tanning records of 200,000 sides, 
an average of the whole time was five months 
and twenty-seven days. The average weight 
of the leather was seventeen pounds per side. 
This, according to the best authorities wo 
have at hand, is considerably below the time 
employed in England. There, it is no un- 
common thing for from 8 to 15 months to 
be employed in tanning a stock of leather. 



218 



TANNING BOOTS AND SUOES. 



Several new processes of tanning in- 
tended to shorten the time and diminish 
the cost, have been introduced since 1850; 
one of them whose excellences consist in 
perfect gradation of the tanning liquors, 
and a greater facility of permeation and 
handling, is as follows: 

Sole leather hides for sweat stock are pre- 
pared for the tan liquors in the usual man- 
ner. Limed stock for upper and sole leather, 
for either hemlock or oak tanning, is limed 
and washed, and bated by the paddle-wheel 
handlers ; after being properly prepared for 
the tan liquors, it is then handled in a sec- 
tion of vats, in which the liquors communi- 
cate as in the press-leaches, except that the 
order of running the liquors is from near 
the top of one vat to the bottom of the 
next, through the whole section, thus 
" pressing " the weak liquor forward upon 
the greener stock, giving a perfect gra- 
dation of strength of liquor on each 
pack, stronger according to the length of 
time it has been in ; each vat is fitted with 
a patent paddle-wheel handler, which is 
used for stirring the stock in the liquors, 
dispensing with the necessity of handling 
by hand entirely; in this section stock 
should be kept two weeks, then taken out 
and hung over sticks with head and butt 
down in patented layaways, and not again 
moved till well tanned ; the layaways are 
all in one section with the communicating 
trunks, in the same manner as the hand- 
lers; when a pack is taken out tanned, a 
pack from the handlers is put into its place, 
and the weakest liquor in the section is 
allowed to fill the vat; here every part of 
every side is in contact with the liquor at 
all times, and the liquors on every pack are 
becoming stronger every day till tanned ; 
the liquors are kept in motion by small 
paddle-wheels, which opei'ate "on the sur- 
face of the liquor over the suspended sides, 
causing the liquors to pass with a gentle 
current among the sides, bearing them up. 
so that they do not rest heavily on the 
sticks. 

Two men's labor is sufficient for all the 
yard work for a tannery working in and 
out 150 sides per day, including washing 
the tanned stock and taking it to the loft. 

The results of tanning 144,000 hides 
were as follows: 



Weight. Avenge. Va]ue> 



Hides 144,000 

Leather, aides,... 287 ,275 



3,229.155 
5,310,789 



22.22 
18.51 



$421,810 
704,044 



This gives a considerable increase in the 
weight of the hides, and the increase in 
the value of the article is much greater. 
That covers, of course, commission, labor, 
interest, profits, etc. The great develop- 
ment given to general business in the 
last twenty years has caused an almost con- 
tinuous rise in the value of leather and 
hides. The latter, on being purchased and 
put in the vats, would thus acquire value 
from the general rise in the market, in 
addition to the regular value added by the 
art of the tanners. There was gradually 
felt a growing scarcity of hides, and the 
quantities imported by no means kept pace 
with the rising value. The quantities and 
values of hides imported for the few last 
years was as follows: 

No. 1850. 1858. 1869. 1875. 1880. 

Hides, 2.572,884 2,493,056 3,318,729 2,108,861 8,686,687 
Value, $5,904,838 8,048,825 14,204,707 18,530,902 30,002,254 

This shows that for 1,003,753 more hides 
there were paid in 1880 $24,037,416 more 
than in 1850, in advance of about 500 per 
ct. in the value of hides, while the labor 
and tanning material have advanced still 
more. Such a fact indicates the growing 
cost of the raw material for boots and 
shoes, and also indicates the growing value 
of the hides of animals throughout the 
country. 

Leather being so costly a substance, great 
efforts are made to introduce economies in 
its manufacture and use in every direction. 
One plan for getting the most possible sur- 
face out of a given weight, is to split the 
thick hides into two thinner sheets. This 
process, formerly difficult, has of late un- 
dergone many improvements. "When the 
hide is sufficiently tanned, it is split some- 
times into five thicknesses, from a single 
one. This is done by various machines, in 
one of which the knife is 72 inches long, 
or as long as a hide is wide. A late im- 
provement in Boston makes the knife 80 
inches long, and economises 25 per cent, 
in the stock that before was shaved away. 
The flesh side of the sheet, with the shanks, 
are used by the trunk-makers to cover 
wooden trunks, and blackened on the 
trunks. Other sheets are subjected to a 
process called " buffing," which consists in 
shaving off about half the grain, in order 
to obtain a softer surface to receive an 
artificial grain. They are then returned to 
the tan-yard, and, after being scoured, are 
retanned in warm liquors. They are then 



, 



I EATIIEU. 



219 



sent to the currier to bo prepared for jap- 
anning. A new patent lias been issued for 
splitting leather with a circular knife, which 
is of thin metal, made like a disc, convex 
side up. This revolves horizontally, with 
its sharp edge just above a table, over 
which the leather is stretched, and held 
down firmly to it by springs. Under the 
table is a roller, which, by revolving, draws 
the leather forward against the edge o± the 
revolving knife. The upper side of the 
leather splits off in curls above . the knife, 
which may be nicely adjusted to make the 
leather of any thickness. 

Another invention of considerable im- 
portance in cheapening the production 
without impairing the quality of the arti- 
cles made from leather, is that known ad 
leather board. This is a compound of jute, 
manilla rope, tarred rope, and scraps of 
leather reduced to a pulp, and then reduced 
to the desired form by very heavy pressure. 
The linings and inner soles of many de- 
scriptions of shoes, as well as some other 
portions of the shoe, and leather toys and 
fancy leather goods are made of this ma- 
terial, which is stamped by dies into the 
requisite forms, and is said to resist heat or 
moisture better than leather itself. About 
$2,000,000 worth of it was sold in 1880. 

The general manufacture of boots and 
shoes had undergone few changes other 
than those produced by changing fashions 
and the Begular improvements of business, 
until the introduction of sewing and peg 
ging machines, which gave a great impulse 
to»the production by affecting prices and 
disturbing localities. The Massachusetts 
shoe-makers, by their industry, early ob- 
tained an ascendancy in the manufacture, 
and it is one that is easily adopted in an 
industrious community. The towns in the 
neighborhood of Boston, and especially 
Lynn, attracted masons, carpenters, and 
other workmen, in the winter season, when 
their own professions were dull, to pursue 
shoe-making. 

The business thus almost accidentally 
commenced in Lynn, became in time the 
principal business of the place, having in 
1878, 201 out of its 324 manufacturing 
establishments engaged either in the man- 
ufacture of boots and shoes, or in some 
branch of trade directly connected there- 
with. More than 12,000,000 pairs of boots 
and shoes, mostly for women and children, 
are made here annually; about 14,000 of 



its 38,000 inhabitants are employed in the 
business, and the annual product exceeds 
$1 5,000,000. Haverhill, another city of 
the same county, somewhat smaller, is also 
very largely engaged in the same business, 
having 184 establishments for the manu- 
facture of shoes. Marblehead, "Worcester, 
Braintrec, and Dan vers are also anions the 
principal seats of this manufacture in 
Massachusetts. The state of Massachusetts 
had, in January, 1878, 1,461 shoe facto- 
ries or shops, in which 2,389 persons were 
partners or stockholders; 48,090 were em- 
ployed directly in the manufacture, and 
more than 220,000 were dependent upon 
it. The capital invested was $18,092,864 
and has been largely increased since; the 
value of the stock or raw material used 
was $54,976,504; the amount of wages 
paid $21,883,354, and the value of the 
goods produced, $89,375,792, bein^ by 
about twelve millions the largest product 
of any single industry of that great manu- 
facturing state. Boston is the seat of the 
principal wholesale boot and shoe trade, 
shipping over 60,000,000 pairs of shoes 
annually (worth nearly $70,000,000) to 
other parts of the United States, and a 
moderate quantity abroad. New York is 
the largest exporting port, sending abroad 
220,000 of the 378,000 pairs exported, 
and in value more than one-half of the 
whole amount. Philadelphia, New York, 
and Baltimore are largely engaged in the 
manufacture especially of the finer quali- 
ties, and so are some of the larger towns 
of Maine, New Hampshire, and Connecti- 
cut. Cheaper and coarser goods are made 
in many of the interior cities. The aggre- 
gate value of this industry which, in 1870 
was $185,000,000, in 1880 had reached 
$250,000,000 and more, and was, after the 
Flouring and Lumber interests, the great- 
est of all our industries. 

How it grew to these vast dimensions, 
is a story worth the telling, and fortunately 
we possess all the data for telling it as it is. 

As long ago as the first and second de- 
cades of the present century, there were 
shoe factories in many of the larger towns 
of New England, much after the fashion 
of those early ones in Lynn, of which we 
have already spoken, in which some shoe- 
maker with a little capital and enterprise, 
purchased leather and by the offer of steady 
work induced ten, twenty, thirty, or fifty 
shoemakers, and some apprentices, to com« 



220 



TANNING BOOTS AND SHOES. 



to his shop, bringing with them their 
benches and kit of tools, and make up work 
which he could sell at the larger towns for 
the Southern or West India trade. These 
shoes were generally coarse, cowhide or 
kip shoes, with heavy soles, and their man- 
ufacture did not require a high degree of 
skill, but each man made the entire shoe 
himself; there was no division of labor. 
The best workmen disclaimed these shoe 
factories, and would do only fine custom- 
work, and some of their work was very 
good. 

After a time, the master of the factory 
made patterns and cut out different sizes 
and styles of shoes, some of them to be 
bound with shoe binding, made of thin 
sheepskin, marked off with black and 
white stripes, the black to be on the out 
side of the shoe and the white on the in- 
side, to correspond with the lining. These 
vamps and quarters were given out to his 
best hands to close or stitch together. This 
work, if sewed neatly, added to the value 
of the shoe. The uppers when stitched 
and bound were ready for the soles; and 
here again there was room for difference 
of treatment. Shoes of the better sort 
had a good insole, and a welt of tough but 
thin leather stitched neatly to the uppers, 
and then stitched with fine and even 
stitches, on the outside through the insole, 
welt and outsole. The wax of the waxed 
thread which formed these stitches was 
carefully cleaned so as to show how even 
they were, on the best work. The coarser 
work had its welts too, but the stitches 
were longer and the waxed thread larger. 

The division of labor continued, and 
the factory-made shoes when of the best 
quality, were nearly, though not quite, 
equal to those made by good workmen 
to measure. Much of the factory work 
was of course poor and sloppy; the mate- 
rial inferior, and the shoes finished so as 
to hide defects, but not to wear. Some of 
the coarsest were pegged, not hob-nailed, 
like the English laborer or farmer's shoes, 
but the pegging was roughly done and the 
shoes were unshapely and sold only to the 
poorest class. 

Then came the era of pegged shoes, 
made by the pegging machine invented 
about 1851 by A. C. Gallahue and subse- 
quently improved by Townsend and Stur- 
tevant of Boston. This machine went into 
extensive use in this country, and properly 



managed it would do very fine work, and 
with great rapidity. It would punch the 
holes, cut off and shape the pegs and drive 
them at the rate of 14 per second, and 
would peg two pair of women's shoes a 
minute, putting in two rows of pegs if re- 
quired. About 1,700 of these machines 
were in use as late as 1872. They were 
largely employed by the manufacturers who 
made vast quantities of cheap but neat- 
looking shoes, largely by convict labor. 
One of these manufacturers died recently, 
leaving a property of four or five millions, 
made mostly by the manufacture of these 
cheap pegged shoes. 

But the greatest revolution which has 
been made in the shoe manufacture was 
that which followed the introduction of 
the McKay sole-sewing machine, perfected 
in 1864. We have already explained that 
all sewed shoes of good quality were sewed 
on the outside and the soles attached to 
the uppers through the medium of a welt. 
The pegged shoes could dispense with the 
welt, but pegged shoes even at their best es- 
tate were not the choice of those who were 
delicately reared. A sewed shoe without a 
welt was deemed an impossibility, because 
all shoes except the light slippers, which 
were turned, must be, it was believed, sewed 
from the outside. In 1858, Lyman R. 
Blake, of Abington, took the first step to- 
ward solving this great difficulty, by pat- 
enting a machine which, working inside 
the shoe from a horn or arm, took the 
stitches directly through the insole, the 
edge of the upper, and the outsole without 
the insertion of any welt. There were, 
however, defects in this machine; it had 
no guiding seam channel, and it required 
the use of a steam chest for heating the 
shoes to allow the waxed thread to pars 
easily. Only the coarser grades of shoes 
could be manufactured with it. In 1860, 
Mr. Gordon McKay, a Boston engin- 
eer, having examined this machine care- 
fully, became convinced that it could be 
perfected to meet every want. He induced 
Blake to take out fresh patents, one cover- 
ing the machine-made shoe itself as a new 
article of manufacture, and another cover- 
ing the process of making; both independ- 
ent of the original patent on the mechani- 
cal structure. He then bought up the 
invention for $8,000, renamed it the Mc- 
Kay Sole-sewing Machine, and set about its 
improvement. He spent large sums of 



LEATHER. 



221 



money in this direction, but it was not until 
two years later that he obtained from Mr. 
H. Mathies of Boston, an ingenious patent 
for channeling the leather as in hand sew- 
ing. At first he paid only $300 for this 
valuable invention ; but later, on the urgent 
representation of the inventor, he paid 
him $10,500 more. His difficulties were 
not all surmounted, however, till 1864, 
when Mr. Blake devised a means of heat- 
ing the horn from an alcohol lamp placed 
inside it, and by the radiation of the heat 
the wax on the thread was caused to soften 
as it passed through, and the machine was 
rendered available for sewing shoes of the 
finest quality. This contrivance was pa- 
tented jointly by Blake and McKay. The 
machine thus improved, was taken in 
charge by a company styled The McKay 
Sole-sewing Machine Association, and Gor- 
don McKay became its head and front and 
general manager. The details of its mak- 
ing were still further improved, and when 
it was fairly introduced to the trade $130,- 
000 had been expended on it. It was soon 
found that every manufacturer who would 
keep up with the times must have the ma- 
chine. 

McKay, true to his inherited Scotch 
thrift, was shrewd and peculiar in his man- 
agement of this splendid invention. He 
never sold a machine nor the right to make 
one; they were always leased at merely a 
nominal sum, the lease stipulating that the 
lessee could not call in question the royal- 
ties of the association. As he had patented 
the machine-made shoe, he could control 
absolutely every shoe made by his machine ; 
and he attached to all his machines an auto- 
matic register by which he could know the 
exact number of shoes made by it. He 
exacted from every manufacturer using 
his machines, whether he used one or a 
hundred of them the following royalties: 
half a cent a pair for children's shoes, 1 
cent for misses' and youth's, 2 cents for 
women's and 3 cents for men's; and for 
this royalty he furnished the manufactur- 
ers with stamps for each amount, which 
they were required to attach to each pair 
of shoes, and the self-registering machine 
kept a tally which must correspond with 
t!ir stamp. The sum seems small but the 
results were enormous: a good operator 
could sew from 6^0 to 800 pairs of shoes 
on a McKay machine in a day of ten hours; 
and some of the great manufactories at 
13 



Lynn and elsewhere had as many as 100 
machines steadily at work. Over 500,000,- 
000 pairs of shoes were made on these ma- 
chines in this country between 1865 and 
1880, and the association received over 
$10,000,000 in royalties. Their foreign 
patents yielded them nearly as much more, 
and there was the added income from the 
rental of the machines themselves. It 
should be said injustice to the association, 
that no monopoly was ever conducted with 
greater care to make its burdens as little 
onerous as possible. The greatest pains 
were taken to keep the machines every- 
where in perfect order and supplied with 
the best and latest appliances to add to 
their efficiency. Some of the largest man- 
ufacturers received from the association a 
small interest in the stock to keep them 
from objecting to the royalties. About the 
first of August, 1881, the patents of the 
McKay Sole-sewing Machine expired, and 
henceforward the manufacturers can buy 
their machines of the association at a cost 
of $250, or to make them for themselves 
or order them made, when the cost will 
not be, it is said, more than from $75 to 
$100, and no further royalties to be paid. 
The advantage to manufacturers in gen- 
eral of paying such royalties on patents 
may be doubtful ; but in the case of the 
shoe manufacture it has led to these good 
results: an immense increase in the pro- 
duction, with the prices on good work fully 
maintained; the ability of small manufac- 
turers to keep their position with the larger 
ones; a great improvement in all sewed 
work and the production of w r ork superior 
in every respect to the best of the old cus- 
tom hand-sewed work, and of a quality 
which will satisfy the most fastidious. 
There are no better shoes made anywhere 
than Burt's, and none which give more 
universal satisfaction. Of course the ordi- 
nary sewing machine has been long in use 
for ornamenting the uppers of the finest 
shoes and boots, and has produced elegant 
work; but the invention and use of the 
McKay Sole sewing Machine has produced 
a revolution in the trade which has ex- 
panded it four fold in fifteen years, enabled 
us to export fine work, and made us the 
best shod nation in the world. There is 
still a market, as there probably always 
will be, for the trashy, cheap work, madu 
up from flimsy and refuse material; but 
that market is driven down every year to 



222 



TANNING B00T3 AND SHOES 



a lower class; a class who cannot under- 
stand that a pair of shoes at six dollars, or 
of boots at eight to twelve, may be cheaper 
in the end than a pair at from $1.50 to 
S3. 00, because they will outwear five or 
six of the cheaper pairs, and will look well 
to the end. 

There have been numerous lasting ma- 
chines invented in the past fifteen or twenty 
years, working with more or less success, 
none of which seemed to attain a good 
degree of perfection, but there are now 
two machines which appear to be all that 
can be desired for the purpose, the McKay 
for heavy pegged and nail work, the 
Thompson for fine sewed work. These are 
combined in one company under the name 
of the McKay & Thompson Consolidated 
Lasting Machine Co., which is divided into 
150,000 shares. The company controls 
some sixty to seventy letters patent, some 
of which were boughv of other parties hav 
ing patents covering points of more or less 
value. We understand that either of these 
machines will turn out 500 pairs per day 
against 50 pairs per day by one man, hand 
work. Mr. Thompson has a staple machine 
to fast an the uppers to the inner sole for 
sewed work. There have been over $500,- 
©00 in cash and sixteen years' labor spent 
in bringing these machines to their present 
state of perfection, which promise great re- 
sults, if not equal to the sewing machine. 

The style of making boots and shoes 
changes in some degree, and is leading 
manufacturers to introduce improvements, 
like that of a steel shank, so called, which 
is a steel spring fixed firmly in the heel, 
and extending under the hollow of the 
foot between the soles, to give elasticity to 
the step. The grades of city work vary 
with the quality of the material and the 
labor bestowed. The patent leather cus- 
tom-made boots command $16 per pair; 
and the high Russia leather Wellington 
boots §14; and so down to $12, $10, and 
$9 for calf -skin; with lower rates for split 
leather and ordinary material. The scarc- 
ity of material, and the high prices of 
stock, have driven the poorer class of shoe- 
makers to the use of old tops, or upper 
leathers, for both boots and shoes. These 
are not only refooted for the use of the 
wearer, but are cut down to make new 
shoes and boots of a smaller size. Many 
take much pains to buy up old articles of 
that description, and reproduce them at 



rates far below what they could be afforded 
by regular shoemakers from new stocks. 
Much art is used also in economizing the 
soles of cheap goods. A thin under-sole is 
used ; between which and the in-sole, paste- 
board, old slips of leather, and other cheap 
substances, are inserted to give an appear- 
ance of substance. These cheap varieties 
of shoes supply the wants of those whose 
means are small, with a semblance of 
shoeing. 

The phrase, "paper soles," is not unfre- 
quently used to designate the extremely 
thin substance attached to the casings of 
the dainty little feet of our fair sex, but 
still that substance is leather. Recently, 
however, a pair of veritable paper soles 
were put npon a customer, and worn, 
though for a very limited time. The vic- 
tim in the case was a strapping negro 
fellow, who, allured by the seductive invi- 
tation to " walk in and see the cheap clod- 
ings," entered a Jew's museum, and pur- 
chased a pair of laced boots for $1.50. 

They fitted well, and wore well for a few 
hours, but great was his astonishment when 
his trotters parted company with his boots, 
and he was once again barefooted . On ex- 
amining more closely his purchase, he found 
that the soles were composed of thick paper 
board, colored to resemble leather, and 
pegged to the uppers. The sympathizing 
justice heard his complaint, but could grant 
no relief. 

The Bureau of Statistics of Labor, in 
Massachusetts, reported, in 1878, the fol- 
lowing statistics of leather and manufac- 
tures of leather in that state. They are 
very incomplete, for there is no report. of 
saddlery and harness, leather belting, 
trunks and portmanteaus, fire hose, car- 
riage tops and boots, enamelled leather, 
morocco, pocketbooks, satchels, and fancy 
leather goods, razor strops, etc., etc., but 
imperfect as they are, they show an amount 
of products in a single line of industry sur- 
passed by no other state. 





.a 

3 a 

i = 

1,461 


as "9 
c J* 

If 


CO 




§ S 

= '3 


C -3 


Boots & Shoes, 


4S.090 


18,692,864 


1 

54.97S.504 


S 
U ,883,354 


i 


Leather, 


495 


6,620 


8,399,850 


16.108.S45 


3,901,033 


23,680,775 


Whips, 


51 


62G 


615,030 


384,009 


297,458 


922,096 


Miscellaneous. 


10 


230 


210. 142 


200,000 


86,252 


419,061 


_ Totals, 


2,020 


55,566 


27,948,486 


71,467,358 


26,167,697 


114,397,724 




OVER THE BEAM. 
Shaving the fleshy matter from the hide. 



HIDE-SPLITTING MACHINE 




UNHAIRING THE HIDE. 




PEGGING BOOTS BY HAND. 

From 260 to 500 pairs per day are done by the machines, according to 
(he kind of machine, and whether run by hand or power. Improvement 
fifteen or twenty to one. 



LEATHER. 



The manufacture of gloves has not ex- 
tended itself in this country so much as 
some other industries, with the exception of 
buckskin gloves, which are peculiarly 
American, combining utility with dress. 
The use of gloves is becoming far more 
general in cities than formerly. In early 
times, the practice of presenting a pair of 
gloves at funerals to the attending clergy 
and others was carried to si^ch an extent 
in Massachusetts that the legislature for- 
bade the practice, under a penalty of £20. 
The presentation of gloves to the pall- 
bearers at funerals is still very general, 
both in this country and Great Britain. 

The materials of which gloves are made 
are of leather, fur, cloth, and knitted goods 
of wool, silk, worsted, linen, and cotton 
thread (the Lisle thread gloves being of 
sea-island cotton), and to a small extent of 
ramie. India rubber is also used for 
gloves for some purposes. Of leather and 
fur, which are the materials most largely 
employed, there is a great variety. Doe, 
buck, and calfskin, are most used for heavy 
gloves; seal, otter, and reindeer skin, for 
fur gloves; sheepskin and dogskin for mil- 
itary gloves; lambskin, of which so much 
so-called kid is manufactured; kangaroo, 
and perhaps to a small extent rat skins, for 
the thumbs of the finest gloves, and genu- 
ine kid of which the best qualities of kid 
gloves are made. There is a very general 
opinion that rat skins are the principal ma- 
terial of the finest French gloves; but as a 
matter of fact, very few are used, the skin 
of the rat being less even in texture, cut- 
ting to less advantage, and being less uni- 
form in supply than the skins of the young 
Kids, killed before they have begun to crop 
herbage. Great numbers of these are 
reared for this special trade in France, 
Italy, Switzerland, Ireland, Cape Colony, 
and the East Indies. The preparation of 
these skins for the finest gloves is a long, 
difficult, and delicate pi-ocess. More than 
2,000,000 dozen pairs of kid gloves are 
made in France alone, besides large quan- 
tii ies in Italy, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, 
and Germany. These all require about 
500.000 dozen kid skins. The English 
leather gloves are generally of a heavier 
quality, and are made from calf or reindeer 
skin, or the skins of larger animals. 

The chief seats of the French glove man- 
ufacture are Grenoble (which produces 
nearly one-half of all that are made in 



France), Chaumont, Miihau, and Niort. 
At least two-thirds (more than 17,000,000 
pairs) of the* gloves made in France are 
exported. 

Our importation of gloves, in 1880, was 
663,813 dozen pairs invoiced here at $3,- 
670,525, without the duty, and probably 
worth on the market over $7,000,000. 
This was about the average importation of 
the last ten years. Of these, about 250, 000 
dozen pairs were from France, invoiced at 
$1,629,064; about 290,000 dozen from Ger- 
many, invoiced at $1,345,542, and 114,974 
dozen from England, invoiced at $662,107. 
The importations from all other countries 
amounted to less than 10,000 dozen pairs. 

There are no later statistics of the 
amount of the glove manufacture of the 
United States than those of the census of 
1870, even the preliminary report on the 
subject for 1880 not being yet ready. We 
give, therefore, the figures of 1870, which 
show 221 establishments, of which 144 
were in the state of New York. 4,053 
hands employed, of whom 3,112 were in 
New York. Of these 4,058 hands, 1,1 21 
were men, 2,894 women, and 37 youths. 
The amount of capital employed was $2.- 
340,550; the wages paid, $980,549; the 
raw material used was valued at $1,884, 
146, and the value of goods produced, S3.- 
998,521, of which $3,507,795 was credited 
to New York. It is safe to say that with- 
in the decade the number of establishments, 
and probably the amount of products, in 
New York have more than doubled, and 
largely in the direction of kid. lambskin, 
and dogskin gloves. In many of the qual- 
ities the American product is equal to the 
imported. In the finest qualities of kid 
gloves it is not yet, but is improving. For 
many years past, buckskin gloves and mit- 
tens, and other heavy gloves for driving 
and military use, as well as the delicate 
wash leather gloves for ladies' use. have 
been made in annually increasing quanti- 
ties at Gloversville and adjacent places in 
Fulton Co., New York. In I860, nearly 
a million dollars worth of these gloves were 
produced in Fulton County; in 1865, not- 
withstanding the war, it had increased to 
$1,187,686, and in 1870 it had taken a 
new impulse and gone up to $3,189,920, 
considerably more than three-fourths of 
theentiremanufactureinthe United States. 
The past decade will unquestionably show 
a very large increase in this particular in- 



226 



TANNING GLOVES. 



dustry, and will go far to make Glovers- 
ville the Grenoble of America. 

For many years, the great reputation of 
French kid gloves rested quite as much on 
the delicacy and fine quality of the mate- 
rial, and the perfection of the colors, as 
upon any excellence in their manufacture. 
They were cut, we may say, by guess, with 
long scissors, one pair at a time, and he was 
the most skillful cutter who could make 
the greatest number of pairs out of a sin- 
gle skin. The skins were from their treat- 
ment elastic, and it was possible, by stretch- 
ing, to make a considerable difference in 
the quantity produced from a single skin. 
In 1819, Vallet d'Artois, a French glove 
manufacturer, invented punches in three 
different sizes, each punch capable of cut- 
ting out two dozen pairs at once. The con- 
ception was an ingenious one, but of little 
practical value, inasmuch as it did not 
make allowance for the lateral and longi- 
tudinal extension of the leather. In 1834, 
Xavier Jouvin, a young French glove 
maker of great ingenuity, and a very 
thorough knowledge of practical geometry, 
commenced the study of the human hand 
with reference to its incasement in kid 
gloves. He set to work on a strictly scien- 
tific basis ; first to classify the various sizes 
and forms of the hand; next to determine 
the exact stretch of leather required to cov- 
er each of them; then to draw up a list or 
scale, in which by means of a letter and a 
figure the glove-wearer should find the ex- 
act size and shape of 'his own hand. By 
an ingenious application of certain geomet- 
rical rules, he succeeded in ascertaining the 
amount of any quality of kid required for 
any sized glove. He found that 32 sizes 
included all dimensions of hands, the va- 
rious shapes of which he classed under five 
heads: very slender, slender, medium, 
broad, very broad. Having divided each 
type into two dimensions, he got ten dis- 
tinct glove forms, and multiplying these 
by the original 32 sizes, obtained 320 dif- 
ferent numbers of gloves; a more than 
sufficient variety, many numbers being 
very seldom required. For each of the 32 
sizes he made a calibre or glove pattern of 
sheet-iron, furnished on its inferior surface 
with diminutive points for marking upon 
the kid the place for the thumb hole, and 
the lines for embroidery on the back of the 
hand. He also made small calibres for the 
thumbs, and punches for cutting the thumb- 



hole and shaping the gussets. A piece of 
kid having been duly stretched, the calibre 
was pressed upon it, and it was cut to the 
shape of the pattern by means of a knife 
invented for the purpose. In 1838, he re- 
placed the calibres with punches, which 
cut out at once the glove, thumb-hole, but- 
ton-hole, and cleft at the wrist, and traced 
the three rows for embroidery. These 
punches (which are still in use in the Jou- 
vin manufactory) are forced by a lever 
through several layers of kid, and thus cut 
out a number of gloves at a time. But the 
most ingenious thing in his process was 
his contrivance for cutting out with the 
same punch gloves for differently formed 
hands. For this purpose he used skins 
varying in elasticity, which he classified 
carefully. To this day, all the genuine 
Jouvin gloves bear two marks, one indicat- 
ing the number of punch with which they 
were cut, and the other the degree of elas- 
ticity of the leather. Subsequent modifi- 
cations were made in the punches, one of 
them, we believe, for cutting the thumb as 
a part of the glove, but the Jouvin patents 
have controlled the glove manufacture in 
France, and have added very largely to the 
sales of French kid gloves. Xavier Jou- 
vin has passed away, but his manufactory 
still maintains its reputation for excellent 
work. 

Some of our later manufactories of gloves 
in this country have professed to adopt the 
Jouvin system, but either their material is 
not so good, or they do not classify the 
skins so carefully. The sewing of the 
finest qualities of kid gloves is a very deli- 
cate business, as the least stretching or the 
use of too coarse a needle may render the 
glove worthless. For this sewing a ma- 
chine of English invention is generally 
used. It consists of an iron vice, set in a 
stand which is screwed to the edge of a 
table. Each jaw of the vice has its extrem- 
ity made of brass, and is tipped with a 
comb of the same metal, the teeth of which. 
about one-twelfth of an inch long, are per- 
fectly even and regular. The spaces be- 
tween the teeth, as also the shape of the 
comb, vary according to the kind of sew- 
ing required; therefore, sets of vices are 
used provided with combs of different 
shapes and sizes. One jaw of the vice is 
made fast to its stand, but the other is 
movable by a hinge, and is kept in its place 
by a strong spring. The movable jaw is 



LEATIIER. 



227 



furnished with a lever connected by a wire 
with a pedal, upon which the workwoman 
presses her foot when it is necessary to sep- 
arate the jaws. She inserts the seam to 
be sewed between the two brass combs, 
then lifts her foot, and the jaws, closing 
firmly upon the kid, hold it in position. 
She then passes her needle successively 
through all the teeth of the comb, and is 
sure to make an even seam if she lets it 
graze along the bottom of each notch. 
When one piece is sown, she again presses 
the pedal, and repeats the above process 
with a fresh seam. The glove-sewer usually 
begins by putting in the thumb with its 
gusset; she then sews the long seam from 
the wrist to the tip of the little finger, puts 
in the finger gussets, and sews the fingers. 
Some varieties of gloves do not have this 
long seam. We think the ingenuity which 
devised and perfected the McKay sole-sew- 
ing machine might devise a machine which 
should sew these gloves as perfectly as 
they are sown by hand, and with twenty 
times the rapidity. Automatic machines 
are a specialty of American inventors, and 
there was never a better opportunity for 
one than this. But to return to the French 
glove. When it is sown, the slit at the 
wrist is bound, the button-holes completed, 
buttons or some other fastening added, 
and a binding of white kid or some other 



finish put round the wrist. It is the rage 
now to wear gloves with from six to twelve 
buttons, sometimes extending half-way to 
the elbow. The glove being completed, is 
pressed and smoothed, the finger gussets 
folded back between the superior and in- 
ferior surfaces of the fingers, and the 
thumb bent across the palm. 

The old proverb, " There's nothing like 
leather," seems to hold good yet, though 
great and partially successful efforts have 
been made to substitute other materials 
and combinations for it. The most notice- 
able of these have been the " Pannus Cori- 
um," a composition kept secret, and now 
but little used; the hemp or flax leather, 
which by combination with certain resins 
makes a tolerable substitute for sole-leath- 
er; the artificial leather, which by chemical 
and mechanical processes is transformed 
from old leathern scraps into a homogen- 
eous material, and the modern preparations 
of papier-mache, which possesses the light- 
ness, durability, and imperviousness to 
moisture of leather itself. The Lmeolum 
or flax oil-cloth, in some of its forms, also 
makes a fair substitute for leather, as do 
some of the preparations of India-rubber 
and gutta-percha. But, after all, for many 
of the purposes for which it is indispensa- 
ble it is still true, that " there's nothing 
like leather." 



FIRE-ARMS, 



CHAPTER I. 

COLTS REVOLVERS — SHARP'S RIFLES — 
DAIILGREN'S GUNS. 

The improvements in fire-arms are making 
such rapid progress among civilized nations, 
that we may indulge the hope that they 
will soon cease to he wanted at all ; since, as 
extremes meet, they may become so effec- 
tual in their operation, and war reduced to 
such a science, that an attempt to fight will 
only be entire mutual destruction, like that 
most effectual combat between the two Kil- 
kenny cats. The Avar of I860 in Europe, in 
which Prussia, in seven weeks, broke the 
power of Austria, is an example of the 
force that may now be exerted in a short 
space of time, and the newly-invented needle- 
gun had a powerful agency in bringing 
matters to a close. After the invention of 
gunpowder in the fourteenth century, the 
art of gunnery made great progress, and the 
musket came to be the most important 
weapon. The Roman legions used the short 
stabbing sword as their favorite weapon. In 
the age of chivalry, the lance of the horse- 
man was the queen of weapons, and con- 
tinued so up to the battle of Pavia, in 1525, 
when chivalry made its last charge, and 
went down with the white panache of the 
gallant Francis I. From that time the ar- 
quebuse, then a matchlock, improved into a 
firelock, displaced the English bow, acquired 
the bayonet, and became, in its turn, the 
" queen of weapons." When the musket, 
or " Brown Bess," was furnished with per- 
cussion caps instead of flints, and the sword 
bayonet was added, there seemed to be little 
to hope for in the way of improvement. 
Since the " wars of the Roses" in England, 
nine-tenths of all the battles of the world 
have been decided by projectiles, artillery, 
and musketry, without crossing a bayonet or 
drawing a sword. The cavalry, as an arm, 
has continually lost ground, except in the 
rout of a defeat, when it follows up a fly- 
ing enemy. It never could break a square, 



even when armed only with pikes, and re- 
cent events have shown that it cannot reach 
infantry in line. 

A remarkable change has come over 
" Brown Bess" of late, and it seems now 
to have seen its best days. The rifle, or a 
screwed barrel, was among the first forms 
of the manufacture of small arms in the 
sixteenth century ; but the musket was pre- 
ferred, on account of its more speedy load- 
ing. The rifle was, however, the favorite 
with the American colonists, and its execu- 
tion in their hands during the Revolution 
brought it into general notice. The adding 
of the percussion cap was a great improve- 
ment to it. Recently it has become so im- 
proved as to supplant not only the old 
musket, but artillery also, since the events 
of the last few years have shown that it is 
easy to silence cannon by shooting down 
the gunners at their pieces, beyond the 
reach of grape. In the text-book of the 
St. Cyr Military School of France, it is 
directed that the fire of artillery should 
cease when the enemy is distant twelve 
hundred yards. At Waterloo, the opposing 
armies being twelve hundred yards distant, 
were out of reach of all but solid shot 
from field guns, as they were then served. 
It is now stated that the Minie rifle is effec- 
tive at a mile distant, and at two thousand 
yards troops can easily shoot each other. 
It follows, from these simple facts, that ar- 
tillery must improve or become ineffective. 
The improvements in the rifle were mostly 
in the ball. The French pin rifle had a 
small steel " pin" in the bottom of the 
chamber. The powder filled in around this 
pin, and the ball, of a conical shape, hollow 
at the base like a thimble, had a small metal 
plate, which, on being rammed home, struck 
against the pin, and spread the ball so as to 
slug the piece. The Minie rifle was nearly 
the same, without the pin, because it was 
found that the explosion would of itself 
spread the ball. The performances of this 
weapon are somewhat marvellous, since it is 



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COLTS REVOLVERS SHARPS RIFLES — DAHLGRENS GUNS. 



231 



said that it is effective at a distance of over a 
mile. 

The most important improvement in 
small arms has, however, been in repeating 
weapons, of which the revolvers of Mr. 
Samuel Colt are the type. Mr. Colt was a 
seaman in his youth, and while on a voyage 
to Calcutta devised the revolver. He made 
the model in wood, in 1829, while at sea. 
Improving upon this, he took out his first 
patent for fire-arms in 1835. This was for 
the rotating chambered breech. This of it- 
self was no new invention, since many of 
the old arms preserved in the tower of Lon- 
don have the same style of manufacture. It 
is obvious, however, that what is possible 
in this respect with percussion caps, was not 
so with the old flint-lock. Mr. Colt had the 
advantage of the cap, and his invention 
caused the chambers to revolve by the act 
of cocking. In 1851, he read an essay upon 
the subject before the Institution of En- 
gineers in London. Patents were issued in 
France, England, and the United States ; 
and in 1835 an armory was established at 
Paterson, N. J., but afterward abandoned. 
The first important use made of this new arm 
was in 1837, by the United States troops un- 
der Lieut. Col. (now Gen.) Harney. The In- 
dians were acquainted with a " one-fire" 
piece, but when they saw the troopers fire 
six times without loading, they thought it 
time to give in. There was not much de- 
mand for the arm until the Mexican war of 
1846-47, when a supply was required for 
Taylor's arcny. The government ordered 
1,000, and there was not a model to 
be found. This order was filled at Whit- 
neyville, near New Haven. Other orders 
followed, and the works were transferred to 
Hartford. Mr. Colt manufactured on his 
own account. The California fever set in, 
and was followed by the Australian excite- 
ment. The demand for arms thus occa- 
sioned, induced Colonel Colt to erect an 
armory unequalled in the world. It occupies 
what was a flooded meadow of two hundred 
and fifty acres. This is diked in for two 
miles, and the most extensive buildings 
have been erected, at a cost of $1,000,- 
000, to supply 1,000 fire-arms per da v. 
In 1858, 00,000 were turned out, All 
the accessories of these arms— halls, cart- 
ridges, bullet-moulds, powder-flasks, etc. — 
are manufactured at this place. There are 
also extensive works for the manufacture of 
the machinery by which fire-arms are made. 



It is to be remarked that at these works the 
machinery for the British government ar- 
mory at Enfield has been made ; and also 
all those for the Russian government at 
Tula. The arms of Colt attracted great 
attention at the World's Fair of London. 
"In whatever aspect the different observers 
viewed the American repeaters," says an ac- 
count of the impression they made at the 
Crystal Palace, " all agreed that perfection 
had been reached in the art of destruction. 
None were more astonished than the- Eng- 
lish, to find themselves so far surpassed in 
an art which they had studied and practiced 
for centuries, by a nation whose existence 
was within the memory of man, and whose 
greatest triumphs had been in the paths of 
peaceful industry. The Duke of Welling- 
ton was found often in the American depart- 
ment, pointing out the great advantage of 
these repeaters to other officers and his 
friends ; and the different scientific as well 
as popular journals of the country united in 
one common tribute of praise to the inge- 
nuity and genius of Colonel Colt. The In- 
stitute of Civil Engineers, one of the most 
highly scientific and practical boards of its 
kind in the world, invited Colonel Colt to 
read a paper before its members upon the 
subject of these arms, and two of its meet- 
ings were occupied in hearing him, and in 
discussing the merits of his invention." He 
was the first American inventor who was ever 
thus complimented by this celebrated in- 
stitute, and he received at its hands, for his 
highly able and interesting paper, the award 
of a gold medal and a life-membership. In 
addition to his presence before the institute, 
Colonel Colt, in high compliment to his ex- 
perience and skill, appeared also, upon 
special invitation, before a select committee 
on small arms of the British Parliament, 
and there gave testimony which was gladly 
received, and deemed of superior practical 
value. His own statements were amply 
corroborated at the time, before the same 
committee, by British officers, and others, 
who had visited his armory in America; 
ami especially by J. Nasmyth, the inventor 
of the celebrated steam hammer, who, in re- 
ply to the inquiry, what effect his visit to 
Colt's manufactory had upon his mind, an- 
swered: "It produced a very impressive 
effect, such as I shall never forget. The 
first impression was to humble me very con- 
siderably. I was in a maimer introduced to 
such a skilful extension of what 1 knew to 



232 



FIRE-ARMS. 



be correct principles, but extended in so 
masterly and wholesome a manner, as made 
me feel that we were very far behind in car- 
rying out what we knew to be good princi- 
ples. What struck me at Colonel Colt's 
was, that the acquaintance with correct prin- 
ciples had been carried out in a bold, in- 
genious way, and they had been pushed to 
their full extent ; and the result was the at- 
tainment of perfection and economy, such 
as I had never met with before." All tests 
and examinations to which the repeating 
arms were subjected in England, were highly 
in their favor. Emphatically they spoke for 
themselves. The enormous power — nay, the 
invincibility of British troops armed with 
them, was demonstrated. " The revolver 
manufactured by Colonel Colt," said the 
Dover Telegraph, a public journal, express- 
ing the best and almost universal opinion of 
England upon the arm, " is a weapon that 
cannot be improved upon. It will, we un- 
hesitatingly predict, prove a panacea for the 
ills we have so unhappily encountered in the 
southern hemisphere. The Caffrc hordes will 
bitterly rue the day on which the first ter- 
rific discharge is poured upon their sable 
masses." And so a panacea the revolver did 
prove, both with the Caffre hordes, and 
with the Muscovite also, upon the bloody 
plains of the Crimea. Over 40,000 of these 
pistols are now in use in the British navy ; 
and Garibaldi has been ably sustained by a 
corps commanded by Colonel Peard, and 
armed with Colt's revolving rifles. 

The most important progress in the man- 
ufacture of these arms, is that each separate 
part of a pistol or carbine is made after one 
pattern by machinery, and with such entire 
accuracy, that a number of the weapons may 
be taken to pieces, and any part of one will fit 
any of the others. Each separate part is 
made perfect of itself, and separate boxes 
contain these parts. The weapons are put 
together rapidly when wanted. There has 
been a gradual improvement in them, from 
suggestions derived from their use in Mexico, 
the Crimea, and Italy. It is now a world- 
renowned weapon. 

The great success of Colt has, of course, 
brought forth imitations, and repeating arms 
of many descriptions have been patent- 
ed. Very many are infringements on Colt. 
There are Allen's, Derringer's, the Volcano, 
and other pistols, and Pettinger's patent, 
which has a revolving chamber, and also a 
patent lock of some reputation. 



There has been for some fifteen or twenty 
years past a constantly-increasing predilec- 
tion for breech-loading fire-arms, and espe- 
cially rifles. Breech-loading guns may be 
divided into two general classes ; those winch 
may be loaded with loose powder and ball, 
or a paper, linen, or tin-foil cartridge fired 
with a cap or primer; and tho^e which use 
a metallic cartridge having the fulminating 
composition in its base and fired directly by 
a blow of the hammer on the cartridge. One 
of the earliest, as well as one of the most 
successful of the first class is the invention 
of Mr. Christian Sharps, of Philadelphia, 
generally known as Sharps' Rifle. The barrel 
of this is of cast-steel, and its chamber or 
ball-scat is counter-bored, slightly conical, 
the exact shape and diameter of the conical 
ball, so that when it is properly forced to its 
seat, it has its axis exactly coincident with 
that of the bore. It is self-priming with 
Sharps' primer, but can be used with the 
ordinary army percussion-cap. They are 
made of two lengths, 24 and 30-inch barrels, 
and of different calibres from 0.35 in. to 0.52 
inch. For military purposes this is an excel- 
lent weapon, especially for cavalry use ; of 
sure fire, sufficiently accurate for practical 
purposes, capable of being fired rapidly, of 
long rantje and with high-penetrating power. 
For sporting purposes it is surpassed in ac- 
curacy, especially at long range, by two or 
three other guns. 

The " Merrill " rifle is another breech- 
loader, using the paper cartridge and the 
ordinary percussion cap, and so simple in 
construction, that muzzle-loading arms can 
be changed to breech-loaders on its plan 
with but small expense and without altera- 
tion of their appearance or strength. It is 
of long range, easily and rapidly loaded, and 
accurate in its fire. 

"Greene's rifle," invented in 1857 by Lieut. 
Col. J. Durell Greene, U. S. A., is a breech- 
loader, admirably adapted for military use, 
but of different construction from either of 
the preceding ; rifled on the Lancaster plan, 
i. e. having an elliptical barrel, with a turn 
of three-fourths in the length of the barrel, 
and no grooves. A cylinder of iron contain- 
ing a breech-plug which slides backward ami 
forward within it, is inserted at the breech 
of the barrel, and moved forward by a pro- 
jecting knob, which moves in a slot on the 
top of the barrel, till it closes the breech, 
when it is turned to the right and secured in 
place by shoulders. The knob is held by a 



■M 



FIRE ARMS. 



231 



catch, which may be loosened by pressing a 
pin at the breech of the barrel. The ham- 
per is on the under side, in front of the 
guard, and the nipple is so arranged that the 
fire is first communicated at the forward end 
of the cartridge, thus insuring the ignition 
of all the powder. The cartridge has the 
bullet in its base, with a greased wad be- 
tween it and the powder, which, with the 
bullet, packs the joint perfectly at every dis- 
charge, and prevents the slightest escape of 
gas. After each discharge this bullet is 
pushed forward by the breech-plug to the 
end of the chamber, the cylinder is then 
drawn back, and the cartridge inserted in 
the slot which is thus opened. The cylinder 
is then pushed forward, pressing the car- 
tridge before it, and the knob being turned 
to the side and the nipple capped, the gun 
is ready to fire. The construction and move- 
ment are perfectly simple, and the gun is 
well adapted for rough usage. 

Tlie " Maynard rifle" is a great favorite 
with sportsmeu and almost equally so with 
army officers. It was invented in 1851, but 
has been somewhat improved in form and 
some of its minor details since. Its mech- 
anism is very simple, but wonderfully inge- 
nious. The barrel is attached very firmly to 
the stock, yet the removal of a single pin 
disconnects it, and the whole gun, with all 
its attachments and a supply of extras in case 
of necessity may be packed in a space 20 
inches by 6, and one inch deep. Its pene- 
trating power, though sufficient for all ordi- 
nary purposes, is not quite equal to that of 
the Colt, Spencer, Greene, or Sharps, but its 
range is as great as either and its accuracy 
superior to almost any other. It is ordina- 
rily used with a metallic cartridge very well 
made, and which is capable of remarkable 
execution, but these cartridges when empty 
can be filled by the rifleman expeditiously, 
or by the use of a charger, always accompa- 
nying the rifle, loose powder and ball may 
be used. Instead of a percussion cap, Dr. 
Maynard's primer, a narrow strip of varnished 
paper of double thickness, having deposits 
of fulminating powder in cqui-distant cells 
between the thicknesses of the paper, three 
dozen of which are coiled in a magazine 
concealed beneath the lock-plate, and brought 
up by a wheel in the act of cocking; the fall 
of the hammer explodes the cell and cuts off 
the paper behind it. Of 250 shots fired with 
this rifle at a distance of 500 yards (1,500 
feet,) 214 struck within a space 5. ft. by 5 ft. 



on the target, and 40 within a circle 2 ft. in 
diameter. 

The rifles using a self-exploding metallic 
cartridge may be divided into two classes; 
those loaded with a single cartridge and re- 
quiring to be recharged for every shot ; and 
those having a magazine and arrangement 
for repeating their fire without reloading. 
Of the first class, two weapons have attained 
a deserved reputation, F. Wesson's breech* 
loading rifle, and the " Ballard rifle." The 
Wesson rifle is well made, accurate, has a 
long range and a fair penetrating power. It 
lacks an arrangement for throwing out the 
empty cartridge after firing, if it adheres, as 
it sometimes does. The firing both by this 
and the Ballard are quite rapid, the motions 
for reloading being few and simple. 

The "Ballard rifle" has a good reputa- 
tion. It is simple in its construction, of 
somewhat less initial velocity and penetrating 
power than the Wesson, but sufficient in 
both for all practical purposes. The ordinary 
military rifle of this pattern is so arranged 
that it can be used at will either with the 
metallic cartridge or the ordinary soldier's 
cartridge fired with a percussion cap. When 
the metallic cartridge is used, there is a fin- 
ger piece under the barrel which throws out 
the empty cartridge. 

Of the repeating rifles, there are two, beside 
Colt's, which is constructed on the same gen- 
eral principle as his pistols. It is a very ef- 
fective weapon, and is much liked by sports- 
men for hunting large game. Like all the 
Colt weapons, these are manufactured with 
great care and are surpassed by none in the 
world in the perfection and exactness of their 
finish. The other two best known repeating 
rifles are on entirely different principles, and 
during the war and since, have won a very 
high reputation. 

The Spencer repeating rifle was patented 
in the United States in March, 1800, and in 
Europe the same year. While a breech- 
loader, it repeats its fire seven times, having 
a magazine with a double sheathing of metal 
located in the butt of the gun, and thrown 
forward into the barrel by springs so rapidly 
and unerringly that if there is a single car- 
tridge in the magazine it never misses fire, 
and an ordinarily skilled marksman can dis- 
charge the seven loads in twelve seconds. 
Its range is enormous. It will throw a ball 
with fair accuracy two thousand yards, (over 
a mile,) and at a distance of one hundred 
and fifty feet will penetrate through 13 



234 



FIRE ARMS. 



inches of timber, and at the same number 
of yards will penetrate over 1 inches. Its 
charge of powder is but litt'e more than 
half the IT. S. regulation charge. In the 
war this rifle did terrible execution; at 
Ball's Bluff one regiment of the confeder- 
ates were armed with it, and to them was 
due the frightful slaughter of that bloody 
field. At Gettysburg, where a part of Gen. 
Geary's troops were armed with the Spen- 
cer, the attack on them by a division of 
Ewell's (shortly before Stonewall Jack- 
son's) Corps on the night of the 2d of July, 
was repulsed by a greatly inferior force 
with terrific destruction of life. An eye- 
witness said of it, that " the head of the 
column, as it was pushed on by those behind, 
appeared to melt away or sink into the 
earth, for though continually moving it 
got no nearer." In the western army the 
same result followed its use; a regiment 
armed with it being a match for a division 
with the ordinary Springfield musket. 

" Henry's repeating rifle " is also a very 
formidable weapon. Its magazine, a metal 
tube on the under side of the barrel, con- 
tains fifteen metallic cartridges, and is 
opened for their admission and propulsion 
by a ring or sleeve, also of metal, which 
turns upon the barrel, and is connected by 
a spring with the carrier-block, and each 
cartridge in turn placed on this and raised 
to the level of the chamber by the action 
of cocking the gun, when a reverse move- 
ment of the guard forces it into the cham- 
ber ready for firing. The fifteen shots can 
be fired in less than eleven seconds, and 
120 shots in 5 minutes and 45 seconds, in- 
cluding the time spent in recharging the 
magazine. The magazine is in some dan- 
ger of being bent or battered by a chance 
shot in battle, so as not to deliver its car- 
tridges promptly, and while the "sleeve" 
at the muzzle interferes with its value for 
sporting purposes, it, and its European im- 
provement, the Martini-Henry rifle, are 
among the best army weapons in existence. 

The unrifled musket as a military arm 
is now abandoned. Three military com- 
missions were called, in 1866, 1869, and 
1872, presided over respectively by Gen. 
Hancock, Gen. Schofield, and Gen. Terry, 
to determine what was the best form, 
model, and calibre for rifles for army ser- 
vice, and whether the arm should be breech- 
loading or muzzle-loading. The first com- 
mission examined 22 varieties of breech- 



loading muskets and 1 7 varieties of breech- 
loading carbines, and reported in favor of 
breech-loaders, but deemed all the patterns 
susceptible of further improvements. The 
second commission examined 34 varieties 
of breech-loading muskets, 8 varieties of 
carbines, and 8 of pistols, and recommended 
the Remington, Springfield, and Sharps's 
systems of breech loading as superior to 
others (in the order named) and alone suit- 
able for adoption by the government, with- 
out further trial in the hands of troops. In 
1870, muskets and carbines of each of 
these three systems, and also of the Ward- 
Burton system of magazine breech-loader 
were prepared and placed in the hands of 
companies of infantry and cavalry for com- 
parative trial in service during a period of 
not less than twelve months, reports to be 
made regularly every month by company 
commanders, and at the end of the time 
appointed to be laid before a board of offi- 
cers chosen to select a suitable breech-load- 
ing arm for adoption for the military ser- 
vice. Meanwhile the Springfield armory, 
a government institution which had made 
muskets of great excellence before the war, 
and which had in its employ some of the 
most accomplished machinists in the world, 
was exerting itself, as were its rivals, to 
make a rifled musket as absolutely perfect 
for its purposes as was possible. The third 
commission met in Sept., 1872, alternately 
at New York and Springfield; they had 
before them 99 varieties of American 
breech-loading muskets, and 9 varieties 
which were in use by one or more foreign 
nations. After eight months of careful 
investigation the commission reported, rec- 
ommending that "the Springfield breech- 
loading system be adopted for the military 
service." The recommendation was ap- 
proved, and all United States troops are 
supplied with these arms. The wisdom of 
this selection is now generally conceded. 
The following is the description of the 
Springfield model. The barrel is of "low 
steel " (Bessemer or other), calibre 45 ins., 
rifled with three concentric grooves of 
equal widths with the bands, and of uni- 
form depth of .005 of an inch, and uniform 
twist of one complete turn in 22 inches. 
The lock-plate is 0.175 inch thick, and let 
in flush. The exterior metal-work is 
browned (except the bayonet). An open 
swivel is attached to the Merrill upper-band 
for stacking arms, instead of locking bayo 



FIRE ARMS. 



235 



nets as heretofore ; also, a "trowel-bayonet" 
and " intrenching tool " proposed. Length 
of rifle barrel, including roceiver, 3 6 inches ; 
of the carbine, 25.4 inches. Length of 
rifle bayonet 18 inches; crook of stock, 2h 
inches, and distance from butt to trigger, 
13£ inches. Total length of rifle, without 
bayonet, 51.9 inches; of carbine, 41.3 ins.; 
weight of rifle, without bayonet, 8.38 lbs.; 
of carbine, 6.87 lbs. Triggers adjusted to 
pull at six to eight pounds. As in all the 
best small arms, all the parts are inter- 
changeable. 

Details of practice : Rapidity of fire, 
using service cartridge box, 1 2 to 1 3 times 
per minute ; a very skillful expert has fired 
23 times per minute. Drift, or deflection 
of the projectile to the right, for the rifle 
at 500 yards is 25 inches. Initial velocity 
of rifle-ball, with 70 grains of powder, 
1,350 feet; of carbine ball, with 55 grains 
of powder, 1,100 feet. Pressure per square 
inch, 19,000 pounds. Force of recoil with 
rifle with service charge, 174 pounds; of 
carbine with service charge, 155 pounds; 
of carbine with rifle charge, 182 pounds. 
Penetration into white pine (one inch cor- 
responds in force with that producing dan- 
gerous wounds upon the body), with the 
rifle at 100 yards, 17.2 inches; with the 
carbine, 14.5 inches; with the rifle at 1,200 
yards, 3.7 inches, a range sufficient to make 
it a most formidable weapon. Its penetrat- 
ing power at 1,200 yards, almost three- 
fourths of a mile, is sufficient to produce a 
fatal wound. The Cadet rifle, also made 
at Springfield, is a little shorter and lighter 
than the infantry rifle musket. 

It is worthy of notice that several of the 
European governments, though of course 
they do not adopt our Springfield rifle, 
have yet adopted those invented by Amer- 
ican mechanics. This is especially the 
case with Great Britain, which in its Mar- 
tini-Henry has taken up with a modifica- 
tion of our Henry rifle. Turkey adopts 
the same, and, moreover, has most of its 
rifles made here; Spain has adopted the 
Remington system, and Denmark and 
Sweden have followed her example. Most 
of these are made here. Russia has the 
Berdan rifle, but, we believe, now manu- 
factures it at home. Most of the European 
governments use the Colt's revolvers, as 
does our own army in part, the Schofield, 
Smith & Wesson, and the Remington re- 
volvers being its only competitors. 



The lapse of twelve years since a part of 
this article was written has necessarily 
brought about some changes in small ar.i s 
not intended exclusively for military use, 
as well as in those which are. Col. Colt 
has passed away, but the Colt Fire Arms 
Company remains, and has enlarged and 
extended its- works. The Sharps' Rifle 
Company has, we believe, removed its prin- 
cipal works from Hartford, but has been 
succeeded by others; and among the later 
inventions and manufacturers of fire arms, 
and especially of rifles, carbines, and revol- 
vers, are the Remington Arms Co., of 
Ilion, N. Y., the Winchester Rifle Co., of 
New Haven, Ct, which manufactures the 
Winchester rifle, and the Providence Tool 
Co., of Providence, R. I., which make the 
Peabody rifle. 

The Sharps, Remington, Winchester, and 
Peabody rifles have been those principally 
used in the international target-shooting 
contests, in which our riflemen have so 
uniformly carried off the prizes. The use 
of metallic cartridges for our rifles, which 
began during our civil war, is now gener- 
ally adopted, and has added very much to 
the precision of our rifle practice. 

Among new inventions of breech-load- 
ing pistols is that of Stafford, of New 
Haven. The conical ball, as in the case 
of all breech-loading arms, is fixed ready 
for use in a copper cartridge, which is 
dropped from the left hand into the barrel 
when the pistol is held by the right hand. 
The barrel being attached to the stock by 
a hinge, is opened to receive the ball. 
Then, on throwing the barrel into line with 
the breech, by an upward jerk of the right 
hand, it is ready for use. There is a spring 
catch in front of the hammer of the lock 
which catches the barrel and holds it in 
position until the pistol is discharged. 
When the thumb is brought down on the 
catch, the barrel is disengaged, and, by a 
jerk, is thrown into position for reloading 
— the whole operation of loading and firing 
being accomplished in a small fraction of 
the time required to describe it. This 
must be so, for an expert can fire sixteen 
shots a minute with this pistol. The 
arrangement of sights is also complete, so 
that any object can be exactly covered by a 
marksman with precision, and the penetra- 
tion and force with which the ball is pro- 
jected can hardly be realized by those who 
have not experimented with it. 



236 



CANNON. 



Cannon. — In 1S60 the first of the many 
recent patents for breech-loading cannon 
was issued in the United States, France, 
and England. By this a ball cartridge is 
dropped into the gun by an opening in the 
breech, a pin moves forward, pushing the 
cartridge, closing the hole by which it en- 
tered, and discharging the piece by percus- 
sion powder. After careful and protracted 
trials, however, it ha.s been very definitely 
settled, both in England and the United 
States, that no breech-loading cannon thus 
far constructed is either safe or effective. 

The whole subject of ordnance, from its 
elements to its highest principles, has been 
carefully and profoundly studied " since 
1858. Many volumes have been written 
on the subject, and a great variety of 
methods of constructing guns have been 
tried, some with a greater measure of suc- 
cess than others, but it cannot be said that 
any of them as yet in all respects come up 
to the true ideal of a piece of ordnance. 
The exigencies which have grown out of 
the use of armored ships, have considera- 
bly complicated the matter. For naval 
service and for sea-coast or river forts, 
fortresses and batteries, it is requisite that 
the cannon should be very strong, of tena- 
cious metal, free from liability to burst; of 
long range, and large calibre; if rifled, the 
missile thrown by it should have a high in- 
itial velocity, and great smashing or per- 
forating power; the gun should be capable 
of efficient and tolerably accurate service at 
a distance of not less than five miles. Siege 
guns require very nearly the same quali- 
ties. For field service, in movable bat- 
teries and sections, smaller guns, usually 
those carrying balls weighing twelve, twen- 
ty, twenty-four, thirty, forty, or fifty-six 
pounds, are most in demand, and those of 
bronze, brass, steel, or wrought-iron, have 
generally proved serviceable, though the 
breech-loading principle has never been 
iound very serviceable, even in the smaller 
cannon. 

In the way of heavy guns, the English 
government have expended many millions 
in experimenting with Sir William Arm- 
strong's guns — breech-loaders built up 
with successive layers of hoops and jackets, 
and which have proved a costly failure, 
being more dangerous to the gunners who 
served them, from their leakage and ten- 
dency to explode, than to the enemy. 
After many experiments Sir "William 



changed his gun to a muzzle-loader, but its 
construction, though much improved by 
the modifications of Mr. Fraser, and ren- 
dered much less liable to explode, was not 
very satisfactory. An exception should be 
made perhaps m favor of the nine-inch cal- 
ibre Fraser gun, which Gen. Barry, U.S.A., 
chief of artillery, pronounces, for its size 
and weight, the most efficient gun in the 
world. Whitworth's guns have come 
nearer to the true standard of excellence. 
They are constructed of homogeneous iron 
(a mild steel), and hooped with steel; can 
be used at will as muzzle or breech-loaders; 
the bore is hexagonal, and the rifling about 
one turn in ten or twelve inches. The 
missiles are a long flat-fronted steel-headed 
projectile (whether shot or shell), and from 
the rapid rifling revolve with almost incon- 
ceivable velocity. The gun is an expen- 
sive one to make, and can only be used 
with its proper projectile, but it possesses 
great merits. The Blakely gun was con- 
structed on a different plan, its core being 
a steel tube, thickest in the middle and 
tapering towards each end, on which hoops 
of iron were driven. The bore was oval, 
but with four or five turns in the length of 
the gun. It was too apt to explode to be 
very safe. The Lancaster gun was the 
first to make use of the oval bore for rifling, 
but made fewer turns and did better service. 

It can hardly be said, however, that in 
large ordnance England has produced the 
model gun. France has attempted the 
transformation of her bronze smooth-bores 
into rifled guns by what is known as the 
Palliser method — inserting a steel tube in 
the bore of a bronze or cast-iron gun, and 
screwing it in place by screws of great 
strength. This plan has been adopted 
with some of our cast-iron guns, and con- 
verts them into rifle guns of considerable 
power and endurance. 

The method of Mr. Francis Krupp, of 
Essen, Prussia, is to fabricate the body of 
his gun from a solid ingot of low steel 
worked under heavy steam-hammers. The 
gun is strengthened by three or more steel 
tubes, which are shrunk upon the central 
tube or mass of the gun, the last ring or 
tube enclosing the breech being forged in 
one piece with the trunnions, and made 
without any weld. The rings are of differ- 
ent lengths, as is usual with built-up guns, 
and the whole gun is diminished in thick- 
ness toward the muzzle, not by tapering, 



CANNON. 



237 



but by being turned with concentric steps 
of diminished heights. Besides several 
thousand field guns, Ilerr Krupp has fab- 
ricated more than 2,000 of G-inch, 7-inch, 
8-inc'.i, 9-inch, 11-inch, 12-inch, and 14-inch 
calibre, and more recently has made one of 
20-inch, which sends out a projectile weigh- 
ing over 2,000 pounds. All his guns are 
rifled. The first of his 14-inch guns re- 
quired sixteen months of continuous labor 
night and day, and with its carriage and 
the turn-table (both of steel) on which it is 
mounted, cost $110,000. It had stood the 
test of 170 pounds of prismatic powder 
and a 1,200-pound projectile. At the be- 
ginning of the civil war (1861-65) we had 
no rifled cannon, and but very few of the 
European powers had any that were ser- 
viceable — Whitwcrth's and Krupp's being 
the only rifled artillery which had attained 
any reputation, and Armstrong's experi- 
ments being so far unsatisfactory. Some 
of our ordnance officers, both in the navy 
and army, and notably Captain (afterwards 
Admiral) Dahlgren, U. S. N., Capt. (after- 
wards G-en.) T. J. Rodman, U. S. A., and 
Capt. (afterwards Gen.) R. P. Parrott, had 
been experimenting for several years in re- 
gard to the best methods of constructing 
artillery for field, siege, and fortification 
use. Their material was cast-iron, though 
Capt. Parrott had been using reinforces of 
wrought-iron to strengthen the rifled guns 
he was constructing. No steel, bronze, or 
brass was used, except for the light guns 
of the field batteries. All the guns except 
Parrott's were smooth-bores, and, of their 
class, were perhaps equal in range and en- 
durance to those manufactured in Europe. 
At the commencement of the war, there 
were in the various arsenals, forts, and bat- 
teries, 1,052 sioge and sea-coast guns, of 
all sizes and calibres, and 231 pieces of 
field artillery equally varied in character. 
Of the heavy guns, the greater part were 
Cohunbiad's, invented by Colonel Romford, 
U. S. A., in 1812-14, and which some 
years later were introduced into France by 
Gen. Paixhans, and called there Paixhans. 
Later still they were further improved by 
Col. Bomford. They were in their day 
guns of good repute, but their day had 
past. A few were Rodman's guns, per- 
haps the best smooth-bore gun then knowr. 
They were cast hollow with a core which 
was kept filled with cold water, the exterior 
being kept from rapid cooling by fires 



built around the gun in the casting pit. 
"These guns were further distinguished 
by great thickness of metal at the breech, 
by graceful curves of their exterior lines, 
by the absence of all exterior ornamenta- 
tion, sharp angles or edges, and of the cas- 
cable and swell of the muzzle, and by hav 
ing the trunnions at the center of gravity, 
thus doing away with preponderance, and 
greatly facilitating the service of the gun. 
At first, the Rodmans were all smooth- 
bores, but soon after the war commenced 
some of them were rifled. The calibres of 
the smooth-bores were 8 inches, 10 inches, 
13 inches, 15 inches, and 20 inches, and of 
the rifles, 8 inches (corresponding exterior- 
ly to the 10-inch smooth-bore), 10 inches 
(to 13-inch smooth-bore), and 12 inches (to 
1 5 -inch smooth-bore), three dimensions of 
carriage thus answering for six guns. All 
Rodman guns are adapted to the use of 
solid as well as hollow projectiles. The 
15-inch Rodman gun weighs 25 tons, the 
solid shot 450 pounds, and the powder 
charge 100 pounds of mammoth powder. 
The 20 -inch Rodman weighs 58 tons, its 
solid shot 1,060 pounds, and its powder 
charge 180 pounds of mammoth powder. 
These guns have done excellent service, 
and from their very heavy breech have 
burst less frequently than any other gun. 
For crushing or smashing power at short 
range, no gun could be more effective than 
the smooth-bore Rodman. The rifled guns 
have a much longer range, but are hardly 
so accurate as the Parrotts. 

The smaller guns at the commencement 
of the war were partly Rodmans, but a 
larger number were howitzers — a modifi- 
cation of the Bomford columbiad — and a 
considerable number were imported brass 
or bronze guns. The Navy Department re- 
ported at that time 2,966 guns ashore and 
afloat of all qualities, sizes, and calibres. 
Of these, 2,008 ranged from 32-pounders 
down to pound swivels, and 958 were 8, 9, 
10, and 11 -inch guns of a variety of pat- 
terns; 356 being 9, 10, and 11-inch Dahl- 
grens. The burning of the navy yard at 
Portsmouth destroyed nearly half of these 
guns, and of the remainder not more than 
420 were fit for service. Capt, (afterwards 
Admiral) Dahlgren, who had been for 
some years constructing guns for naval 
use, redoubled his diligence at this junc- 
ture, and produced as rapidly as possible 
guns of all grades for navy use. His how- 



238 



CANNON 



itzcrs were and still are a favorite gun for 
the smaller vessels, steam launches, etc., of 
the navy, hut he is best known by his 
larger guns, constructed on much the same 
principles. "His guns," says Gen. Barry, 
"are of cast-iron, cast solid, and cooled 
from the exterior; they are of great thick- 
ness at the breech and as far forward as 
the trunnions, and from thence to the muz- 
zle rapidly diminishing in thickness, so that 
their external configuration is not unlike 
that of a champagne bottle. The larger 
guns are chiefly of 9-inch and 11-inch cali- 
bre, and are adapted exclusively for hollow 
projectiles. A 10 -inch Dahlgren for firing 
solid shot has, however, been put in ser- 
vice. The 15-inch and 20-inch naval guns, 
though they have in a great degree the ex- 
terior form of the Dahlgren, are cast hoi 
low, cooled from the inside, and have the 
elliptical bottom of the bore, which are 
characteristic features of the Rodman plan. 
The 9-inch, 10-inch, and 11-inch Dahlgren 
guns have the bottom of the bore in the 
conical form of what is known as the ' Go- 
th er chamber.' " The range of the 1 1-mch 
Dahlgren is considerably more than a mile. 
The performance of a few of the Whit- 
worth and Krupp rifled guns soon created 
a demand for rifled cannon in the Union 
army. There were several competitors, but 
the great cost of the experiments necessary 
to test the guns, and the total failures of 
some of them reduced the number materi- 
ally. Gen. James, of Rhode Island, had 
invented, but not perfected, a rifled can- 
non just before the war, and his death 
caused by its explosion prevented further 
attempts to complete it. Messrs. Ames, of 
Chicopee, Mass., distinguished founders, 
and men of extraordinary mechanical skill 
and the highest character, expended large 
sums in endeavoring to perfect a wrought- 
iron gun, but it failed to meet the require- 
ments of the government. Gen. Roberts 
constructed a rifled cannon of considerable 
merit, but it proved inadequate under some 
of the tests to which it was subjected. 
Capt. Parrott, at that time superintendent 
of the government foundry at Cold Spring, 
opposite West Point, was more successful 
than any of his competitors in meeting and 
overcoming all the obstacles to the produc- 
tion of an effective rifled cannon. In the 
Parrott method the body of the piece, or 
rather the gun itself, is of cast-iron, cast 
hollow, and cooled from the inside (after 



the plan of Rodman) for the larger calibres, 
and strengthened about the seat of the 
charge by an exterior tube of wrought-iron 
bars spirally coiled and shrunk on. For 
this purpose, this portion of the gun is 
turned down to a cylindrical form. Be- 
sides his field guns of three inches (10- 
pounder), and 3.62 inches (20 pounder), 
and his siege gun of 4.2 ins. (30-pounder), 
Captain Parrott constructed sea-coast and 
ship guns of G.4 inches (100-pounder), 8 
inches (2 00 -pounder), and 10 inches (300- 
pounder). His mode of rifling is the in- 
creasing or gaining twist. 

The smaller calibres, 10, 20, 30, and 60- 
pounders, were subjected to very hard ser- 
vice in the late war, and were wonderfully 
tenacious, very few of them bursting even 
when overloaded or discharged with great 
rapidity. The larger calibres, 100, 200, 
and 300-pounders, were most severely 
tested at the siege of Charleston, and some 
of these burst, though in most cases from 
the premature explosion of the shells with 
which they were charged. Their range 
was very great. In this siege they threw 
solid shot and shell with great accuracy at 
an elevation of 35° as follows: the 100- 
pounder, 8,453 yards — almost five miles; 
the 200-pounder, a solid shot weighing 150 
pounds, 9,000 yards — five and one-sixth 
miles; and the 300-pounder, with a 250- 
pound projectile, five and one-fourth miles. 
The Parrott projectile, which has added 
greatly to the efficiency of these guns in 
both range and accuracy, is of peculiar 
form, elongated, and with its coating of 
lead or soft brass, which swedges readily 
in the grooves, is somewhat in the shape of 
a ten pin. The Parrott gun has some de- 
fects, but, as tested by actual service, it 
possesses the excellent qualities of consid- 
erable endurance, general serviceable- 
ness, great range, and remarkable accuracy 
in a degree equalled only by the Krupp 
guns, while its cost is hardly one-fourth of 
these, especially in the larger calibres. 

When the iron gun, whether cast solid 
or hollow, has been dressed and drilled, it 
is ready to be proved, which is done in this 
country by testing the strength of a cylin- 
der of the iron an inch in diameter and 
two inches long, cut out of the cannon, for- 
merly from one of the trunnions, but now 
from the barrel near the muzzle. The 
specific gravity and other properties of the 
sample are carefully noted, and these, to- 




NEW MODEL FIVE BARRELED GATLING GUN. WEIGHT. 97 POUNDS. 

Exhibted by Gatling Gun Company, Hartford, Conn., aa a practical military machine gun, tho 
Gatlinq has no equal. It fires from 800 to 1,000 shots per minute with great accuracy. Various calibres 
are made, mostly having ten barrels, the larger having an effective range of over two miles. It has been 
adopted by nearly all the principal governments of the world. It received the only prize medal and 
award given for machine guns at the Centennial Exhibition. 



241 



gether with the trials to which it is sub- 
jected, and the hardness of the metal de- 
termined by a very exact method, give 
correct indications of the strength of the 
gun, without the necessity of submitting it 
to extreme proof by firing with constantly- 
increasing charges until the piece is de- 
stroyed. Indeed to such perfection have 
these proofs been brought, that guns have 
been selected as of inferior quality from 
among a large lot, which, on reference to 
the books of the foundry, were found to 
have been the only ones of the lot made of 
hot blast iron. According to the indica- 
tions furnished by the tests, several guns 
are usually taken from each large lot of 
them to be submitted to extreme proof — 
the selection being generally of those that 
appear to be the poorest, best, and inter- 
mediate qualities. These are fired com- 
monly with charges of powder equal to 
one-fourth the weight of the ball, with one 
shot and one junk wad over it. The firing 
is continued, unless the piece previously 
bursts, to 500 rounds. Then one ball 
more is added with every discharge, till 
the bore is filled. The powder is after- 
wards doubled in quantity, and the bore 
filled with shot at each discharge. When 
it bursts, pieces are selected for further ex- 
amination from the breech, near the trun- 
nions, and the chase. Guns are also tested 
by hydrostatic pressure, water being forced 
into the bore with increasing pressure, till 
it sometimes bursts the piece, or brings to 
light its hidden defects by opening the 
small fissures that were concealed in the 
metal. It is not uncommon for it to ap- 
pear upon the exterior of pieces, of which 
the thickness of the metal is four inches, 
exuding through as a thin froth, which 
collects upon the outside, and forms drops 
and little streams. By this method the ex- 
act pressure applied is known, and may be 
gradually increased to any desired degree. 
Sample bars are also cast together with the 
cannon, which furnish some indication of 
the strength of the metal. The different 
rates of cooling of the large and small 
mass, however, render their qualities some- 
what dissimilar. 

Extended experiments have shown that 
gunpowder can be greatly improved by in- 
creased care m the selection and manipu- 
lation of its ingredients, and by greater 
uniformity in the form and size of its 
grains; and it has been further demon- 



strated, that it is essential to vary the size 
of the grain for different calibres of can- 
non, that is to say, a large giained or slow- 
er-burning gunpowder is more advanta- 
geous for the larger cannon since it gives 
increased initial velocity with decreased 
pressure on the walls of the gun. Gun- 
powder in the U. S. service is now classi- 
fied into five kinds: 1, Rifle powder, for 
pistols and carbines; 2, Musket, for rifled 
muskets; 3, Mortar, for field and siege guns 
and mortars; 4, Cannon, for the smaller 
calibres of sea coast guns; 5, Mammoth, 
for 15-inch and larger guns. These im- 
provements in the manufacture of mam- 
moth powder have been so marked, that 
with charges of similar weights the initial 
velocity of a 15-inch projectile has been in- 
creased from 1,300 or 1,400 feet per sec- 
ond, with a pressure of 40,000 to 60,000 
pounds to the square inch, to 1,800 feet 
per second, with a pressure of less than 
30,000 pounds per square inch. This has 
greatly increased the range and diminished 
the danger of the cannon's bursting. 

The exigencies of the late war, as well 
as those of tho frontier warfare with the 
Indians, demanded what may properly be 
called a battery of rifles. This want had 
been felt before both in Europe and this 
country, and attempts had been made to 
supply it, with no great success till 1862, 
when Dr. R. J. Gatling, now of Hartford, 
Conn., invented the machine gun since 
known as the Gatling gun. Both the 
French and Germans used in the Franco- 
Prussian war of 1870 machine guns of a 
somewhat analogous construction, known 
as the Mitrailleuse and the Kugelspitzen re- 
spectively; but the Gatling is the most 
simple and effective weapon of its class. 
It consists of a number (usually ten) of 
simple breech-loading rifled barrels grouped 
around and revolving about a common 
axis with which they lie parallel. These 
component barrels are loaded and fired 
while revolving, the empty cartridge shells 
being ejected in continuous succession. 
Each barrel is fired only once in a revolu- 
tion, so that the Gatling gun fires ten times 
in one revolution of the barrels. An ac- 
tive man can turn the crank with suffic 
rapidity to make forty revolutions a min- 
ute for several minutes together, and thus 
deliver 400 rifle shots a minute. The 
working of the gun is simple. One man 
places one end of a feed-case containing 



242 



CANNON. 



forty metallic cartridges, of the kind iised 
in the Springfield rifle and other small 
arms, in a hopper at the top of the gun, re- 
newing the supply as fast as used, while 
another man turns a crank by which the 
gun is revolved. If the feeding is kept up 
steadily, and the crank is steadily turned, 
the gun will discharge a constant stream 
of fire, which, by the aid of a contrivance 
called the oscillator, will make terrible 
havoc with an approaching column, wheth- 
er of infantry or cavalry. The mechanism 
by which the successive charges are made 
to fall into place and are discharged with 
such rapidity, and with the utmost safety 
from accident, is very ingenious, yet simple. 
It cannot well be explained without several 
drawings, but it reflects the highest credit 
on the inventor. 

Gen. Q. A. Gilmore says: The advan- 
tages possessed by this gun are the light- 
ness of its parts; the simplicity and 
strength of its mechanism ; the rapidity and 
continuity of its fire without sensible re- 
coil; its effectiveness against troops; its 
general accuracy at all ranges attainable 
by rifles; its comparative independence of 
the excitements of battle; the interchange- 
ableness of its ammunition with that of 
the same calibre of small arms, and its 
great endurance. Of course, it cannot sup- 
ply the lack of cannon in a siege, or of the 
large cannon in length of range; nor can 
it deliver a curved fire, or prove effective 
against troops in rifle-pits, or behind block- 
houses or heavy woods; but it is peculiarly 
adapted to the defense of entrenched posi- 
tions and villages ; for protecting roads, de- 
files, and bridges; for covering the em- 
barkation and debarkation of troops, or the 
crossing of streams; for silencing batteries 
by driving off the gunners; for increasing 
the infantry fire at the critical moment of 
a battle ; for supporting field batteries 
against assaults and charges; for covering 
a retreating column; and for its economy 
in men for serving and animals for trans- 
porting it. The guns are made of seven 
calibres, ranging from 1 inch to 0.42 inch; 
the heaviest weigh but 650 pounds, the 
three smaller calibres only 200 pounds 
each. These latter with gun carriage and 
limber complete weigh but 713 pounds, 
and can be brought rapidly on the field by 
one or two good horses. 

Another machine gun, "the improved 
Gardner Machine Gun," has been put upon 



the market since 1874. It is entirely dif- 
ferent from the Gatling, has but two bar- 
rels, but works easily and with great rapidi- 
ty, 493 to 500 cartridges being discharged, 
though by great effort, in a minute. It is 
more accurate at considerable distances 
than the Gatling, but is adapted to a some- 
what different service. The Gardner 
weighs with its tripod only 201 pounds, 
and without it 147 pounds. It has been 
favorably reported upon by the Ordnance 
officers. 

It has been settled beyond controversy, 
that the destructive power, the "smashing 
power," as the artillerists say, of a cannon 
shot is largely dependent upon the quanti- 
ty of powder winch can be thoroughly ig- 
nited in the chamber of the gun before the 
projectile leaves its muzzle. A gun which, 
sending a 450 or 500-pound projectile, can 
burn one hundred pounds of powder be- 
fore the ball leaves the cannon's mouth, 
without exploding the gun with the pow- 
der, will send that projectile (other things 
being equal) with a force which no armor 
plate at three hundred yards' distance can 
resist. A six-inch plate, backed with ten 
feet of solid timber, would be crushed 
and crumbled into fragments, and if the 
projectile was of hardened steel it would 
very probably pass through the opposite 
side of the ship. The intimate relation of 
heavy guns to the armor of the ships, and 
the attempt to make an impenetrable armor 
on the one side, and an irresistible projec- 
tile on the other, have occupied a great 
deal of attention for twenty years or more. 
The French commenced experiments in 
1854 and have continued them ever since. 
The English began still earlier. The war 
of 1861 at once demonstrated the necessity 
of armored ships, and our government 
made haste to build them. The first Mon- 
itor, and the Galena, a wooden armored 
vessel, were earliest afloat, and the former, 
not a moment too soon, attacked and disa- 
bled the Rebel iron-clad Merrimac. Sub- 
sequently other monitors, and the New 
Ironsides, an armor-plated ship of the line, 
were sent out. The monitors did good 
service in besieging forts and seaports, but 
were not adapted to ocean-fighting, or 
rough water navigation. On the western 
rivers a class of iron-clads adapted to river 
navigation, as well as those of lighter plat- 
ing, commonly known as tin-clads, were 
rapidly constructed. Other armored ves- 






CANNON. 



245 



sels, mostly modifications of the monitor 
principle, though possessing better sea-go- 
ing qualities, were built, though not gener- 
ally until too late for service in the war. 
The Puritan and Dictator, gigantic moni- 
tors, were neither of them put in commis- 
sion. The Miantonomoh and her consort, 
turreted iron-clads, but of a different model, 
have proved the best of our armored ships. 
The Dunderberg, an iron-plated ram of 
great size and immense power, was sold by 
its builder, with the consent of the U. S. 
government, to the French, and now forms 
one of the most formidable vessels of the 
French navy. It is worthy of note that 
our most famous naval victories, whether 
over single ships or in squadrons, were 
fought by wooden vessels mainly. The 
Kearsarge, which fought and sunk "the Ala- 
bama, was a wooden ship; the fleet of Ad- 
miral Farragut, which ascended the Mis- 
sissippi to New Orleans, as well as that 
which subsequently passed Port Hudson, 
were wooden ships. The fleet which cap- 
tured the forts at the mouth of Mobile Bay, 
and crippled the Rebel iron-clads were 
mostly wooden vessels, and of the five iron- 
clads in the Union fleet, one was sunk by 



a torpedo. In the siege of Charleston, the 
iron-clads did some service, though but 
little compared with the shore batteries, 
and at the taking of Port Royal, it was 
wooden ships alone which bombarded and 
silenced the forts. 

Our harbor-defences employ the largest 
portion of our heavy guns; yet very few 
of our harbors are in a complete state of 
defense. New York, the most important 
and the most exposed of these, has numer- 
ous forts at both entrances to its harbor, 
Long Island Sound and the Lower Bay, 
mounting 15 and 20-inch Rodman guns, 
both smooth-bore and rifled, and 10 and 
15-inch Parrotts. The plan of a revolving 
iron tower to be placed in the center of the 
channel, on an artificial island, for harbor 
defense, was first broached by Mr. Theo- 
dore R. Timby, of New York, in 1841, and 
his plans, thoroughly perfected, were pre- 
sented to the government and the people in 
1863 or 1864, but have not as yet been 
adopted. It was from Mr. Timby's model 
of a revolving iron tower, that Capt. John 
Ericsson gained his idea of a turret for his 
monitors. 



14 



CUTLERY, EDGE TOOLS, EILES, AND SAWS. 



It is not half a century since all our 
pocket-cutlery, scissors, razors, table-knives 
and forks (when made of steel), carving- 
knives and forks, and files and surgical in- 
struments were imported from Europe, 
and most of them from Sheffield, England. 
We made even at that time our own axes, 
and most of our saws, planes, adzes, and 
other of the larger cutting instruments, and 
had even then begun to send abroad a 
few of our axes, scythes, hoes, and sickles, 
but we were told, and believed it implicitly 
for many years, that our workmen had not 
the skill nor the long practice which would 
enable them to make pen-knives, scissors, 
razors, table-cutlery, files, or surgical in- 
struments. These, we were told, required 
a very long apprenticeship, and a peculiar 
sleight of hand which we, as outside bar- 
barians, could not acquire. But somewhere 
about 1835 a file factory was set up in 
New Haven, Conn. It was a very small 
affair at first, and the file-maker wrought 
alone for a while, but after a time taught 
the mystery of his art to some bright boys 
who in turn taught others, and ten years 
later it began to be whispered about that 
the New Haven files were better than the 
English. In 1870, there were 121 file fac- 
tories in the country (there are about 200 
now), files were made to the amount of 
$1,649,434, and files had ceased to be im- 
ported. About the same time the manu- 
facture of table-cutlery was commenced. 
The Sheffield cutlers were sure that this 
would prove a failure. No American 
blacksmith could make knives and forks 
equal to Wade and Butcher's. Perhaps 
not, but they could make better ones; and 
it was not long before they had invented 
swedging machines of tremendous power, 
by which they struck out the knife, blade, 
and handle, or blade and tang, in one piece, 
instead of welding, and hammering, and 
smithing it out by a half dozen pieces. 
This was so much of an improvement that 
even the Sheffield cutlers had to use it, but 



they still insisted that we could not finish 
our table-cutlery as well as they could. At 
their own International Exhibition, in 1 851, 
and at every one since, our manufacturers 
of table-cutlery have taken the first prizes. 
And the silver and silver-plated forks of 
American manufacture have taken the first 
place in the markets of the world. So long 
ago as 1838 or 1840, two or three surgical 
instrument manufacturers began very mod- 
estly to compete with the surgical instru- 
ment makers of Paris, London, Berlin, and 
Vienna. They were told that they would 
only bring ruin on themselves, that these 
implements required a perfection of finish 
which they could never attain; and most 
of the physicians and surgeons at first were 
inclined to prefer the imported instru- 
ments, but after a while it was found that 
the American instruments were really su- 
perior to the imported, and now there are 
very few surgical instruments brought 
from Europe, while our export of them is 
increasing. Scissors were the next article 
in which our manufacturers encroached 
upon the English cutlers, and here the out- 
cry broke into a wail. Rodgers and Wors- 
t mholm, cutlers of Sheffield, had supplied 
t he American women with scissors and the 
American tailors with shears from time 
immemorial, and it was nothing less than 
sacrilege to think of taking this business 
away from them. "The next thing," it 
was said, "would be that the conceited 
Americans would think they could make 
their own pocket-knives." "And so we 
will," was the answer. But the scissors 
were first in order. An American ma- 
chinist or metal-worker always looks first 
at the form of an article which he wishes 
to make to see if he cannot improve that. 
It was so in this case. The Sheffield men 
had gone on for generations making their 
scissors in just the same way, two blades 
of steel crossing each other on the same 
plane, and with the same leverage The 
quick eye of the American mechanic saw 



CUTLERY, EDGE TOOLS, FILES, AND SAWS. 



247 



that the leverage might be greatly in- 
creased, the cutting made easier, and the 
whole blade utilized by a change in the 
shape of the blades and handles, and that 
each blade could be struck out in a single 
piece by a swedging die. Having made 
this improvement, which turned out to be 
a very important one, he next proceeded 
to finish the scissors and shears in the best 
manner, and very soon he not only sup- 
plied the American market, but began to 
export his shears, even to Sheffield it- 
self. The cutlers stood aghast. They had 
been beaten at the very point where they 
supposed they were strongest. One of 
them, holding up a pair of American 
shears before his workmen, said, " I will 
give £25 ($125) reward to any man who 
will contrive a plan by which we can make 
shears equal to these." There was no re- 
sponse, though he repeated the offer. 

There had been much of the cheaper 
and some of the better pocket-cutlery made 
in this country prior to 18 GO, but it had 
not attained a very good reputation ; even 
Congress, which should have been ready 
to sustain American manufactures, in- 
sisted upon being supplied with Rogers' 
and "Worstenholms's penknives and erasers. 
The plan adopted was for bids to be re- 
ceived for supplying Congress with sta- 
tionery, and the successful bidder sent on 
the articles, including the cutlery, and 
later, when the appropriation was passed, 
drew his money for the goods. It was 
customary for the English houses to give 
a credit of six months to the stationers. 
When the war was in progress, in Oct., 
18G1, it happened that partners in these 
great cutlery houses of Sheffield were in 
New York. The stationer who was to 
supply Congress applied to one of them to 
sell him his cutlery on the usual terms. 
" No! not a penny-worth," was the answer, 
" without the cash in advance." " But I 
want it for Congross," said the stationer. 
"I wouldn't trust the Government of the 
United States for a sixpence," answered 
John Bull. The other cutler was not quite 
so stern, but he insisted that the order 
must be indorsed by an English house. 
Our machinists and metal-workers had just 
then rather too much business on hand in 
supplying the demands of the war to give 
immediate attention to pocket-cutlery; but 
it was not long before they produced goods 
fully equal and in most respects superior to 



the English, and Congress has since been 
supplied with American knives and erasers. 
As in all the other branches of the cut- 
lery and edge-tool manufactures, machin- 
ery of precision is much more largely used 
than in Europe, and it gives a much great- 
er uniformity and excellence to the pro- 
ducts than is attainable by the uncertainties 
of even the most skillful hand labor. There 
are, however, considerable quantities of 
fine pocket-cutlery yet imported, although 
it has lost much of its prestige. Razors 
were the last of the articles of fine cutlery 
to be produced here. "Wade and Butcher's 
razors were so long regarded as the stand- 
ard that people in general had the idea 
that it was in a sense discreditable to be 
shaved with any other, and the first at- 
tempts at making razors here were treat oil 
with derision. "The Americans might," 
it was said, "succeed in making table- 
knives and scissors by machinery, but a 
razor was a different affair altogether; the 
steel and iron must be so carefully welded, 
and their fibers so intimately blended that 
the razor could be ground down to the 
finest edge on one side, and retain its thick- 
ness on the other, and this was not to be 
done by machinery; it required workmen 
of peculiar skill and tact, and it required, 
also, peculiar skill to give the razor its ex- 
act temper, and to make that temper en- 
during. The American mechanic might, 
to be sure, make what he would call ra- 
zors, but they would be — like Peter Pin- 
dar's razors — made to sell." And so they 
were, and to use, too, and it has come to 
pass that very many experts prefer the 
American razors for their easy handling, 
their perfect concavity, and their exa Qent 
and permanent temper. They differ slightly 
and advantageously in form from the Eng- 
lish, and like the scissors and table-kn 
they are struck out by a die, and then 
ground and tempered with the most care- 
ful accuracy. It is now known that our 
cutlery steel is superior to any other in the 
world; and that, with a little more experi- 
ence in tempering and finishing it, our ra- 
zors and penknives will not be equaled 
anywhere. There is one error into which 
American mechanics and manufacturers 
are liable to fall, which must be carefully 
avoided if they would maintain the repu- 
tation they have fairly won. In many de- 
partments of the useful arts they produce 
excellent goods, and goods which speedily 



248 



CUTLERY, EDGE TOOLS, FILES, AND SAWS. 



acquire a good name and are in extensive 
demand ; but when, as the saying is, they 
have attained success and their names are 
up, they grow careless, and send off infe- 
rior goods in place of those of the first 
quality. Nothing can be more fatal to any 
permanent success than such a course. 
The effort should be to improve the man- 
ufacture in all its details constantly, rather 
than to suffer the slightest deterioration in 
its quality. Eternal vigilance is said to be 
the price of liberty; it certainly is the price 
of manufacturing success. 

In the manufacture of saws, there have 
been several improvements made within 
the past ten or fifteen years which have 
greatly expedited the work, as, for in- 
stance, those modifying materially the form 
of the teeth; those enabling one man with- 
out great or exhausting effort to perform 
the parts of the top and bottom sawyer; 
and those which render the setting of a 
saw a much easier and less disagreeable 
business. American saws now have a 
world-wide reputation. 

In the manufacture of axes, as well as of 
all other edge tools, we have long main- 
tained a preeminence the world over. Col- 
lins' axes and scythes are as well known 
abroad as at home, and there is something 
in the shape, proportions, and balance of 
an American axe which the European me- 
chanic has tried in vain to imitate. Three 
or four years ago, a Collins axe was pre- 
sented to Mr. Gladstone,, who is an expert 
in felling trees. He tried it carefully on 
his own estate at Hawarden, and declared 
that it was by far the best axe he had ever 
ased. Scythes, cradles, sickles, and grass 
knives, and all the tools of the carpenter, 
ship-joiner, and cooper, are made in these 
American factories with a perfection which 
has never been seen elsewhere. Almost 
all of these, perhaps all, are stamped out 
by dies of the hardest steel, and are so per- 
fect and uniform in their workmanship 
that the several parts of a hundred of 
them might be interchanged without any 
difficulty. We have not thought it desira- 
ble to go into details in regard to the pro- 
cesses of manufacture of these articles, be- 
cause the inventive genius of our mechan- 
ics is constantly devising new methods 
which take the place of the old ones, and 
simplify while they perfect the processes 
of manufacture. An exception may bo 
made in the process of tempering, or at 



least in the degrees of heat necessary to 
produce a given temper, since this is a 
constant quantity. The process of hard- 
ening renders all steel brittle, and it is in- 
tended to remove this by tempering. The 
higher the heat when the metal is hard- 
ened, the softer and stronger will be the 
steel. A lower degree of heat gives more 
hardness, and also more brittleness. The 
temper is indicated in the color, and the 
temperature which produces that color 
follows a regular scale. Thus, 430° of 
heat gives a very pale straw color, suita- 
ble for the temper of lancets. Higher de- 
grees of heat give darker shades of yellow, 
suitable for razors, penknives, and chisels; 
until at 500° the color is brown-yellow, 
adapted to axes and plane-irons; 20° high- 
er, the yellow has a purple tinge, seen in 
table knives; 30° more and the dark color 
of a watch-spring is obtained. Again 20° 
and the dark blue of saws is visible. At 
G30° the color has a tinge of green, and 
the steel is too soft for instruments. These 
colors are supposed to be produced by the 
action of the oxygen of the air upon the 
carbon of the steel, and to protect the metal 
in some degree from rust. As we have 
said, the importation of cutlery, files, saws, 
and edge tools continues, though it has be- 
come much more limited during the past 
decade than heretofore. In 1860, the im- 
portation of cutlery alone was $2,240,905. 
In 1870, it was $1,695,238, and the files, 
saws, and tools made $766,442 more. 

The value of the importations of these ar- 
ticles at various dates in the last decade 
were as follows: — 





Articles. 


1871. 


1873. 


1875. 


1877. 1879. 


Cutlery, . . . 

Saws and Tools, 


81,956,351 
604,153 
511,316 


$2,234,335 
770,986 
265,637 


11,140,429 

359,437 
24,712 


$875,276 
135,585 
13,507 


$1,171,924 
91.719 

6,281 


Totals, . . 


83,074,850 


$3,270,978 


$1,824,578 


$1,024,368' $1,279,924 



But if the importations decreased, the 
exports increased in a corresponding ratio, 
as will be seen by the following table. AYe 
have no record at hand of the amount of 
our exports of these articles in 1860, but 
they must have been very small, probably 
less than $100,000, and this mostly in Col- 
lins' axes and a few scythes. In 1869, the 
total was $4 1 7,786 ; in 1 870, it had increased 
to $4§6,61 7, and thenceforward theincrease 



CUTLERY. EDGE TOOLS, FILES, AND SAWS. 



249 



has been constant, till in 1879 and 1880 it 
had nearly balanced the imports, and em- 
braced not only most of the edge tools in 
large quantities, but considerable values 
in fine cutlery. 



Aeticles. 


1871. 


1873. 


1875. 


1877. 


1879. 


1880. 


Cutlery, . . 
Edge Tools, . 
Files and Saws, 


$114,142 

424,821 

9,282 


$47,346 
846,452 
10,171 


$38,080 
676,933 
32,134 


$38,714 
721,012 
36,309 


$65,277 
860,528 
34,351 


$71,122 
926,882 
31,118 


Totals, . 


1 
$548,245 $903,969 


747,147 


$796,035 


$960,156 


$1,039,122 



We regret that we cannot give the cen- 
sus statistics of these articles for 1880, but 
as yet not even a preliminary report of 
them has been published. The great in- 
crease of the exports since 1870 shows con- 
clusively that the production has largely 
advanced since that date, for there has cer- 
tainly been a corresponding increase in the 
home demand. The following are the sta- 
tistics reported in 1870: — 





No. of 

Estab- 
lish- 
ments. 


Hands Employed. 


Capital 
Invested. 


Wages 
paid. 


Raw Mate- 
rial used. 


Annual 
Production. 


Articles. 


All. 


Males. 


Fe- 
males. 


Youth. 




82 
102 
121 

72 


2.111 
2,617 
1,581 
1,595 


1,896 
2,070 
1,356 
1,457 


150 
76 
59 

8 


65 
171 
166 
130 


$2,246,830 
1,880.717 
1.659,370 
2,883,391 


$973,854 

1,157,904 

038,982 

995,609 


$762,029 
862,014 
468,303 

1,332,891 


$2,882,038 
2,739.998 
1.649.394 
3,175,289 


Edge Tools, 


Files, 






Totals, 1 377 


7,604 


6,779 


293 


532 I $8,670,308 


$3,766,349 


$3,425,237 $10,447,484 



There is reason to believe that the man- 
ufacture of surgical instruments, which had 
an annual product of about $550,000 in 
1870, and has since been largely extended, 
was not included under cutlery, but ar- 
ranged under another group with " In- 
struments, professional and scientific." If 
so, the annual product under this head, in 
1870, should have been about $11,000,000, 
and that of 1880 probably not far from 
$20,000,000. In 1870, Massachusetts took 



the lead in cutlery, and Pennsylvania fol- 
lowed, the two states producing more than 
three- fourths of the whole. In edge tools, 
Connecticut led and New York followed, 
the two producing four-fifths of the whole. 
In files, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode 
Island, and Massachusetts produced nearly 
four-fifths of all. In saws, Pennsylvania, 
New York, Missouri, and Ohio produced 
seven-eighths of the whole. 



FURS AND FUR TRADE. 



Among the natural products of the new 
world, the valuable furs of the various 
wild animals which peopled its boundless 
forests, its rivers, lakes, and seas, were soon 
appreciated by the early discoverers and ex- 
plorers. For many centuries the choicer 
varieties of fur had been held in the highest 
estimation, and the use of such as the er- 
mine and sable was monopolized, by special 
enactments, by the royal families and nobility 
of both European and Asiatic countries. A 
market was therefore ready for the large 
supplies which were soon furnished to the 
early settlers by the Indians in exchange for 
the trinkets, liquors, and numerous articles 
of trifling value brought from Europe for 
this trade. The English and French com- 
peted with each other to secure the control 
of the business around Hudson's Bay and 
in the territories now constituting British 
America, extending from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific. Each nation established its own 
trading posts, or " factories," and protected 
them by forts, and the possession of these 
often passed by conquest to the rival party. 
The incorporation of the Hudson's Bay 
Company in 16*70, by Charles II., gave a de- 
cided stimulus to the English interest, by 
securing to men of great influence and 
wealth, the control and monopoly of the fur 
trade throughout the possessions claimed by 
the British. The enormous profits realized 
by this company induced the Canadians, in 
the latter part of the last century, to form 
another company, which they called the 
North-west Fur Company, and whose field 
of operations was nominally limited to the 
territories ceded to the English by the 
Fren-di in 1763. Early in the present cen- 
tury cheir factories were extended westward 
to the rivers that flow into the Pacific, and 
they employed of Canadian voyageurs and 
clerks, avIio were mostly young men from 
Scotland, about 2,000 persons. They ac- 
quired possession of Astoria, at the mouth 
of the Columbia, in 1813, and vigorously 
competed with the old company — the two 
associations carrying on open war throughout 
the wild territories known only to these fur 



traders and the Indians they controlled. 
By act of parliament, the two companies 
were united in one in 1821, and their opera- 
tions have been continued under the name 
of the Hudson's Bay Company until 1859, 
when their last special license of 1838 ex- 
pired. The company has exercised a des- 
potic sway throughout the territories it 
occupied, compelling the labor of the poor 
French voyageurs and the Indians, and 
causing them to subsist upon the most 
meagre fare and pitiful allowance. Sad tales 
of their sufferings are familiar to those who 
have visited these northern regions. The 
company established an express by the way 
of the great lakes and the western rivers, 
and by numerous relays, always readv, in- 
formation was conveyed by canoes and by 
land travel in an incredibly short time from 
the head-quarters of the company at Mon- 
treal to the most distant posts on the Pacific. 
Their furs collected on both sides of the 
continent were transported to London for 
the great annual sales of March and Septem- 
ber. From London many were sent to Leipsic, 
for the great annual fair at this famous mart. 
While these extensive operations were in 
progress, the inhabitants of the provinces 
now constituting the United States derived 
little or no benefit from the trade so long 
as they remained British colonies. In 1762, 
an association was established among the 
merchants of New Orleans, for conducting 
the fur trade in the regions on the waters of 
the Missouri and its branches; and this led 
to the founding of St. Louis in 1763, by 
Laclede, the leader of the organization. This 
place was made their head-quarters for the 
reception of furs collected by their voyageurs 
in distant excursions by canoes and Macki- 
naw boats toward the Rocky Mountains, 
among tribes of Indians who often attacked 
their parties, but who, controlled by the 
talent and wise policy peculiar to the French, 
became at last firm friends of the enterprise, 
and bound to the interests of the Chouteaus 
and others by whom it was conducted. 
From St. Louis the peltry was boated down 
the river to New Orleans, or up the Illinois 






FURS, AND FUR TRADE. 



251 



to Lake Michigan, and thence to the great 
trading post of Mackinaw. From this it 
was forwarded by the lakes ■ and the St. 
Lawrence to Quebec, to be shipped to Eng- 
land. Over the same routes were returned 
the groceries, etc., for the supply of the 
traders, which, so slow were the means of 
transportation, were the returns in part of 
the furs collected the fourth preceding year. 
But though the expenses of the long voyages 
more than doubled the cost of the supplies 
after they left Mackinaw, the profits of the 
business were not rated at less than 300 
per cent. For fifteen years preceding 1805, 
the annual value of the peltry collected at 
St. Louis is stated to have been $203,750 ; 
and the value of the goods annually sent up 
the Missouri during about the same period 
was estimated at $61,000. Deer skins con- 
stituted the greater portion of the product, 
and they were, indeed, the chief medium of 
exchange, the value of articles being rated at 
so many shaved deer skins. Beaver and 
otter were the next in importance, and buf- 
falo skins, which are now the chief object of 
the trade, were then scarcely collected at all. 

From the year 1818, the fur trade of 
the north has been conducted almost wholly 
by organizations which have sprung from 
these early operations. It was extended by 
the associations established at St. Louis to 
the regions beyond the Rocky Mountains, 
and there carried on at immense sacrifice of 
human life, from the dangers naturally inci- 
dent to the pursuit, and the unappeasable 
hostility of the savage tribes. In 1847 it 
was estimated that the annual value of the 
trade had averaged for forty years from 
$200,000 to $300^000, and the latter portion 
of this period much more than the larger 
sum named. But, like the discovery of gold 
in California, its greatest importance was the 
opening of uncultivated territories to the 
advance of civilization, and the introduction 
of a permanent population for the establish- 
ment of new states. 

During the last century the fur trade 
had attained to no importance in the 
eastern states. Mr. John Jacob Astor, 
of New York, engaged in it in 1784, 
buying in Montreal and shipping to Eng- 
land. But under the treaty of 1794 he 
was enabled to introduce fur from the British 
provinces into New York, and he then 
opened a new trade direct with foreign coun- 
tries shipping peltries even to China, and 
receiving in exchange the rich products of 



the East Indies. As his operations pros- 
pered, he engaged in the early part of the 
present century in the collection of furs along 
the northern frontier, a field which had 
before been in exclusive possession of the 
North-west and Hudson's Bay Companies ; 
and he labored zealously in the great national 
enterprise of diverting this important trade 
from the exclusive control of foreign com- 
panies, and causing it to contribute to the 
commercial interests of the United States. 
With wonderful energy, and dependent al- 
most solely on his own resources, lie carried 
on these gigantic operations, having in 1808 
a capital of no less than $1,000,000 in- 
vested in them. In 1810 he established 
the Pacific Fur Company, for the purpose 
of forming a settlement on the Pacific coast, 
and by means of it carrying out the grandest 
commercial scheme that had ever been un- 
dertaken. His ships, leaving New York 
with supplies for the colony, were to obtain 
from it and by trading along the coast car- 
goes of furs to be sold in China, and there 
loading with teas, silks, etc., would return 
to New York, making a complete circum- 
navigation of the globe. Mr. Astor was 
bound by his articles of agreement to fur- 
nish capital to the amount of $400,000 if 
required, sending each year an expedition 
around by sea and another across the coun- 
try to the mouth of the Columbia, and the 
profits were to be equally divided between 
his associates and himself. Notwithstanding 
a succession of disasters, Mr. Astor con- 
tinued for three years to despatch a ship 
bound around Cape Horn, to the mouth of 
the Columbia, having unshaken confidence 
in the final success of the enterprise. And 
such, no doubt, would have been the result, 
had not his principal Canadian partner, who 
controlled the affairs at Astoria (the settle- 
ment on the Pacific), proved treacherous and 
given up the post to the rival North-west Fur 
Company for a mere nominal price, on the 
pretence that it would certainly be seized by 
the British cruisers during the war. This 
occurred on the 16th October, 1813. 

From that time the operations of Mr. 
Astor were restricted to the northern terri- 
tories lying east of the Rocky Mountains. 
His factories were at Mackinaw, and at the 
foot and head of Lake Superior, upon whose 
waters he maintained Bailing vessels long 
before they were visited by the explorers 
of copper mines. Up to the year 1845 the 
only business prosecuted upon its distant 



252 



FURS, AND FUR TRADE. 



shores was that of the fur hunter, and they 
were, in fact, known only to this class and 
to the wandering Chippewa and Sioux 
tribes of Indians. The territory of Min- 
nesota, also, and the still more western re- 
gions, were frequented only for the same 
object previous to 1848. From that period, 
or even earlier, the fur trade has declined 
in importance, and its profits have been 
divided among larger numbers of adven- 
turers. The house of Pierre Chouteau, jr., 
& Co. had been distinguished for many 
years as the most enterprising of those en- 
gaged in the trade; and in 1859 one of 
their steamboats ascended the Missouri 
river to the Great Falls, near the Rocky 
Mountains, about 3,950 miles from the 
Gulf of Mexico, and returned laden with 
buffalo robes. Thus the trade still contin- 
ues to be the pioneer of civilization — open- 
ing new roads into wild territories for the 
advance of permanent settlers. 

St. Paul, Minnesota, has been for thirty- 
five years past the chief trading post for 
fine furs in the United States, though Sit- 
ka, in Alaska, is an important point for 
the seal and other furs of the Northwest 
coast. Over 100,000 fur seal-skins are 
shipped from Alaska annually. The great 
Fur Companies have now virtually ceased 
to exist, or are fast winding up their 
affairs, and the fur trade is almost entirely 
conducted by individual purchasers directly 
with the trappers. In 1870, the Alaska 
Commercial Company was organized and 
leased the islands of St. Paul and St. 
George, in the Aleutian group, for the 
purpose of prosecuting the fur seal fishery. 
They pay an annual rental of $55,000 for 
the islands, and a royalty of $2.62^ for 
each fur seal taken, and are not allowed 
to take over 100,000 in a year. These 
skins bring from $25 to $40 each, and 
find a ready market in London and New 
York. They also take from 2,000 to 5,000 
sea-otters every year, whose skins are worth 
from $75 to $100 each. Aside from what 
are known as fancy furs, i. e., those worn 
as articles of dress, the principal traffic in 
furs has been in buffalo robes. The gray 
wolf, the grizzly bear, the lynx, and the 
red, cross, and gray fox also furnish skins 
for robes of the fancy sort. There is also 
a very considerable business done in hat- 
ters' furs, for which purpose the fur of the 
rabbit or hare, the squirrel, the muskrat, 
•and the wild and domestic cat are mostly 



required. Beaver fur is now seldom used 
for felting. The fur of the raccoon is largely 
exported to Germany, where it is used for 
linings of overcoats, etc. 

From these facts it is apparent that the 
character of the important furs has greatly 
changed since the early periods of the 
trade. "While the beaver and the otter, 
and even the marten and fisher, two ani- 
mals of the sable kind, fell off largely in 
relative importance, the skins of some 
of the smaller animals,* as the mink, 
assumed a much higher value, and even 
the skins of the common muskrat com- 
manded a high price. The highest-priced 
furs were the Russian sable, the sea-otter, 
and the black or silver fox. These are still 
valuable, though they command much low- 
er prices (except the two last named) than 
formerly. In the latter part of the last 
century the skin of the sea-otter was in 
such demand that several expeditions were 
fitted out from this country, and also from 
Europe, expressly for collecting this fur 
from the islands and coast about Nootka 
Sound. The silver fox is found in the 
northern part of this continent, and is 
occasionally captured in the region about 
Lake Superior. The value of the skin is 
even greater than that given in the above 
table — being often rated at $60 apiece; in 
Europe, when well dressed, they have been 
known to bring nearly as many guineas. 
They are in demand for the most costly 
outside garments and trimmings. Of late 
years the fashion has changed, and the 
skin of the fur seal, mainly from Alaska, 
has been the most costly of fur garments, 
though the black and silver fox skins are 
much used for trimming silk cloaks. The 
skins of the skunk for the last fifteen years 
have been largely collected, and many 
thousands have been annually exported 
from New York. Those of black color were 
worth the most, and sometimes brought 75 
cents each. The demand for these, which 
at one time fell off, has been revived, the 
Parisians having again brought them into 
demand as black marten furs, and the ob- 
jectionable odor being entirely removed by 
a new process. They are now the most 
popular of the furs of moderate price, hav- 
ing largely replaced the mink furs. The 
fashion will doubtless soon change a<z;ain 
and some other fur be in the ascendant. 
The skin of the Siberian squirrel is much 
used for lining cloaks, etc., but, except for 






_j 



FURS, AND FUR TRADE. 



253 



children's use, it is not worn externally. 
Coney fur, as described in the account of 
the hat manufacture, is an article of con- 
siderable trade. It is obtained chiefly 
from Europe, and is mostly consumed by 
the hatters, for whose use nothing but the 
fur itself in fleeces is imported. The whole 
skins are used to some extent by the fur- 
riers for cutting. 



The present character of the trade, and 
value of skins, are seen in the following 
statement from the circular of one of the 
oldest and most extensive houses in this 
business — that of Messrs. C. G. Gunther's 
Sons, 502 and 504 Broadway, New York. 
To their experience we are indebted for 
many of the particulars that follow: 



Bear, Northern, according to size and quality, / Prime, From 

" Southern and Northern yearlings, " " 

Beaver, Northern, per skin, Parchment, " " 

11 Southern and ordinary, per skin, " " 

Badger, or Wolverine, " " 

Cat, Wild, Northern and Eastern States, cased, " " 

" " Southern and Western, " " 

" House, ordinary, if large, " " 

" " Black, furred, " " 

Fisher, Northern and Eastern, according to size and color, " " 

" Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Western, do '* •* 

" Southern, do " " 

Fox, Silver, do " " 

" Cross, Northern and Eastern, do " " 

" Red, Northern and Eastern, do " " 

" " S. Penn., N.Jersey, audN. Ohio, do " " 

" " Southern and Western, do " " 

" Grav, Northern and Eastern, cased,., .do " " 

" White do " " 

" Kitt do " " 

" Blue, do " " 

Lynx, do " " 

Marten. States, do " " 

Mink, N. York, N. England, Minnesota, and California, according to size and color,. " " 
" Southern New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Wis- 
consin, and Iowa, according to size and color " " 

" Maryland, Va , Ky., Mo., and all Southern, according to size and color, " " 

Muskrat, Northern New York and Eastern, Spring, " 

" Western, including Pennsylvania and Ohio, " " 

" Northern and Eastern, Winter, " 

" Western, including Pennsylvania and Ohio, " " 

" Southern Prime and Northern Fall, Average, " 

Otter, Northern and Eastern, and North Western, according to size and color, Prime, " 

" Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, and Western, .• " " 

" Kentucky, Maryland, Virginia, Kansas, and vicinity, " " 

•' North and South Carolina, and Georgia, " " 

" Sea, Alaska, " " 

Opossum, Northern, cased, " " 

" Southern, and open Northern, " " 

Raccoon, Michigan, No. Indiana, Indian handled, dark, according to size and color,.. " " 

" Northern Ohio. Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota " " 

" New York and Eastern States, and Northern Pennsylvania, " " 

" New Jersey, So. Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas, " " 

" Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Tennessee, " " 

" North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Alabama, " " 

Rabbits, cased, " " 

Skunks, Prime black. No. 1, cased, " " 

" White and Black, streaked, No. 2, " " 

" Out-seasoned and very white, " " 

Wolf Skins, Mountain Skins, large, " " 

" " Prairie, average prime skins, " " 

Buffalo Robes, in bulk, " " 



$10.00 to $15.00 


2.00 to 


5.05 


2.25 to 


3.75 


1.00 to 


1.50 


3.00 to 


5.00 


025 to 


0.40 


0.20 to 


0.25 


0.08 to 


0.12 


0.25 to 


0.40 


9.00 to 


12.00 


9.00 to 


12.00 


1.00 to 


3.00 


25.00 to 


50.00 


2.00 to 


5.00 


175 to 


2.00 


1.25 to 


1.50 


1.00 to 


1.25 


0.80 to 


1.00 


2.50 to 


400 


0.50 to 


60 


2.75 to 


3.25 


8.00 to 


15.00 


2.00 to 


5.00 


0.70 to 


1.75 


0.80 to 


0.90 


0.30 to 


0.40 


0.10 to 


0.12 


0.06 to 


0.08 


0.10 to 


0.12 


0.02 to 


0.05 


0.07 to 


0.08 


7.00 to 


12.00 


4.00 to 


7.00 


3.00 to 


7.00 


2.00 to 


5.00 


60.00 to 


25.00 


0.25 to 


0.35 


0.10 to 


0.15 


0.90 to 


1.10 


0.60 to 


0.80 


0.40 to 


60 


0.40 to 


0.50 


0.30 to 


0.50 


0.20 to 


0.30 


0.02 to 


0.03 


1.00 to 


1.40 


0.65 to 


1.00 


0.10 to 


0.15 


3.00 to 


4.00 


1.00 to 


1.25 


6.00 to 


8.00 



The quantities of these skins or pelts 
consumed at the present time are about as 
follows: Russia sable, not over 15,000; 
Kolinski, or Japanese sable, very few, the 
principal sale being in Europe and Asia; 
pine marten, or Hudson's Bay sable, not 
more than 125,000; the stone marten and 
fisher marten, though taken extensively 
here, are sold almost entirely in Europe; 
the mink is in much less demand, and 
probably not 200,000 pelts are taken an- 
nually, and half of these or more are sold 
in Europe. The ermine, or stoat, is very 



plenty, and perhaps 100,000 of the 400,- 
000 taken annually are consumed here. 
The skunk skin is very popular here, as 
well as in Europe, and probably not less than 
400,000 are taken annually; 3,000,000 
muskrats are taken annually, and two- 
thirds exported. Of foxes, the silver fox 
is very scarce, not over 2,000 being taken; 
6,000 or 7,000 blue fox, 10,000 cross fox, 
65,000 white fox, 25,000 gray, 40,000 kitt, 
and 325,000 red fox. Beaver has again 
come into large demand, and skins of the 
larger and rarer animals are sold in great 



254 



FURS, AND FUR TRADE. 



quantities. The seal skins taken in Alaska 
in 1880 are officially reported as 155,718, 
and of sea-otter skins as 3,575. 

The changes in the fur trade in the past 
few years have been very great. Buffalo 
robes, once both common and cheap, are 
becoming scarce and dear with the rapid 
extermination of the buffalo. Chinese goat 
skins made up into robes are largely taking 
their place. The Russia and Hudson Bay 
sables, and the finest mink furs, once so 
precious and popular, are now in very light 
demand, and at prices comparatively low. 
The seal and otter furs, and the rare and 
costly sea-otter, have taken their place 
almost entirely among the higher priced 
furs. Muskrat furs are sold under various 
names, as river mink, marsh marten, Amer- 
ican sable, and French mink, and are worth 
in a full set from $15 to $22. The French 
coney, called also French sable, is a French 
rabbit, colored brown, with black stripes 
through the middle of the skin, in imita- 
tion of mink and sable. A set of this fur, 
of best quality, costs from $10 to $20. 
Two sorts of squirrel furs are made up, and 
mostly for children's wear alone. One is 
entirely gray, and the other mixed gray 
and white, and their value is from $12 to 
$20 the set. The white fur worn by chil- 
dren is of the miniver and white coney. Fur 
overcoats for gentlemen are rarely seen in 
this country. A few have been introduced 
from Russia of great elegance, both sides 
being of rich fur, so that either might be 
worn outside. Among the novelties intro- 
duced into the fur trade since the war, we 
notice what are known as Astrachan furs. 
These are really lambskins, the finely- 
dressed pelt of the Assyrian or Astrachan 
lamb being the more common of these furs, 
and the grades called Persiani and silken 
Persiani being made from the newly-weaned 
lambs or the immature lamb taken from 
the body of the slaughtered mother. The 
finest specimens are very beautiful, and 
command a good price. The fur of the 
American skunk has made its appearance 
in the higher walks of fashion, under the 
more euphonious name of "black marten," 
or Alaska sable. It was introduced into 
Paris 16 or 18 years ago, and has become 
popular in this country. It is really a very 
beautiful skin, the black portions alone be- 
ing used, and the fur is permanently de- 
odorized by a process discovered by one of 
the members of the house of Gunther's 



Sons. But the most important and proba- 
bly the most permanent addition to the 
list of popular furs is the seal-skin. It is 
mostly in demand for ladies' sacks or jack- 
ets, which are really very ornamental. It 
is dyed a soft, glossy brown (being the 
only valuable fur which is dyed), and 
trimmed with a rich brown silk. The in- 
trinsic value of these garments and their 
attractiveness render it probable that they 
will continue for some years to be greatly 
in demand. 

The mechanical processes to which furs 
are subjected are few and simple. The 
skins when stripped from the animals are 
merely dried in the sun, in order to pro- 
tect them against putrefying. Those of 
small size are often first steeped in a solu- 
tion of alum for more efficient protection, 
but the operation is objectionable, as the 
alum weakens the pelt. They are made up 
into bales, and are called peltry. When 
stored, it is essential to keep them perfectly 
dry; and to guard against injury from 
moths, camphor and tobacco are strewed 
among them; and they must be examined 
every few weeks, and each skin be beaten 
with a stick in order to cause the worms of 
the moth to fall upon the floor, when they 
are crushed by treading upon them. 

The first process of the furrier is to 
soften the pelt. This is done, with the 
finer kinds, by placing them in a tub with 
a quantity of butter and trampling them. 
After stripping off the loose pieces of skin, 
they are again trampled in sawdust (that 
of mahogany being preferred), the effect of 
which is to remove the grease, and the 
cleaning process is completed by occasion- 
ally beating with a stick and combing the 
fur. The skins are now ready for the cut- 
ter, who from a large number cuts out 
pieces of various shapes, which are then 
sewed together to make up the various ar- 
ticles of fur dresses. Each cape, muff, etc., 
is thus made up of pieces from different 
skins, and the numerous seams are con- 
cealed on the outside by the fur itself, and 
on the inside by the lining. Recently 
there have been many improvements made 
in the way of machinery for the manufac- 
ture of furs, some of which are very ingen- 
ious. One of these is a sewing machine 
for sewing furs, which does its work better 
than it can be done by hand; another ex- 
tracts the long hairs of the seal-skin with- 
out injuring the skin. 







POLAR. BEAR 




BLACK BEAR. 







BEAYEHS. 




MUSKQUASH. 




FURS, AND FUR TRADE. 



259 



Furs that are to be used for felting re- 
quire first the separation of the long hairs. 
This is effected after the skins have been 
split, scraped, and pressed, by either clip- 
ping them down to the length of the short 
hairs, or pulling them out one by one as 
each is seized between a knife-blade and 
the thumb. "When carefully trimmed and 
pressed, the skin is well moistened with 
water, and being held upon a board of wil- 
low wood, the fur is cut off close to the 
pelt by means of a sharp, rough-edged 
knife. The whole clipping is kept in one 
fleece by means of a piece of tin held in 
the left hand, and up which the fur is 
slipped as it is cut. The rabbits' fur im- 



ported for the hatters is received in these 
light, loosely cohering fleeces, each being 
the fur of one animal. The skins of the 
beaver and nutria require much mure 
thorough cleaning to remove the fat from 
the pelt and the grease from the fur, as by 
repeated scrubbing with soap and hot 
water. The thick, closely-matted fur of 
the former has been successfully cut by 
machine knives, an operation that has 
always failed when applied to the more un- 
even and thinner kinds of fur. Some 
chemical preparations have been used to 
separate the fur from the pelt, but they are 
generally found to be objectionable, as 
they destroy in part the felting property. 



HATS. 



CHAPTER I. 

EARLr HISTORY — MANUFACTURE— IM- 
PROVEMENTS. 

From an early period in the history of 
manufactures in the United States, the pro- 
duction of hats appears to have been prose- 
cuted with considerable success. As far 
back as the year 1732, the business was so 
successfully carried on in New England and 
New York as to lead to complaints amnujr 
the hatters of London, and representations of 
the injurious effects upon the trade were in 
consequence made by the London Board of 
Trade to the House of Commons. Being 
the most conspicuous article of dress, the hat 
naturally was an object of particular solici- 
tude, and much more latitude was allowed in 
giving to it peculiar and fanciful forms than 
at the present time. And if our fathers 
failed to produce fine specimens of manufac- 
turing skill, we must admit that, in adopt- 
ing the graceful forms of the high Spanish 
hat, with its rounded brim, and ornaments 
of plumes, or loops and tassels, they cer- 
tainly excelled us in their appreciation and 
selection of pleasing shapes, instead of such 
stiff and awkward forms as those of the 
fashionable hat of the present day. There 
was, however, with them, quite as great a 
variety of hats as with us, both in material 
and in figure. The common hats were of 
rough felt, usually of wool, or of wool and 
fur — sometimes of fur alone — and the prac- 
tice was early introduced of covering the 
wool body with a plating of fine fur, felted 
by hand into the outside of the coarser ma- 
terial. The body was stiffened or not with 
glue, and sometimes water-proof stiffened 
with gum shellac. The round crowns of the 
early part of the century had given place, 
in the better kinds of hats, to flat tops, 
and the broad brims of some were turned 
up and looped, first on one side, then on 
another, and at last on the third, till it be- 
came the regular three-cocked hat. This, 



from being a fashionable Lat, finally came to 
be appropriated to military officers, by whom 
it is still worn as a badge of rank. The 
Quakers alone adhered to the old broad 
brims, making it, it is said, a point of 
faith not to wear a button or a loop, and 
wore their hats " spread over their heads like 
a pent-house, darkening their outward man 
to signify they have the inward light." In 
the other extreme there were fashionable 
hats, like ladies' bonnets of the present time, 
too small to serve as a covering for the head ; 
such a hat was conveniently carried under 
the arm, and in fashionable calls furnished a 
pleasant diversion to its owner, who twirled 
it upon the head of his cane. 

Many of the soft hats of our ancestors were, 
no doubt, very fair articles of hand work- 
manship. They possessed abundance of 
material, and used the choice fur of the 
beaver more lavishly than hatters have of 
late been able to afford. Their mode of 
felting was the same as that now practised 
where machinery is not introduced, and 
their methods of shaping hats over blocks, or 
" sizing," were probably as skilfully con- 
ducted as at the present time. But in the pro- 
duction of the stiff pasteboard hats, covered 
with a sheet of fur or other material, the 
processes in use were comparatively rude, 
and have so continued down to within a few 
years past. Within our own recollection, 
the hatter in almost every village made the 
hats he sold, felting his own materials and 
forming the bodies over his blocks, and 
covering with them the stiff and clumsy 
cylinders of pasteboard, shaped, as near as 
might be, to the prevailing forms of the day. 
The fur of the musquash and beaver were 
used, often plated upon a body of lamb's 
wool ; and the choicest beaver hats were 
plated with the finest fur of the animal, taken 
from the belly and cheeks. This, too, came 
to be used upon bodies of rabbits' fur, of 
which the so-called beaver hats at last were 
chiefly made ; and as beaver became scarce. 



EARLY HISTORY — MANUFACTURE — IMPROVEMENTS. 



261 



nutria, from a South American animal of 
this name, was very generally substituted 
for it. The hatter was provided with dyeing- 
kettles, in which the complex materials of 
his hat bodies were brought to a uniform 
black shade ; and there was a variety of ap- 
paratus for steaming, shaping, and finishing, 
all of which involved laborious hand-work- 
ing, and more or less mechanical skill, to 
produce the small number of hats required 
by the men and boys of the village. 

Within a few years a complete revolution 
has been effected in this business. Ma- 
chinery has been almost wholly substituted 
for hand labor in preparing the materials of 
hats, and this is now done upon an immense 
scale in a few of the large cities, whence the 
hat bodies, or the finished hats, are sent for 
the supply of the country. The effect of 
this has been to furnish hats of uniformly 
better quality than were made by hand, at 
greatly reduced cost, and to carry the manu- 
facture to such perfection that the American 
hat is now distinguished as the lightest and 
best produced in any country. In England, 
the American is often recognized by the ex- 
cellence of his hat. For this we are in part 
indebted to the greater dryness of our cli- 
mate, the moisture of England rendering it 
necessary to give more body and stiffening to 
the hats exposed to its influence. This is not 
so much the case in France, and hats there 
approach more nearly the quality of our own. 

In Portland, Boston, and small towns of 
eastern Massachusetts, felted wool hats are 
made largely, and in New York city, Brook- 
lyn, Newark, N. J., Norwalk, Bethel, Red- 
ding, and Danbury, Conn., and Philadel- 
phia, felted hats of fur are made upon an 
immense scale in numerous establishments ; 
and it is stated that the commission houses 
and agencies engaged in this trade sell over 
8,000,000 hats annually. 

The business in stiff hats is a distinct 
branch of the trade, and their manufacture 
is extended through several different estab- 
lishments. The making of the bodies was for 
many years almost monopolized by Henry 
A. Burr & Co., of New York city, and sup- 
plied by them to agents in a few other cities. 
They received from the hatters, who buy of 
the importers, lots of rabbits' fur, the chief 
supplies of which come from towns near the 
German 'Gcean, as Frankfort-on-the-Main, 
Brussels, etc. Some of poorer quality was 
also obtained from Virginia and North Car- 
olina. The fur of each lot was mixed to- 



gether, and to every 4 or 5 ounces (the usual 
quantity for a felt hat) x to -£ an ounce of the 
finest carded cotton was added ; and at the 
same rate for the lighter fashionable bats, 
the weight of which is about 3 ozs. Ticking 
machines, revolving with great velocity, and 
creating, in a capacious box, a powerful cur- 
rent of air, caused the fur to be well mixed, 
the operation being repeated to make it thor- 
oughly effectual. The long hairs and bits of 
pelt were then separated by what was called 
the blowing machine. This consisted of 
pickers, which revolved several thousand 
times in a minute, and struck out the coarse 
hairs and heavy particles, which fell upon a 
screen, while the light hairs were blown up- 
ward and carried forward to another com 
partment, where the same process was re- 
peated. The screens were kept in agitation, 
and the coarse particles were finally shaken 
off at the feet of the man who fed the ma- 
chine, and by him they were again passed 
through to save the fur that adheres to them. 
The dust escaped through the perforated 
copper covering of the machine, and the clean 
fur was delivered at the extreme end in a 
fine flocculent condition, readily worked into 
a mat by felting, as was shown by rolling a 
little of it between the fingers. In the large 
factory of the Messrs. Burr & Co., about 30 
of these machines were kept in operation, 
and the quantity of fur prepared by them 
was enough for about 10,000 hats" daily. 
This number was produced daily for sixteen 
or seventeen years. Two steam-engines were 
employed by turns, one of which is of 400, 
and the other of 200 horse power. 

The fur used to be felted altogether by 
the hand process: but various improved 
methods have been devised for lessening the 
labor; and the best of these are of American 
origin. By the process invented by Mr. 
Thomas Blanchard, of Boston, the fur was 
made to collect upon a fine wire gauze, and 
there take the form of a matted ribbon, by 
exhausting the air beneath so as to create a 
strong current of air from the receptacle in 
which the particles of fur were kept floating 
in the air. This ribbon being wound around 
a double conical block, of the size of two hat 
bodies, was then joined along the overlap- 
ping edges by rubbing. The method v( 
Messrs. Burr &z Co. was an improvement 
upon this, perfected by Mr. Henry A. Wells 
and Mr. Burr. A cone of sheet copper, con- 
siderably larger than a hat body, punched 
full of small round holes, was set upright, 



262 



HATS. 



and made to revolve slowly upon a vertical 
spindle. An exhausting fan under it ro- 
tated about 4,000 times in a minute, caus- 
ing a strong current of air to draw through 
the holes from the outside. Against the 
cone was the mouth of a sort of trunk, or 
long box, in the opposite end of which the 
fur was fed in quantities just sufficient 
each time for one hat body. The fur was 
taken up from the feeding apron by a cyl- 
indrical brush, and thrown forward by the 
rapid revolutions of this, which also cre- 
ated a current of air that blew the fur 
toward the mouth of the box. From thence 
it was seized by the exhausting current, 
and drawn down upon the cone, covering 
this completely while it was turning round 
sixteen times. The workman standing by 
picked off any coarse particles that fell in 
with the rest, and as soon as the deposit 
was completed he laid a wet cloth over 
the cone, and placed over all a loosely- 
fitting metallic cover. He then lifted off 
the whole, and immersed it in a tank of 
hot water, replacing a new cone immedi- 
ately, to receive the next hat-body. The 
effect of the hot water was to make the 
particles of fur cohere more closely togeth- 
er. When taken out of the water the mat 
was placed in a piece of blanket, and 
worked by the hand upon a table. It was 
then squeezed, to press out the water, and 
folded, to be pressed with others, and made 
up with them into bundles for the hatters. 
The shape of these bodies was that of a 
wide, opened-mouthed bag, of a size much 
larger than the hat. They were very soft, 
tolerably strong, and were afterward re- 
duced to the required dimensions and 
shape by the process called " sizing," 
which was done by the makers of felt hats 
for themselves, and for most of the larger 
manufacturers of silk hats by intermediate 
establishments specially devoted to this 
object. 

The patent of Messrs. Burr & Co. ex- 
pired in 1869, and though their hat formers 
are still in use very largely and highly es- 
teemed,, those of the Gill and Yule patents, 
which are still in force, have also a great 
popularity. There are probably not less 
than 13 or 14 million hat-bodies formed on 
these three formers. By their use from 400 
to 450 hat bodies can be formed on each 
machine in a day, and this requires only 
three men and a boy, while by the hand 
process the same persons could not have 



made more than sixteen in a day. The 
further processes for completing the man- 
ufacture of stiff hats, which fifteen or 
twenty years ago were mostly performed 
by hand or with very little machinery, are 
now almost wholly conducted by ingenious- 
ly contrived machines. There are a great 
variety of these machines for sizing, wring- 
ing, stiffening, cutting, blocking, stretch- 
ing, dyeing, washing, drying, pouncing, 
finishing, trimming, sewing, binding, and 
flanging the hats. All these machines have 
so expedited and perfected production 
that the American stiff and soft hats have 
no superior in the world. There are a 
small number of stiff hats, mostly of the 
" Derby " pattern, imported from England, 
not because they are of better quality than 
the American, for they are not equal to 
them, but because they are of higher price, 
and it is deemed more respectable by a 
snob who has money to wear an imported 
hat and pay a higher price for it, even if it 
is of inferior quality to the home-made 
product. For several years past many of 
the ladies' hats have been made of felt, either 
what are known as soft hats, or the round 
hat varying little from the style known as 
the Derby. The best quality of soft hats, 
when handsomely trimmed, made a very 
pretty, though not very enduring hat. The 
last were called French felts, but most of 
them were really made here. Within the 
past two years, beaver soft hats, with wide 
brims and turned up on the sides, have be- 
come very popular with the younger ladies. 
They are quite expensive, and have, per- 
haps, a rich though not a graceful look. 

Those who are enamored with foreign 
articles, and think there is nothing worth 
having unless it comes to us from over sea, 
can be partially gratified by purchasing 
and wearing the silk, or as it is called very 
often, "the stove-pipe " hat. These hats 
are, it is true, put together here, but the 
silk plush, the shell of shellacked cambric 
which forms the body, and all the trim- 
mings and linings which are used, except 
the manufacturer's name in the crown of 
the hat (and even this is printed usually on 
imported silk), are imported from France, 
and the wearer of a first class silk hat can 
have the satisfaction of knowing that the 
duties paid on that piece of head-gear are 
about $1.12| — a pretty heavy tax to pay 
for what might just as well be produced 
here at a much lower price. It is true that 






EARLY HISTORY MANUFACTURE IMPROVEMENTS. 



263 



some attempts to produce the plush here 
have failed, but our silk manufacturers are 
too ingenious to give up, even after half a 
dozen failures; and they would succeed 
were it not that the hatters prefer to use 
the imported articles for the sake of giving 
their goods the name of French hats. The 
silk hat is in all respects inartistic and un- 
gainly, an abomination in the eyes of per- 
sons of good taste, and deserves to be abol- 
ished. 

This business is carried on in several 
large establishments in New York, Phila- 
delphia, and other cities; and from these 
the fashionable hatters are supplied with 
hats made to order and marked with their 
names. The country trade is also supplied 
from the same source, but with hats rather 
heavier and stronger than those made for 
city wear. The latter weigh when finished 
only about three ounces, and are not usu- 
ally expected to continue in wear more 
than a few months; not because of their 
becoming shabby in this time, but because 
slight changes in the form are continually 
introduced, which wearers must adopt to 
keep in the fashion; and in the city there is 
more disposition and means for always 
wearing the latest and most outre fashion, 
whatever its cost. 

The manufacture involves a variety of 



without the slightest deviation. The silk 
plush has been in the meantime already 
prepared by sewing a circular piece for 
covering the top, with great nicety to the 
piece which surrounds the body, the two 
edges of which meet in a line up and down 
the side of the hat. The brim is covered 
by a separate piece above and below, and 
the edges of these pieces are afterwards 
concealed under the binding and the band. 
A hot iron is applied in order to smooth 
the plush and cause it to adhere to the var- 
nish, which is softened by the heat of the 
iron. After being lined and trimmed, the 
hat is finally smoothed and shaped with a 
hot iron, and the precise curve required is 
given to the brim, the finishing of which 
demands the skill of a practical workman. 

Another large class of hats are made of 
palm-leaf, straw, grass, split rattan, and, 
in some cases, of horsehair or filaments of 
whalebone. We class these together be- 
cause they are all braided, though by dif- 
ferent processes. They are made of a great 
variety of materials, by different methods, 
and in different states and countries. 

The palm-leaf hats are made of split 
fibers or narrow strips of the leaves of the 
fan palm, and are mostly produced in 
Massachusetts and eastern Connecticut. 
The braiding is mostly done by young 



processes, each of which, after the most I girls, and largely in their own families in 
economical system of division of labor, is j the country. When braided they are taken 
conducted by workmen specially devoted j to the factories, examined, pressed, boxed, 
to this alone. By one set of hands the soft i and sent to market. The straw hats are a 
shells are first subjected to the operation better grade, and are braided of many pat- 
of waterproof stiffening. They are dipped j terns. The braiding is done here to a con- 



•one at a time in a weak solution of shel 
lac, then slipped over a block, and partially 
brought into shape by rubbing with the 
land 3. The brim and tip (or edges of the 



siderable extent, but most of the ladies' 
straw hats, and a portion of those worn by 
men, are imported. Dunstable and its 
vicinity, in England, are famous for this 



top) are then brushed over with a thicker j class of work, and much is also produced 

coating of the gum to give additional stiff- ' 

ness to these parts. When dry, a hot iron 

is applied, which has the effect on cooling 

of giving greater hardness and solidity to 

the material. The next application is a 



in Switzerland and Germany. The Manila 
hat. so called, is really a straw or grass 
hat imported from the Malayan Archipela- 
go. They are just now the rage, and the 
importation is mostly in the hands of one or 



coating of fine glue or gelatine, the object j two houses. The Panama and Guayaquil 
of which is to prevent the varnish of seed- ■ hats, with some from Maracaibo, are braid- 
lac, which is next laid on, from striking in. ed from a grass prevalent there, and are 
The hats are after this taken to the finish- the most valuable of all the hats of this 
ing room, and here are first shaped and | class, those called " Panama " bringing 
trimmed to the exact pattern sent with the ! the highest prices. Verv few are now un- 
orders from the retail hatters. In this op- ported. The Leghorn "hat, a very fine 
eration brass gauges of a variety of forms braid originally plaited in Italy and * worn 
are made use of, by which the exact di- by both "sexes, is not in vogue now, and 
mensions and shapes required are secured | but few are imported. Hats of the other 



264 



DATS. 



materials named, though at one time very 
popular, are not now in demand. In 1880, 
there were only 23,094 straw, palm-leaf, 
and Manila hats imported; the value was 
not given. 

Another class of hats and caps largely 
manufactured includes those made of 
cloth, fur, or skins of wild animals having 
the hair on. This branch of the manufac- 
ture is extensive, and is so widely diffused 
throughout the country that it is very diffi- 
cult to obtain any statistics of it approaching 
accuracy. Hats, caps, and bonnets made 
of wool, fur, and silk were imported in 
1880 to the number of 198,639, but their 
value was not stated. 

Our estimate of the annual production 
of hats and caps of all materials can be 



only a guess, the special agents of the 
census of 1880 have thus far been com- 
pletely foiled in their efforts to obtain ac- 
curate reports. The census statistics of 
1870 were as follows: 

Establishments, 483; hands employed, 
16,173; viz., 8,847 men, 6,301 women,. 
1,025 youths; capital, $6,489,571; wages, 
$6,574,490; materials, $12,262,107; annual 
product, $24,848,167. It is safe to say 
that all these items, with the possible ex- 
ception of hands employed and wages paid, 
have more than doubled during the de- 
cade. The very large introduction of ma- 
chinery has increased the production enor- 
mously without a corresponding increase 
in the number of hands employed. 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



The great progress of this country, as 
evinced in the developments of the preced- 
ing articles, is manifest to the civilized world, 
in the position which the country occupies 
among the nations of the earth. If we have 
followed the progress of each leading branch, 
from small beginnings up to the.magnilicent 
results that they now display, it has been to 
show that these results, great as they are, are 
but the preliminary to that career which the 
future promises. It is to be borne in mind 
that the capital of the country had to be 
created, and that the large enterprises could 
be carried out only by an accumulation of 
capital that grew as it was applied. The 
manufactories, the mines, the furnaces, the- 
railroads of the country, were nearly all car- 
ried on by associated capital acting through 
corporate bodies. Underlying those vast 
undertakings, however, are the broad fields 
of individual industry, where every man, 
depending only on his own skill and perse- 
verance, not only, as it were, created an in- 
dustry, but devised the means of making it 
successful. The inventive genius of the peo- 
ple has been systematically applied to the 
improvement of qualities of goods made, at 
the same time that the cost of manufacture 
has been cheapened. The field of individual 
industries may be explored with quite as 
much interest and admiration as those which 
have been opened by the application of in- 
corporated capital. The wonderful results 
that have been obtained have been accom- 
panied by the fortunes of the enterprising 
men that have produced them. It is the case 
sometimes with corporate capital that the 
greatest enterprises are carried out success- 
fully for the public interests, while the capi- 
tal invested in them has been sunk. In the 
case of individual operation, a combination 
of mechanical inventions, of industry class- 
ified, of raw materials judiciously assorted, 
and of directing skill, produces articles 
that, before unknown or appreciated by 
the public, have become necessities, and 
15 



the demand rewards the genius and judg- 
ment of the manufacturer with a fortune. 
In almost all cases, but little money capital 
was possessed at the commencement, but 
there was a better capital than mere money, 
in the self-reliant genius of the indomitable 
American. These individuals have remod- 
elled old manufacturing processes with im- 
provements, and created others, giving em- 
ployment to thousands of workers, and cre- 
ating interchangeable values for the great 
natural products of the country ; in other 
words, finding a market for labor which 
would otherwise not have been available. 
In the present article we will explore a 
number of the leading industries of this 
nature. 



BUILDINGS AND BUILDING MATERIAL. 

Among the marvellous evidences of the 
advancing wealth and luxury of the Ameri- 
can people, the multiplication and improve- 
ment of dwellings are very conspicuous. 
The official figures in relation to the num- 
bers and values of dwellings in the country 
are indeed not very abundant or very pre- 
cise. There are materials, however, which, 
put together, give a pretty accurate esti- 
mate of the enormous investments in dwell- 
ings. 

In 1798 the number of dwellings and their 
value in all the states, was given in the tax- 
list laid before Congress. The values given 
in the official tax list at the end of the last 
century not only apply to a class of dwell- 
ings far less costly tlian the average of 
those now in vogue, but it was at a time 
when money or capital was of a higher 
value relatively. The number and value 
of the houses then reported may be com- 
pared with the number of dwellings reported 
in the United States census of 1860 and 
1870, as follows:— 



266 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



Number and Value op Dwellings in the United States. 

1798. I860. 1870. 1880. 

No. Dwellings. Value. No. Dwellings. No. Dwellings. No. Dwellings. 

M a j ne part of Massachusetts. 

New Hampshire, 11,142 



Vermont, 5,437 

Massachusetts, 48,984 

Rhode Island, 7. 037 

Connecticut, 23,465 

New York 33,416 

New Jersey 19,624 

Pennsylvania 51,772 

Delaware, 5,094 

Maryland 16,933 

District of Columbia 

Virginia 27,693 

North Carolina, 11,760 

South Carolina, 6,427 

Georgia, 3,446 

Florida, 

Alabama 

Mississippi, 

Louisiana, 

Texas, 

Arkansas, 

Tennessee, 1.030 

Kentucky 3,339 

Missouri, 

Illinois 

Indiana, 

Ohio 

Michigan 

Wisconsin, 

Iowa 

California, 

Minnesota 

New Mexico Territory, 

Oregon, 

Montana 

Arizona, 

Nebraska, 

Nevada, 

Kansas, 

West Virginia, 

Colorado. 

Dakota 

Washington Territory 

Wyoming 

Utah Territory, 



$4,146,938.90 
1,558,389.36 

24,546,826.46 
2,984,002.87 
8,149,479.28 

25,495,631.39 
9,149,918.84 

29 321,048.33 
2,180,165.83 

10,738,286.63 



11,248,267.67 
2,932,893.09 
5,008,292.93 
1,797,631.25 



286,446.83 
1,139,965.13 



Total 276,549 $140,683,984.77 

No. of Churches, 



115,933 


121,953 


65,968 


67,046 


62,977 


66,145 


205,319 


236,473 


27,056 


34,828 


83,622 


96,880 


615,888 


688,559 


116 353 


155,936 


515,319 


635,680 


19,288 


22,577 


106,137 


129,620 


12,338 


23,308 


207,305 


224,947 


129,585 


202,504 


58,220 


143,485 


109,069 


236,436 


14,132 


41,047 


96,682 


198,327 


61,460 


164,350 


63,992 


150,427 


77,428 


141,685 


56,717 


93,195 


147,947 


220,816 


164,161 


224,969 


181,169 


292,769 


304,732 


464,155 


256,946 


318,469 


425,672 


495,667 


150,952 


237,036 


154,036 


197,098 


131,663 


219,846 


100,328 


126,307 


40,926 


81,140 


21,945 


21,053 


12,277 


19,372 


.... 


9,450 




2,822 


7,811 


25,144 




12,990 


33,278 


71,071 




78,854 


.... 


10,009 


.... 


3,231 




6,066 




2,379 


10,763 


18,290 


4,969,692 


7,042,833 


54,009 


72,459 



The national census of 1870 did not give 
the value of the dwellings, but the state 
census of New York for 1875 gave not 
only the dwellings, but their value and ma- 
terial of construction. By that census it 
appears there were in New York 728,688 
dwellings, worth $2,465,033,634, or an av- 
erage of $3,383 each. The average for 
stone houses was 21, 189. These are mostly 
the better class of houses belonging to the 
wealthy inhabitants of towns. The whole 
number of these is 19,718, of which 10,- 
462 are in New York city, and worth 



$338,066,000, or an average of $32,314 
each. In the remaining portion of the 
state the stone houses are 9,256 in num- 
ber and $79,734,721 in value, or an aver- 
age of $8,614 each. The New York stone 
houses and hotels are exceptions, being 
the most luxurious display of the wealthy 
few. The number of brick houses is 98,- 
298, -average value $10,680; and of frame 
houses, 598,013, average value 1,666. If, 
then, we assume $1,200 as the average 
value of the dwellings in the whole Union, 
the result for 1870 will be an aggregate of 



BUILDINGS AND BUILDING MATERIALS. 



267 



$8,451,399,600 invested in dwelling-houses, 
being an increase of $8,310,715,675 in 72 
years, or $115,426,606 per annum for 72 
successive years, in addition to the $354,- 
483,581 invested in churches. The sums 
absorbed by other public buildings are not 
specified. The building which has been 
done from 1870 to 1880 by far exceeds 
that ratio. Thus the New York state cen- 
sus gives the number of dwellings in 1875 
at 728,688, against 594,045 in 1865, an in- 
crease of 434,643, or almost 23 per cent, in 
ten years. Comparing dwellings to the 
population, the results are as follow: — 

UNITED STATES. 

Free Persons to 
population, each house. 

4,412,884 19.00 

20,059,899 5.94 

28,000,000 5.53 

38,558,371 5-47 



No. 



1798 276,659 

1850 3,362,337 

1860, 4,969,692 

1870, 7,042,833 



NEW YORK STATE. 



No. 

1798 33,416 

1850, 473,936 

1855 522.325 

1865, 594,045 

1875 728,688 



Population. p r™. 

586,754 19.00 

3,097,394 6.53 

3,466,212 6.64 

3,827,818 6.44 

4,698,958 6.60 

The number of persons to a dwelling 
was greater in New York in 1870 than the 
average of the Union, and that number 
slightly increased ; in the next five years 
that increase was again narrowed to the 
city of New York, where the crowd of 
foreign arrivals and large hotels and board- 
ing-houses raised the number of persons to 
14.6 for each house. 

The population of Philadelphia and the 
number of dwellings are as follow: — 



Population. 

1850 408,762 

1860 565,529 

1870, 674,022 



belling* P Sf n |" 

61,278 6.10 

89,632 6.05 

112,366 6.01 



In Philadelphia, the increase of dwell- 
ings per cent, appears to be greater than 
the progress of the population. 

The general result in the Union is a house 
for every family, and these families aver- 
age 5 1 persons each. From these figures 
it is apparent that the number of houses in 
the Union progresses in the ratio of its in- 
habitants. The very close approximation 
of the number of persons in a family to 
the number of persons to a dwelling dem- 
onstrates this very conclusively; thus the 
number of persons to a family, in 1850, 
was 5.56; in 1860, 5.28; in 1870, 5.09. 



The number of persons to a house, in 1850, 
was 5.94; in 1860, 5.53; in 1870, 5.47. It 
should be remarked that in 1850 only the 
dwellings and families of free persons were 
thus reported, and the inclusion in 1870 of 
freedmen may have slightly affected the 
ratio; there were other causes, however, 
which had perhaps a greater influence. 
"When the statistics of families and dwell- 
ings for 1880 are completed we may ex- 
pect a still farther reduction of the ratio, 
though not of a large amount. 

In the cities the cost of building has 
more than doubled in ten years. This is 
a necessity of increasing numbers, and 
provides nothing for reconstruction, or 
churches, or public buildings. This item 
of house-building in an increasing country 
stands out in contrast to the demand in the 
same line in the old countries of Europe. 
Some of the old cities there were built 
500 to 1,000. years ago of solid masonry. 
There is not only no continuous demand for 
labor and capital to provide new dwellings 
to accommodate swelling numbers, but the 
empty d wellings frequently give melancholy 
signs of a departing population. 

In the United States, not only does this 
vast annual demand for 287,000 new houses 
exist, but every year brings improvements 
in the style of construction and the luxu- 
riousness of accommodation. The simple 
frame buildings that generally spring up 
on the outskirts of cities, are, before they 
are yet old, required to give place to brick 
buildings, since the spreading population 
carries the municipal laws which forbid 
wooden structures over larger limits. The 
brick buildings that supplant the frame 
must also be more substantial, since the 
same fire laws also prescribe the thickness 
and stability of the walls. Wealth follows 
with its more pretentious style, and brown 
stone or marble palaces rear their stately 
fronts on what was lately an open lot. 
With the improved style of houses there 
is a constant ambition to occupy a " mod- 
ern house," or one with the " modern im- 
provements," which may be enumerated 
as, warming apparatus, whether by hot-air, 
water, steam, or gas; the water-pipes in all 
the rooms, connecting with the cooking- 
range for facility of heating; water-closets 
and bath-rooms connected with street sew- 
ers to carry off the waste water, bells, 
speaking - tubes, telegraphs, ventilation, 
burning -gas, dumb-waiters to communicate 



268 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



with different floors, and all the luxury of 
arrangement and embellishment which 
makes a modern private dwelling so far in 
advance even of the fairy palaces of the 
Arabian Nights' Entertainments. There 
is a natural desire on the part of all to ob- 
tain, as circumstances will permit, a better 
house, and if these are not built in the sub- 
stantial manner which in Europe defies 
the ravages of time, they are in the fash- 
ion and luxury of the day, and may be 
altered or reconstructed as fortune changes. 
The railroads that give access to the neigh- 
borhood in such a manner that a business 
man may take his breakfast at 7^ o'clock, 
ride forty miles, and be at his office before 
bank opens, has, so to speak, carried city 
houses into a broad circle of country, and 
" villas " rise rapidly from the soil, also 
provided with all city improvements. 
Thousands of miles are within this influ- 
ence. In sections which, a quarter of a 
century since, were shadowed only by the 
native forests, in which the scream of the 
panther and the gleam of his eyes startled 
the benighted traveler, streets of marble 
fronts now emit the glare of gas and the 
latest creations of the opera. In all direc- 
tions the gaze of the traveler falls upon 
.new creations, where lumber, brick, stone, 
and lime are combining into a dwelling or 
a factory, a school-house or a church. 

The increase of houses being propor- 
tioned to the increase in the numbers of 
the people, their value has risen in the ra- 
tio of their growing wealth. It is remark- 
able that the country, in all its sections, 
abounds with the best materials for all de- 
scription of dwellings, and yet these mate- 
rials were very slowly discovered. For 
long years the bricks with which the best 
houses of New York were built were 
brought from Amsterdam in those stately 
old droguors which, on their arrival in the 
bay of New Amsterdam, were regularly 
dismantled and laid up over the winter, 
setting out on their homeward voyage with 
the early spring. The bricks were proba- 
bly used as ballast, but even then the cost 
of a house so built was something impor- 
tant. The early houses of the settlers were 
log huts, but subsequently frame houses 
were raised by the more ambitious, and, 
as wealth increased, those " shingle pala- 
ces" that became famous in the stories of 
New England manners, began to dot the 
country. In the cities, frame houses were 



the rule down to a comparatively late date, 
when the fire laws forbade the erection of 
wooden tenements within certain districts. 
The abundance of timber not only for build- 
ing purposes, but for fuel, was a great ad- 
vantage to the country. But as the popula- 
tion increased, the inroads upon it became 
very heavy, and the forests were rapidly 
thinned out. The annual consumption ex- 
ceeded the growth, according to the esti- 
mates of the most experienced lumbermen, 
by about 30$, and this notwithstanding that 
coal came to supply the drafts made for 
fuel, and the substitution of bricks for city 
houses. Lumber for building was for 
many years brought from Maine, northern 
New Hampshire, and Vermont, but the 
pine, spruce, and hemlock from those 
sources is now nearly exhausted. Moderate 
quantities of pine and hemlock are obtained 
from central New York and Pennsylvania, 
but the greater part of the soft pine and 
hemlock, and much of the hard woods, 
come from the upper and lower peninsulas 
of Michigan, Canada, Wisconsin, and Min- 
nesota; black walnut, cherry, ash, and 
white oak from the Alleghanies in western 
Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia,' 
East Tennessee, North Carolina, etc. ; hard 
pine from North Carolina, Georgia, Flori- 
da, and Alabama. Most of the lumber of 
Minnesota goes west, and there are for- 
ests of considerable extent in Montana, 
Wyoming, and Idaho, and in eastern Utah, 
which will be needed for the consumption 
of those territories, but the supply for the 
Pacific coast must come from Oregon and 
Washington, and the mountainous districts 
of California; and eventually, perhaps, 
from Alaska. The lumber of the Pacific 
coast is of excellent quality and of great 
size, the red cedar, fir, spruce, and various 
kinds of pine, surpassing the timber trees 
of any other country. 

The total product of lumber sawed in 
the United States in 1870, was 12,755.- 
543,000 feet of lumber, 1,295.091,000 
lath, and 3,265,516,000 shingles, besides 
$10,473,681 worth of staves, shooks, and 
headings, a total value of §210,159,327. 
Add to this the amount of planed lum- 
ber, $42,179,702, and the production of 
sash, doors, and blinds, £36, 625, 806, and 
we have a grand total of $288,964,835. 
This was an increase of almost three-fold 
on the production of 1860. The lumber 
report of the census for 1880 is not yet 



BUILDINGS AND BUILDING MATERIALS. 



269 



completed, but enough is known to dem- 
onstrate that the increase has been greater 
than in the preceding decade. 

The reasons for this vast increase in the 
consumption of lumber are not far to seek. 
The railways, which have more than 
doubled since 1870, use an enormous quan- 
tity of timber for ties and stringers, an im- 
mense amount for stations, freight houses, 
and shops, and in some sections still more 
for fuel for the locomotives. The mines, 
where of any extent or depth, require tim- 
bering very heavily, and all of them need 
lumber and timber for reduction works, 
flumes, and dwellings, the dwellings, 
churches, school houses, stores, and work- 
shops for ten or twelve millions of people 
who have settled in the west, require the 
felling of such vast areas of forest that se- 
rious alarm has already been excited lest 
our country should be denuded of its for- 
ests before the close of the present century. 

"With the vast supply of lumber and tim- 
ber to meet the demand for building pur- 
poses, it followed that inventions for pre- 
paring them for the builders' use would not 
fail to make their appearance. Some of 
the inventions, like the planing machines 
introduced in 1837, are of great value and 
importance. Circular saws, scroll saws, and 
a crowd of inventions bearing upon every 
part of the work, have wonderfully facili- 
tated the work of the carpenter and joiner. 
The blinds, sashes, doors, window-frames, 
have become separate trades, each of which 
supplies its portion much cheaper and more 
perfect than formerly. 

Two-thirds of the better class of houses 
in the largest cities are built, as the phrase 
is, "on speculation." A builder becomes 
possessed of a number of building-lots, 
and borrows money on them to build 
a block of houses, from four to fifty houses 
being undertaken at a time. When they 
are partially completed, more money is bor- 
rowed on them on mortgage, and when 
finished they are sold as speedily as possi- 
ble, and generally on moderate terms. The 
strong competition compels the builders to 
make the houses attractive in appearance, 
and all the so-called modern improvements 
are introduced into them; but with few 
exceptions, the work which is out of sight, 
the plumbing, the staying of the floor beams, 
the party and interior walls, etc., etc., are 
of inferior work and done by incompetent 
workmen. Houses are also made for ex- 



portation, as well of iron as of wood, as in 
the case of the early times of San Francis- 
co, which received many of its dwellings 
from New York. The settler on the new 
lands of the west is now not always re- 
quired to plunge into the wilderness and 
rear his first shelter from logs, but may 
have his house sent from Chicago or other 
cities by railroad, and put up to await his 
coming. This is not practiced as much 
now as a few years ago, however, because 
lumber is much dearer than formerly, and 
these ready-made houses do not protect the 
settler from the severe winters so well as a 
•'sod-house" or even a "dug-out." Log 
cabins, on "the plains," are not to be had. 

With the settlement of the western coun- 
try, the saw-mills are kept busy in supplying 
lumber. The most extensive of them are 
round the Falls of St. Anthony, where 
about 200,000,000 feet of logs come down 
in the spring from the waters above. 
These logs are manufactured into lumber 
at the immense saw-mills at St. Anthony 
and Minneapolis. These mills, in 1880, man- 
ufactured 191,882,349 feet of lumber, 74,- 
891,550 shingles, 33,505,450 lath, besides 
large quantities of staves, shooks, and 
headings. Ninety per cent, of these pro- 
ducts were shipped, mostly to the west. 
At the extreme south, lumber is also pro- 
duced. About 50,000,000 feet are shipped 
from Pensacola to the Atlantic and Gulf 
cities, in addition to the large quantities 
used in the town. The Dismal Swamp Ca- 
nal at Norfolk delivers 6,000,000 feet of 
plank per annum, and 75,000,000 shingles, 
800,000 feet of timber, and 12,000,000 
staves. 

The material for dwelling houses is thus 
liberally supplied at the leading points to 
and from which means of communication 
have been so extensively provided. Most 
country houses are built of lumber, or 
frame houses. In the cities the majority 
are of brick, and in New York and 
Brooklyn houses are still standing built 
from the small yellow and black brick 
brought from Holland. Brick clay is 
found in most of the states, but not of the 
same quality. The best brick are from 
Philadelphia and Baltimore, but Milwaukee 
is famous for its straw-colored bricks. This 
color results from the absence of one of the 
oxides of iron in the clay. Some Milwau- 
kee bricks were brought to New York 
city for the construction of Trinity Build- 



270 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



ing, head of Wall street, and they assimi- 
late in color to the old Holland brick, also 
"far fetched and dear bought." 

In the manufacture of the brick the clay 
is obtained as pure as possible; but it must be 
exposed for some time to the air and weather, 
which soon disintegrates its particles, and 
fits it to be kneaded into a mass. The clay 
is then soaked in a tank. The kneading 
was formerly done by animals or the naked 
feet of men, which machinery has superseded. 
The clay is now first ground in the png- 
mill, which is a tub in which revolve on a 
shaft blades that cut and knead the clay as 
it is fed in from above, and passes out at the 
bottom. It is then cut into pieces and 
stacked for use. The old hand mode of 
moulding was to throw the clay into the 
mould by force and then scrape off that 
which was superfluous. The labor of this 
process was reduced by causing the moulds 
to receive the clay from the mill in succes- 
sive sets. It is obvious that the clay must 
be cleaned from all stones, sticks, etc., that 
would disfigure the brick. When the bricks 
are moulded they are dried. For this pur- 
pose a level yard is prepared, and bricks are 
brought in the moulds, which are removed, 
leaving the bricks to dry, a longer or shorter 
time, according to circumstances. If the 
bricks are not thoroughly dry they will crack 
in baking. For the purpose of baking, the 
bricks are piled one upon the other, to make 
the kiln or clamp. These contain from 
500,000 to 1,000,000 bricks. A central 
double wall is built, lengthwise the lower 
portion, of baked bricks. On both sides 
longitudinal fire flues of green brick are 
built. Over them the mass of bricks is 
laid, with flues leading to the top, and in 
an open manner, with small scuttles through 
the heap as it is built up. The top and 
sides are built of baked bricks. Over all 
loam is laid to prevent the fire from burning 
too rapidly. The time required formerly on 
the Hudson river for burning the great 
clamps of 1,000,000 bricks was two weeks, 
and there were required 40 cords of wood 
for 100,000 bricks. About the year 1838 
fine anthracite coal dust was introduced into 
the elay in the proportion of 75 bushels to 
100,'iuo bricks, and thoroughly mixed in 
the kneading. The effect of this was to re- 
duce the time to four days, and the wood to 
16 cords for 100,000 bricks. Thus 1G cords 
of wood is rated at $80 ; 75 bushels of dust, 
$3 ; 4 days' attention, $6 ; total cost, $89, 



against $212. It follows that, as the heat is 
very unequal in a clamp, some bricks are 
underdone, while others are slightly fused on 
the surface, called " clinker brick." 

It is obvious that in brick machinery the 
saving of labor is the great object, and to 
attain that a great number of machines have 
been invented. One of this class forces a 
lump of clay of the breadth and depth of a 
brick along a trough ; and it is cut off the 
proper length by a wire. Other machines 
have been made to stamp the brick out of a 
lump of clay. Again, the clay is forced into 
moulds by a heavy roller. There are ma- 
chines which pulverize the dry clay, and 
press this with great force into moulds, 
ready for burning. A patent for this, taken 
in Baltimore in 1847, and another in Bos- 
ton, pulverizes, screens, moulds, and presses 
2,500 bricks per hour. On this plan 
bricks are made on Staten Island. They pre- 
sent a smooth surface, but they are not so 
good as the Philadelphia and Baltimore. 
Bricks have been made partly hollow to 
diminish the weight. The size of bricks is 
7 f to 8| inches long, 4 to 4i wide, and 2^ to 
2i thick. In New York 5 courses of brick 
are allowed to the foot in height. In New 
England 5 courses make a foot, without the 
mortar. The weight of a brick is about 4 
lbs., and 21 make a cubic foot of wall. The 
Philadelphia brick are the best in the coun- 
try, and are made mostly by hand. The 
clay and sand give the brick a better color. 
The Baltimore brick bring a better price 
because the clay is purer, and therefore 
stronger, are better burned, and less liable to 
damage by transportation. The quantity 
made in Philadelphia is reckoned at 100,- 
000,000 per annum. 

The lime used in New York and on the 
Atlantic coast is mostly of Thomaston, 
Maine, where it is manufactured of lime- 
stone and oyster-shells. Its quality is much 
superior to that of the lime of other sources. 
The chief use of lime is for making mortar 
for cementing brick and stone work and 
plastering walls. The best qualities, made 
from pure stones or shells, slake rapidly, and 
are called fat. This kind more than doubles 
in bulk on being slaked, and falls into a soft, 
white paste. The inferior qualities slake 
slowly, and give out but little heat in the 
process. The value of lime with masons de- 
pends upon the quantity of sand it will bear 
in the manufacture of strong mortar. Thus 
the best Thomaston lime will take 8 bbls. 



BUILDINGS AND BUILDING MATERIALS. 



27; 



of sand for one of lime. It is stated that 
an excellent lime is made near New York 
city from white marble, and that it will 
take nine barrels of sand. The Thomaston 
lime is burned with anthracite coal. An 
excellent lime, equal to the Thomaston, has 
been produced for a few years past in Ala- 
bama, not far from Selma, which is burned 
either with wood or the bituminous coal 
which abounds there. New Orleans and 
the southwestern states are supplied largely 
from this source. 

The building stone of Boston for the best 
houses has been derived from the immedi- 
ate neighborhood, and is called Quincy 
granite. It is a handsome gray stone, 
hewn for dwellings, but sometimes used 
unhewn for public buildings. The stone 
is derived from Quincy, and the first rail- 
road started in the country was for the 
service of these quarries, having been in- 
troduced shortly after their opening. With- 
in a few years past an excellent granite, 
believed to be more enduring than the 
Quincy (which crumbled into dust at the 
great Boston fire), has been found at Mt. 
Desert Island in Maine. The towers of 
the East River suspension bridge between 
New York and Brooklyn are of this gran- 
ite. The stone for the foundation of the 
dwelling of Governor Phillips, of Massa- 
chusetts, was brought from Rhode Island. 
Granite quarries are also now worked near 
New York and in Delaware Bay. These 
and the Sing Sing marble quarries supply 
much of the stone for New York city. 
Most of the fine residences are faced with 
" brown stone " (red sandstone) from Port- 
land, Conn., or an olive green or rose- 
tinted sandstone from Nova Scotia and 
New Brunswick, or of a lighter brown 
sandstone from Belleville, New Jersey. It 
by no means follows, however, that a 
brown stone palace "on an avenue" is 
built of brown stone. The house is built 
of lumber and brick, and a thin veneer of 
brown stone put on the front. The differ- 
ence in cost between a substantial front of 
stone and one of Philadelphia brick with 
stone trimmings will be from $500 to 
S800. For the construction of large and 
fashionable stores, the Sing Sing marble is 
much used, but iron fronts have come into 
very general use. These are cast in orna- 
mental styles, and put up piece by piece, 
each being riveted to the other, the whole 
front thus forming one piece, and then 



painted to resemble stone. Marble is the 
favorite material in Philadelphia, notwith- 
standing her superior brick. It is pro- 
cured in abundance a few miles from that 
city. 

Stone at the west is not so abundant, 
but discoveries of good building stone have 
been made. A yellow stone in the neigh- 
borhood of Cincinnati supplies the best ma- 
terial to that city. The canals of Ohio and 
Illinois cany considerable quantities of 
Joliet and other limestones, and marble 
has been found near Dubuque, Iowa. 
There are quarries of sandstone, marble, 
and limestone in the neighborhood of Chi- 
cago, but since her great fire, in which all 
these building stones left only little heaps 
of dust or lime, and the iron structures, be- 
lieved to be fire-proof, warped, twisted, and 
fell at the first breath of the devouring 
flame, there has been a demand for some 
more enduring material, and granites from 
Lake Superior and herd, well-burned brick 
are believed to fulfill the conditions most 
perfectly. 

How long the once mighty forests of the 
country will supply the prodigious and 
growing demand' for the use of dwellings, 
is a problem ; but long since, the demands 
of shipwrights have so thinned the Atlan- 
tic forests, that it has become cheaper to 
build upon the lake harbors and western 
rivers. The scarcity of knees and bends 
for ship-building led to the invention of 
the timber-bending machine, by which the 
straight oak timber was claimed to be bent 
in curves or at right angles for knees with- 
out decreasing its strength. The ports of the 
west, however, have of late been appealed 
to, and vessels built at Cleveland and other 
lake ports, at a small cost for lumber and 
labor, find their way to sea cheaper than the 
same class built on the famous old ways of 
Maine, Massachusetts, or Baltimore. The 
white oak becomes less abundant, and live 
oak no greater in supply, while the pine 
and other woods used in the floors and 
trimmings, compete with the demand for 
dwellings. The number of vessels built in 
1880, was 1,589, of 92,776.33 tons. If we 
compare the number and class of vessels 
built in the western states, not including 
the Pacific coast, in 1880 with 1829, we 
shall observe the progress in fifty-one 
years: — 



274 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



WEST. 



Ships. 

1829, 

1880, 

1829 44 

1880, 



Sailing Vessels. 
Brigs. Schooners. 
1 12 



■lb 



70 



397 



Sloops and 
canal boats. 



42 

ATLANTIC. 

473 141 



51 



?amers. 


Total. 


Tons. 


25 


42 


9,032 


182 


230 


55,690.33 


18 


743 


68,066 


141 


1,589 


92,776.33 



THE BUILDING TRADES IN 1870. 



Trades. 



No of 
Estab- 
lish- 
ments. 



Hands 
Em- 
ployed. 



Capital 
Invested. 



Wages Paid. 



Material 
Used. 



Annual 
Product. 



All these trades, 

Blocks and spars, 

Boats, 

Brick-making 

Building stone, artificial, 

Carpentering and building, 

Glass, window ■ 

Heating apparatus - 

Iron castings for stoves, heaters, etc., ... 
Iron bolts, nuts, washers, and rivets, — 
Iron nails and spikes, cut and wrought,. 
Iron lor shipbuilding and marine engines 

Lime burners and dealers, 

Locksmithing and bell-hanging, 

Lumber, planed and sawed, 

Marble ami stone work, 

Masonry, brick and stone, 

Meters, gas and water, 

Plastering 

Plumbing and gas-fitting, 

Roofing 

Bash, doors, and blinds, 

Ship-building, ship materials and repairs, 
Soap-stone, stoves, lire-place, sinks, etc., 

Vault-lights (of iron and glass), 

Wood brackets, mouldings, and scrolls,., 



56,408 



381,000 



$306,046,080 



$138,383,056 



$295,595,801 j $507,056,538 



174 

3,114 

12 

17,142 

35 

59 

326 

93 

142 

1 

1,001 

191 

26.930 

923 

2,264 

15 

691 

705 

198 

1,605 

762 

9 

2 

65 



64 

2,381 

43,293 

67 

67,864 

2,859 

1.141 

13,325 

4.423 

7.770 

352 

6,450 

555 

163,511 

13,190 

11,043 

664 

2,104 

4.783 

1.919 

20,379 

11,003 

74 

19 

747 



$66,250 

1,005,193 

20,504.298 

202,100 

25,110,428 

3,244.560 

1.605,880 

19.833.7i0 

4,263,227 

9,091,912 

750,000 

5,344.154 

229,955 

161,400,123 

11.2S7.677 

2,546,425 

1.051,000 

353,402 

3,731,607 

2,448.680 

21,239.809 

9,102.335 

127,500 

7,500 

832.275 



$31,914 

1,225,996 

10,768,853 

32.570 

29,169,588 

1,503,277 

853,516 

8,156.121 

1,665,426 

3,961,172 

210,00(1 

1,936,158 

160,799 

46,188.893 

7,601,471 

4,271,700 

441,940 

900,395 

2,277.644 

883,341 

10.059.hl 2 

5,594,086 

38,444 

14,700 

434,640 



$28,565 

1,214,016 

7,413,097 

53,945 

65,943,115 

1,400,760 

1.424,345 

9,044,009 

4,021,070 

18,792.383 

187.000 

4,458,542 

170,168 

131,830,741 

8,034.858 

7,015,782 

611.003 

907,524 

5,167.323 

1,293,116 

17,581.814 

8,25-2.304 

98,325 

14.763 

636,423 



$95,095 

3.300.775 

29,028,359 

163,400 

132,901,432 

3.811.308 

8,426.160 

23,380.005 

7,191,151 

24,823.996 

472,000 

8.917,405 

608.149 

252,032.229 

21,310,860 

14.5S7.1S5 

1,452.190 

2,659,025 

10,394,471 

3,257,403 

30.625,806 

17,910.328 

189.115 

41.0U0 

1,472,012 



The annual product of these trades in 
I860 was not very completely recorded, 
but the footings then were $178,539,785; 
so that the annual product of 1870, $597,- 
056,538, is more than three-fold that of 
1860. These statistics are not yet gathered 
or tabulated for 1880; but when we con- 
sider the rapid increase of population and 
settlement, the great progress made in rail- 
road-building, in mining, and in agricul- 
ture, and call to mind the fact that the 
greater part of the immigration has been to 
prairie states, where most of the timber 
and lumber for building purposes must be 
drawn from distant points, and the im- 
mense demand in our large cities for the 
more costly building materials, I think we 
shall be justified in predicting that the ta- 
ble of the building trades for 1880, when 
it shall be completed, will indicate an an- 
nual production in them all considerably 
exceeding twelve hundred million dollars. 



CARRIAGES AND COACHES. 
The improvements in the means of trans- 
portation in the United States are very 
manifest in the number and quality of pri- 
vate carriages of all kinds that are now 
kept by almost all who live out of cities, 
and by very many of those who reside in 
them. With the multiplication of rail- 
roads, which were to supply the place of 
stage-coaches, it was supposed that the 
number of horses employed would be 
greatly diminished. The contrary seems, 
however, to be the fact, since the greater 
breadth of land by their means laid open 
to market, and the resulting general wealth, 
have enabled all to keep pleasure-vehicles, 
when formerly the saddle only was used 
outside the stage-coach. The plain, spring- 
less box-wagon of the farmer conveyed his 
family to and from church on Sunday, and 
hauled his produce on week-days, until 
within a half -century, when the idea of ex- 
travagance attached to the possession of 



CARRIAGES AND COACHES. 



275 



pleasure or spring-wagons began to give 
way, and those vehicles were found in the 
carriage - house, before the piano sup- 
planted the quilting-frame in the parlor. 
The style adopted in 1830 was the omni- 
bus or long coach. One vehicle was 
then started to run up Broadway for 
12^ cents per head. The success was com- 
plete, and the number multiplied, while the 
fare fell successively, until for several 
years the most successful charged five cents 
in common with the horse-cars. In 1864 
they raised their fares to ten cents, but re- 
duced it again in 1876, the competition of 
the horse-cars having reduced their num- 
ber of passengers. There are not more than 
120 omnibuses now running in New York 
and hardly a dozen in Brooklyn. At one 
time there were 440 plying the streets in 
New York. They are strongly and well 
built, and well upholstered, but their day 
of attractiveness is past. 

The horse-cars commenced running as 
early as 1841, when the Harlem Railroad 
began to run small cars drawn by horses 
from Canal street to 42d street, where the 
passengers changed into the larger steam 
cars. It does not seem to have occurred 
to anybody for some years that lines of 
horse-cars could be run which were not 
connected with some line of steam roads. 
At first, too, there was a strong objection 
to the rails of the Harlem Road, which 
were the ordinary T or H rail; it was said 
that in crossing these tracks diagonally car- 
riages and wagons were violently wrenched 
and often broken. "When street railroads 
began to multiply (about 1850) many ex- 
periments were made upon rails, and finally 
the present pattern — a broad grooved rail, 
even with the pavement of the street — 
was finally adopted. The first street-cars 
were rather comfortless affairs, but im- 
provements were soon made, and now 
most of them are very pleasant. They 
are generally well lighted, and some lines 
heat them in winter. The closed car 
drawn by two horses has seats for 22 or 
24 persons, and at times nearly twice 
that number stand in the car, but their 
position is very uncomfortable. The 
"bobtail," or one-horse cars, have a driver 
but no conductor, and the passengers are 
required to put their fares in a box near 
the driver, and under his control. The 
"bobtail" has seats for 12 or 14, and by 
close packing about as many more can find 



standing room. The open cars will seat 
50 or 60, and a few can stand at the ends. 
These are called horse-cars, though some of 
them are drawn by steam or other "mo- 
tors." The Coney Island and Rockaway 
railroads run cars very similar to the open 
cars, and these are drawn by steam loco- 
motives. In the height of the season, as 
many as 100,000 passengers are conveyed 
over these roads each way in a day. Horse 
or motor railroads are now used on many 
streets of all our large and many of the 
smaller cities throughout the country. 
They have extended to San Francisco and 
Denver at the west, to Memphis, New Or- 
leans, and Mobile at the south, to all the 
Atlantic cities and large towns at the east, 
and to the principal cities and large towns 
of New England, New York, and Canada. 
At least 300 million dollars of capital are 
invested in them. They are generally, and 
perhaps always, of three-foot gauge. But 
neither omnibus nor horse-car is quite fast 
enough for this fast age, and the elevated 
railway, or the "L," as it is "called for 
short," seems to be the coming means of 
locomotion in our great cities. The under- 
ground road is endeavoring to compete 
with it, but will fail, since people in gen- 
eral dislike tunnels. New York has 
taken the lead in these, but other cities 
are already following her example. The 
actual cost of construction is heavy, but 
the nominal price has been greatly in- 
creased by speculation and watering the 
stock. As the right of way through or 
rather over the streets is granted by legis- 
latures or city councils, probably from 
$100,000 to $150,000 per mile ought to 
build and equip the road, but one at least 
of the New York roads has issued stocks 
and bonds to the amount of a million dol- 
lars per mile. 

The building of railways all over the 
country (about 50,000 miles within the last 
ten years) has enormously increased the de- 
mand for and the production of railroad 
passenger, freight, coal, and oil cars. The 
ordinary passenger cars have not greatly 
improved in quality during the decade, but 
the practice of running palace cars on all 
the fast through trains has made a remark- 
able change in the methods and comfort of 
travel on long routes. The first inventor, 
or at least the first manufacturer of these 
cars on a large scale was Mr. George Pull- 
man, now, we believe, of Chicago ; there 



276 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



are now some half dozen or more manu- 
facturers. They are of various kinds : 
"sleepers," or sleeping cars, which are 
fitted up with comfortable berths and all 
the appliances of a guest chamber, and are 
so arranged as to be capable of transforma- 
tion in the day time into pleasant drawing- 
rooms ; the passenger or passengers can 
take each a single berth, or if they prefer, 
a half or whole section by paying the propor- 
tionate prices; drawing-room cars proper, 
generally on day routes, having no beds 
or common cushioned seats, but only easy 
chairs, sofas, etc., elegant mirrors, rich car- 
pets, etc.; and dining-room or hotel cars, 
with kitchen and dining-room well furnished 
and which supply meals at regular hours to 
passengers, without the delay and inconven- 
iences of the dining-rooms at the stations. 
All these cars have an extra number of 
trucks, and the best steel and rubber springs, 
so as to make the travel nearly noiseless, and 
almost wholly without jolting or unpleas- 
ant motion. The cars are substantially and 
elegantly constructed, with plate glass win- 
dows, fine panelings, mirrors, and rich 
and tasteful upholstery. Their freedom 
from jolting is best demonstrated by the 
fact that it was said of the car on which 
President Garfield was carried to Long 
Branch, which was run on the palace car 
trucks, that as he lay on his back, a full 
goblet of water might have been placed on 
his breast, and in the whole journey of 
nearly 250 miles, not a drop would have 
been spilled, although the speed at times 
exceeded sixty miles an hour. The palace 
cars are indeed the perfection of railroad 
travel, but the expense of travel on them, 
in addition to the ordinary railroad fares, 
is considerable, averaging about a cent a 
mile to each passenger. In most cases 
they are not owned by the railway com- 
panies, but are run on the routes with the 
other passenger cars and a royalty is paid 
to the owners for each passenger. Some 
of the railways, however, and among the 
number the New York Central, Pennsyl- 
vania Central, and perhaps the Baltimore 
and Ohio with their western connections, 
run their own palace cars. Some of these 
roads make up limited express trains com- 
posed wholly of palace cars. 

The multiplication of narrow-gauge 
(three-foot) roads at the west and on short 
routes to seaside resorts at the east, has 
necessitated the construction of a different 



style of cars for passengers from those on 
the roads of ordinary gauge. Of course 
the car is always considerably wider than 
the track, but a car to run on a narrow- 
gauge is very much narrower and lighter 
than one to run on the regulation 4 feet, 
8^-inch gauge. They are well built, strong, 
and comfortable, but there is not, in gen- 
eral, so much expense for mere ornamental 
decoration as in the larger cars. 

It will have been remarked by the ob- 
serving reader that in every branch of in- 
dustry which has been recently taken 
hold of by the American manufacturer, fa- 
cility of production and cheapness of sale- 
prices have, hand in hand, made rapid pro- 
gress. This remarkable feature has been 
due mostly to one principle: it is that of 
reducing the manufacture to its utmost 
subdivision, and making a distinct branch 
of each separate part of the object to be 
completed. A pattern being once fixed 
upon, all the parts of that pattern are given 
out to workmen, who confine themselves 
each to the manufacturing of the part he 
undertakes. The parts so produced are 
made in the best manner. In this minute 
subdivision of labor there is a constant ten- 
dency to resort to machinery, because that 
where there is a great demand to be sup- 
plied the various parts can be produced 
much more rapidly and in many cases 
more perfectly by machinery than by man- 
ual labor. This is not the case, however, 
with the best descriptions of pleasure car- 
riages. Two entirely diverse theories have 
formed the basis of action among the car- 
riage-building fraternity, and, as might be 
expected, have produced entirely diverse 
results. One theory seeks to cheapen pro- 
duction, and by the liberal use of machin- 
ery and the concealment afforded by paint, 
varnish, and upholstery, makes its thous- 
ands of carriages of showy appearance to 
sell. These carriages are often of tasteful 
patterns, and to the inexperienced pur- 
chaser look as well as others for which 
twice or three times the price is demanded. 
Running on the better class of country 
roads, and not on the hard and often rough 
pavements of the cities, they will not un- 
frequently do good service for a long time. 
It is undoubtedly true that really good and 
snbstantial carriages can be made by the 
aid of machinery. Some of the New Ha- 
ven manufacturers make good and service- 
able carriages, which will endure city wear. 



CARRIAGES AND CCOAHES' 



277 



A very low-price carriage is, however, espe- 
cially for use upon the pavements, the dear- 
est carriage a purchaser can buy. It will 
give out, first at one point, then at another, 
and after having had repairs enough to have 
paid for a new vehicle, it is a rickety old 
carriage after all. There is, nevertheless, 
a large demand for cheap carriages, and it 
is supplied from Belchertown, Mass., New- 
ark, N. J., New Haven, Conn., Philadel- 
phia, Dayton, Ohio, Chicago, St. Louis, 
Jacksonville, 111., and other places east and 
west. In most of these places the manu- 
facturers make a grade of good carriages, 
for which they find a market at home. 

The other theory of carriage -building 
does not seek to acquire a reputation for 
cheapness. It ignores the use of machin- 
ery, preferring thorough, faithful hand la- 
bor to it, and by careful selection of all its 
material, thorough seasoning, honest and 
patient work by skillful workmen, and a 
critical examination of the carriage in 
every stage of its progress, rejecting at 
once all flaws or imperfect work, endeavors 
to make a perfect and enduring vehicle, 
which will last twenty-five years, and when 
it finally fails, will give way " all at once, 
and nothing first." Of course the prices of 
these carriages are high, and the customers 
for them are principally the wealthy and 
dwellers in cities, who find them admirably 
adapted for use upon the pavements ; but 
this class and the keepers of livery stables, 
who find the best carriages they can pro- 
cure the cheapest in the end, create a suffi- 
cient demand for them to keep large manu- 
factories constantly employed. The " Brew- 
ster carriages," made in Broome street, 
New York, have at present a very high rep- 
utation among carriages made on this the- 
ory, but there are other manufacturers, 
both in New York and our other large 
cities, who doubtless do as good work. 

It is such enterprise and success as this 
that drew from the London jurors of the 
World's Fair, the following remarks in 
their report : " Comparing the state of the 
art of carriage-building," say the London 
jurors, in their report on carriages exhib- 
ited at the World's Fair, " of former and 
not very distant times, with that of the 
present, we consider the principles of build- 
ing in many respects greatly improved, 
and particularly with reference to the light- 
ness, and a due regard to strength, which 
are evident in carriages of British make ; 



and especially displayed in those contrib- 
uted by the United States, where there is 
commonly employed in the construction of 
wheels, and other parts requiring strength 
and lightness combined, a native wood (up- 
land hickory) which is admirably adapted to 
the purpose. The carriages from the con- 
tinental states do not exhibit this useful 
feature in an equal degree." 

The woods most used in the construction 
of carriages, ash, oak, and hickory, grow 
of superior quality and in great abundance 
in the neighborhood of Philadelphia, and 
the fact gives the art of carriage-making 
there great advantages. There are in that 
city over fifty factories that produce pleas- 
ure-carriages. The capital invested is over 
§600,000, and over 1,000 hands are em- 
ployed. The vehicles are mostly for city 
use, with some export demand. One of 
the largest factories of the city, Roger & 
Co., occupies 40,000 feet of work room, 
and employs 125 men in all the depart- 
ments of designers, body-makers, wheel- 
wrights, carvers, painters, platers, trim- 
mers, upholsterers, etc. The wagons of 
that establishment have a good reputation. 
In New York, the carriage business is 
pushed to a great extent. The demand for 
heavy vehicles for the great cities is large, 
and the effect of railroads, in spreading the 
population of the city over a. radius of 40 
miles around it, has caused a considerable 
demand for pleasure-wagons and carriages. 
Some persons who would have no use for 
a vehicle in the city, in adopting a suburban 
home, have found at once that a carriage 
was a necessity. 

The number of cars made per annum 
in the state of New York in 1870, was 
1,349, and there were used 7,554,709 
feet of lumber in their construction, and 
in that of wagons, 2,703,975 feet. There 
were 915,780 spokes made. The number 
of wagons turned out was .6,391, and of 
sleighs 605. The census of 1880, when 
complete, will indicate a great increase in 
the last decade. The city of Brooklyn, 
which has put forward no claim to a prom- 
inence in the carriage manufacture, re- 
ported, in 1880, 105 factories, employing 
nearly 1,000 men, and producing $1,008,- 
719 worth of carriages and wagons. The 
size of some of these factories, and the num- 
ber of vehicles turned out, are surprising. 
The numerous depots for carriages in the 
city contain every possible description of 



278 



CARRIAGES AND COACHES. 



pellicles, and of all manufactures. The car- 
riage manufacture in New Jersey stands 
next in magnitude to that of New York. 
This is mostly at Newark, where great 
numbers are turned out, of an approved 
quality. A feature of the carriage and wagon 
business that has been introduced of late 
years, is that all possible parts of vehicles 
can he purchased in any quantity, conse- 
quently the wheelwright business of small 
towns has been entirely revolutionized. 
They can no longer make an entire vehicle, 
as formerly, with any success, but purchase 
wheels, axles, top frames, springs, etc., of any 
and every pattern, to put together and finish. 
All these parts are produced in great quanti- 
ties, by machine. Hence, as we see, there are 
a very large number of spoke factories 
which turn out millions of spokes per an- 
num. The largest city factories, however, 
make all the parts within themselves. Let 
us trace the successive steps of the build- 
ing of a pleasure-carriage. The design, 
whatever may be the style, is first prepared 
on paper f of an inch to the foot. This 
being approved by the purchaser or owner, 
a geometrical plan is executed upon the 
black-board. The patterns are then cut in 
the wood, and from this skeleton the shape 
and proportions are determined. There 
must be exercised in this process the ut- 
most mathematical exactness, and the most 
careful selection of material. The wooden 
frame is now removed to the smithy; then 
come in requisition, springs, tires, hinges, 
axles, bolts, locks, and every variety of 
form by which iron can conduce to the 
strength of the fabric. This being com- 
pleted, the skeleton is moved to the body 
department, to receive its floors and panels, 
the sides with their proper curvature, the 
seats of the destined construction, and the 
doors with their trimmings. From this 
room the body goes to the paint room. 
Formerly this was a tedious process, but 
the adoption of Wheeler's (of the "Wheeler 
& Wilson S. M. Co.) patent wood filling so 
completely fills and polishes the surface of 
the wood as to render only a single coat of 
paint necessary before the color painting 
and the repeated varnishings and rubbings 
down required. The carriage next seeks 
the trimming room, to be decked with fine 
cloths, silks, lace, carpfet, embossed leather, 
or the finest morocco, and becomes as taste- 
ful as art can make it. While the body of the 
vehicle is thus being prepared, the carriage, 



or wheels, axles, perches and shafts have also 
been approaching a state ready to receive it. 
The felloes, shafts, and nave, each of its ap- 
propriate and well-selected wood, are com- 
bined into wheels, that must in size bear a 
certain proportion to the body. The average 
difference between the fore and hind wheels 
is eight inches. In the combination, each 
department supplies its proper part, and 
when ready to receive the body, that is hung 
upon the springs, and the whole is ready for 
the final polish. Apart from the coach or 
pleasure-vehicle business, is the wagon busi- 
ness, which is of great extent, all the parts 
being formed by machines of late invention. 
The himber for these heavy vehicles is of 
considerable dimensions. The plank used is 
three to' four inches thick. This must be-all 
well seasoned. Hence capital is required to 
keep a sufficient stock on hand, since it re- 
quires four or five years to season, or one 
year for every inch of thickness. The tim- 
ber for hubs is of black locust. This, of dif- 
ferent sizes, has the bark removed, and is 
bored through the centre to facilitate the 
seasoning. All the lumber thus seasoned in 
stock, is, when ready, removed to the saw- 
mill. Here machines are usually ready to 
shape every part: upright and circular saws 
to cut the plank into shafts and felloes after 
it is marked ; planing machines, and mortis- 
ing machinery ; lathes for turning spokes 
and hubs ; for boring holes for the spokes ; 
for driving in the spokes; for shaping and 
finishing the felloes ; for boring holes in the 
hubs to receive the boxes, so as to insure a 
solid bearing, and for turning the hubs, of 
which the two ends are cut off at once by 
circular saws. All these machines soon turn 
.the solid plank into finished wheels, while 
the body is growing under similar applica- 
tions in another room, under the direction 
of various departments. The iron axles are 
turned in the machine shops, where also all 
the tires, bands, straps, bolts, rivets, etc., are 
prepared and applied. The wagons are then 
ready for the paint. This is the general 
operation of wagon-making in large estab- 
lishments. During the war, some hundreds 
of thousands of army wagons were required 
by the government, and the energies of the 
manufacturers were severely taxed to furnish 
them as fast as they were needed. Numer- 
ous ambulances were also built for the army. 
The demand for express wagons that has 
grown up of late years, has become very 
large, and they are produced in great per- 




1810. 



1820. 




THOROUGH BRACE — 1825. 




FIRST ELLIPTIC SPRINGS. 



The following are a few of the many styles from 1830 to 1850. 




JAGGER. 




CRICKET. 



FRENCH DOG CART. 





CHAMPION. PRINCE 0F WALES - 

The following are a few of the many styles from 1850 to 1870. 




INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



283 



fection as respects strength and price. An- 
other large demand for vehicles has taken 
the shape of railroad cars, and these more 
than rival coaches in the extent of manu- 
facture. In New York, the value of pro- 
duction is nearly $6,500,000 per annum. 
Most car wheels are of iron, and the ut- 
most care is taken in the manufacture of 
them, that when cast the iron shall cool 
equally in all its parts. F % or this purpose, 
when the wheel is cast in a mold, it is re- 
moved as speedily as possible into a circu- 
lar chamber or furnace, composed of fire 
brick, 4^ inches thick, and surrounded by 
an iron case. "When they are there depos- 
ited, the opening is closed, and the heat of 
the whole is raised to nearly the melting 
point. All the avenues to and from the 
interior are then closed, and the whole is 
left to cool gradually. By this process of 
raising the heat, the temperature of the 
wheel is equalized in all its parts, and as 



the heat can then only subside through the 
wall, it cools so gradually that all parts of 
the wheel contract alike. For this cooling 
four days are required. While red-hot the 
wheel is removed, and having its edges 
packed round with sand, the center is made 
to communicate, by means of a flue, with a 
chimney 120 feet high. The draught thus 
created cools the center. The same, if not 
far greater importance attaches to the uni- 
form toughness of the iron of a wheel as to 
that of a cannon. The lives of hundreds 
of passengers are always depending upon 
the soundness of the running wheels, and 
the utmost care is taken to make and keep 
them sound. Of late years paper or papier- 
mache has been used to a considerable ex- 
tent for car- wheels; it is subjected to an 
immense pressure, and an iron or steel tire 
shrunk on. It is claimed that these paper 
wheels are more enduring, and make less 
noise than any other wheels yet invented. 



THE PROGRESS OF THE CARRIAGE MANUFACTURE IN THE LAST FORTY YEARS 


—1840-1880. 


Census Year. 


No. of Estab- 
lishments. 


Persons 
Employed. 


Wages Paid. 


Valne of Raw 
Material. 


Carriages, wag- 
ons, coaches, 
children's and 
dolls' carriages 
produced. 


Value of Annual 
Product. 


1840 


92 

1.822 

7.2:34 

11.944 

18,350 


2,274 

14,000 

37.457 

56.294 

102,500 






13,331 

95.000 

270,000 

800.000 

1,350,000 


1,708.741 


1850 


$13,547,350 
21,749.625 
39,625,000 




12.000,000 


1860 
1870 
1880* 


$12,008,675 
23,385,683 
47,250,000 


35.927,192 
67.003.730 
123.500,000 



♦Estimated. 



WE ADD THE CENSUS STATISTICS OF 1870 AND 1880 OF THE ENTIRE TRADES WHICH ARE 
CONCERNED IN THE CARRIAGE AND CAR MANUFACTURE. 





No. of 
Establish- 
ments 


Persons 
Employed. 


Wages 
Paid. 


Value of Raw 
Material. 


Value of 
Annual Pro- 
duct. 


1870. 


44 

53 

11,847 

3 

170 

302 


453 
913 

54,928 
122 

15.931 
3,721 


$144,278 

407,887 

21,272.730 

69.56S 

9,659.992 

1,544,896* 


$214,544 

496,981 

28,787,841 

73.061 
18.117.707 
2.204,713 


I590.87S 




1,488.883 




66,368,837 


Car fixtures and trimmings, 


808.080 




81,070,784 




, 6,886,167 




12,419 


76,068 


$33,098,791 


$43,S92,647 


$103,950,519 






1880. 




















Car fixtures and trimmings 












Totals 

















284 



AMERICAN CLOCKS. 



AMERICAN CLOCKS. 
Perhaps there is no one article of more 
general utility than " Yankee clocks," and 
none on which more small wit has been ex- 
pended both at home and abroad. The 
land of "wooden clocks and nutmegs" has 
been a standing jibe against those who 
have so cleverly and perseveringly exe- 
cuted those practical ideas that tend directly 
to the amelioration of the human condition. 
Alfred the Great and other old progress 
men discovered the value of time, and were 
hard put to it to measure it out. Some of 
the old fellows sought to do it by the drop- 
ping of water; and many marked the pro- 
gress of the sun; and other devices were 
employed without very great accuracy. 
Alfred contrived twelve candles, which be- 
ing burned one after the other, divided his 
day into twelve portions, which had each 
their special employment. Twelve candles 
were not convenient, however, to carry in 
one's fob, and were troublesome to light 
and snuff. If a Yankee peddler had 
walked in upon him with a wooden clock 
under his arm to sell for a crown piece, he 
would have been in far more danger of be- 
ing burned for a wizard than of being 
laughed at as a humbug. The water-clock, 
in which the wheels were turned by the 
flow of water, was for two thousand years 
the only clock of the world. In the 
eleventh century, falling weights were sub- 
stituted for flowing water, but the clocks 
were huge affairs, only used in churches 
and monasteries. The escapement wheel 
was invented in 1379 by Henry de Yick. 
About two hundred years later, Galileo 
discovered the law of the pendulum, and 
the mechanism of the clock underwent no 
further material change for another centu 
ry. They were a luxury attainable only 
by the rich. They were imported into 
this country from Europe down to the for- 
mation of the federal government, at high 
prices. Some of these were the pendulum 
clocks, about six feet high, and generally 
stood in the landings of the old houses. 
About the time of the formation of the 
federal government, however, Eli Terry, 
of Windsor, Connecticut, made some clocks 
of wood, of a small size, to hang up 
against the wall. In I 793, he began making 
them as a business, in Plymouth, Connecti- 
cut. Then he made a few in the year by 
his own labor. In 1800, he had procured 



the help of two young men. The wheels 
were marked out on the wood with square 
and compass, and then cut out with a fine 
saw and jack-knife, the teeth of the 
wheels being formed in the same manner. 
Twice a year Mr. Terry would pack up 
some of these clocks and make a journey 
into the new country west of the North 
River. His success in this led to the for- 
mation of a company in Waterbury, in 
1807, to furnish him with material for his 
work. Purchasing an old mill, he intro- 
duced some machinery, and undertook to 
make 500 clocks at one time, a larger num- 
ber than any clock-maker in the world had 
ever attempted. The price of these clocks 
under such extravagant production fell 
from $25, which, though often paid in bar- 
ter, had hitherto been the regular price, to 
$20, $15, and finally, in 1811 or 1812, to 
$10. In 1810, Mr. Terry sold his factory 
to Messrs. Seth Thomas and Silas Hoadley, 
but a short time after he went into the bus- 
iness again. Messrs. Thomas and Hoadley 
carried on the business together till 1813, 
when Mr. Thomas bought out his partner, 
and established himself in business in 
Thomaston, then a part of Plymouth, and 
since that time it has been conducted there 
without failure or intermission. It has 
been incorporated since 1853 as the Seth 
Thomas Clock Co., and in its various de- 
partments of common one and eight-day 
clocks, levers, one and eight-day, with and 
without strike and alarm, office, hanging, 
and calendar clocks, clock movements, ele- 
gant mantel clocks, and tower clocks, it is 
the largest clock manufactory in the world. 
But to return to our history. Mr. Terry 
having resumed business, and finding the 
trade greatly depressed, clocks selling at 
$5, and some of the new firms failing, in- 
vented a new style which he called the 
"Pillar Scroll Top Case," and which sold 
largely through peddlers at $15. Among 
his apprentices was Chauncey Jerome, who 
after coming of age commenced business 
for himself, and after many vicissitudes 
became the largest manufacturer of cheap 
clocks in the world. His principal factory 
was at New Haven, and his frequent in- 
troduction of new styles revived the flag- 
ging trade. In 1837, however, the great 
financial panic ruined most of the clock 
manufacturers, and greatly reduced the 
business of those who stood the shock. 
Up to this time clocks had been made 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



28; 



wholly of wood, the movements being of 
maple, oak, and cherry, the pinions of ivy 
or laurel, and the dials of whitewood. In 
1837, a thirty-hour clock with brass move- 
ment was invented, but owing to the finan- 
cial depression was not manufactured to 
any extent before 1840 or 1841. Eight- 
day clocks with brass movement followed, 
and very soon the business was greatly in- 
creased, and brass rolling-mills erected to 
supply the metal for the plates and wheels. 
Every part of the manufacture was cheap- 
ened till one style of the thirty-hour clocks 
was sold as low as 75 cents, and a very fair 
eight-day clock for $4. American clocks 
are sold in immense quantities in all the 
countries of Europe, Western Asia, China, 
Japan, South America, and South Africa. 
The house of Jerome & Co. was merged 
into a joint stock company in 1850, called 
the Jerome Manufacturing Co. In 1853 
and 1854, this company produced 444,000 
clocks per annum, and other companies as 
many more. Of the thirty one clock com- 
panies in operation in 1852, nine failed, 
four were burned out, and five wound up 
on account of low prices. In 1855, both 
the Jerome Company and J. C. Brown, the 
next largest manufacturer, failed. 

A reorganization of the business fol- 
lowed, and now (1882) the manufacture of 
clocks in this country is practically in the 
hands of a few firms. Of these the follow- 
ing are the only considerable ones: The 
Seth Thomas Clock Co., of Thomaston, 
Conn., the oldest house now in the busi- 
ness, manufacturing over 400,000 clocks 
annually, and making sales to the amount 
of over a million dollars; this company 
have absorbed the Seth Thomas Sons & 
Co., and some other manufacturers; The 
New Haven Clock Co., of New Haven, 
Conn., successors to the Jerome Manufac- 
turing Co.; the Ansonia Clock Co., suc- 
cessors to J. C. Brown & Co., who have 
now a very large factory in Brooklyn, N. Y. ; 
the E. N. Welch Manufacturing Co., of 
Forestville, Conn.; the Waterbury Clock 
Co., of Waterbury, Conn., successors to 
Benedict, Burnham & Co. : The William 
L. Gilbert Manufacturing Co., of Winsted, 
Conn.; E. Ingraham & Co., Welch, Spring 
& Co., the Barnes Clock Co., formerly the 
Atkins Clock Co., all of Bristol, Conn., or 
its vicinity; The Scoville Manufacturing 
Co., of Waterbury, who have absorbed 
Samuel Peck & Co., formerly of New Ha- 



ven ; and the Terry Clock Co., formerly of 
Waterbury, but now of Pittsfield, Mass, 
The only manufacturers of tower clocks are 
the Seth Thomas Clock Co., whose Hotch 
kiss tower clocks have the highest reputa 
tion, the Howard Watch and Clock Co. 
of Boston, and Mr. Charles Fasold, of Al 
bany, who has, however, made very few 
Regulators of the very best quality are now 
made by the Howard Watch & Clock Co., 
the Seth Thomas Clock Co., the William 
L. Gilbert Clock Co., of Winsted, the 
Waterbury Clock Co., and Welch, Spring 
& Co., of Bristol. The finest French par- 
lor or mantel clocks, fully equal to the im- 
ported, are made by the Seth Thomas 
Clock Co. The Terry Clock Co., of Pitts- 
field, and, we believe, also the Ansonia 
Clock Co., of Brooklyn, make neat parlor 
clocks. Calendar clocks are made by most 
of the manufacturers. The greatest suc- 
cess of the last decade, in the clock line, 
has been the little lever clock, either one- 
day or eight-day, and with or without strike 
or alarm. Lever clocks have been known 
abroad for one hundred years and more, 
and in this country for fifty years, but had 
not been very popular, till Mr. Seth E. 
Thomas, of the Seth Thomas Clock Co., in- 
vented his "Nutmeg Lever," in 1874, and 
that company followed it with other pat- 
terns subsequently, and have manufactured 
from 600 to 1,200 of them a day since that 
time. Most of the other companies are 
now manufacturing lever clocks of all de- 
scriptions, and probably nearly 500,000 are 
made annually. They are sold at very low 
prices, and are very convenient for house- 
hold and office use. The one-day levers 
are better than the eight-day, as the latter 
do not keep as accurate time. The Seth 
Thomas Clock Co. have also recently intro- 
duced another novelty, viz., clocks with a 
wood case of the best cherry, ebonized, or 
in some instances of marble, and of grace- 
ful architectural patterns, with what are 
known as cathedral bells; the bell being a 
highly-tempered spiral coil of steel wire, 
supported by a strong upright pillar of 
small dimensions, whose foot is fixed to a 
thin elastic board at the bottom of the case. 
The tones of the bell are sweet and musi- 
cal. The movement is the same with the 
mantel clocks. There are annually pro- 
duced in this country about two and a 
half million clocks, and their value is be- 
tween five and six million dollars. 



286 



AMERICAN WATCIIES. 



AMERICAN WATCHES. 
In our chapter on Clocks we have given 
a condensed history of the slow processes, 
by which the civilized world attained to 
an accurate measurement of time. The 
clock was the mother of the watch. The 
means of producing regulated motion were 
substantially the same, for Vick's escape- 
ment which, though not the first, was the 
best, had been invented before 1379, and 
in the early part of the next century it had 
been discovered that clock-work could be 
set in motion as well by the gradual uncoil- 
ing of a spring as by the running- down of 
weights, and that those motions could be 
made in equal time either by the swing of 
a pendulum attached to an escapement like 
Vick's, or by a balance wheel acting upon 
the escapement. Yet the "pocket clock," 
or "Nuremberg animated egg," was not 
invented till 1477, when Peter Hele, a 
clockmaker of that city, after a year's 
labor, produced what at the time was con- 
sidered one of the wonders of the world. 
Its price and the price of its duplicates, 
comparing the pui'chasing power of money 
at that time and now, was a sum equal to 
$1,500 of our money. Yet, judging by 
our present standards, it does not seem to 
have been very valuable as a watch ; it had 
no hairspring (for that was not invented 
till almost 200 years later), but it did 
have a fusee, and the precursor of the fusee 
chain, made of catgut; it was egg-shaped, 
and about the size of a goose-egg; it re- 
quired winding up twice a day, and its 
usual daily variation from correct time was 
nearly an hour. From this to an Ameri- 
can watch of our own time, which without 
special adjustment will not vary more than 
two m.'nutes in a month, and which can be 
regulated to the fifth of a second, is quite 
an advance. One hundred and twenty-five 
years later the catgut fusee had been ex- 
changed for the metallic fusee chain with 
its hundreds of minute and highly-finished 
steel links, a great improvement, but liable 
to break or become unfastened. The next 
great invention was that of the hairspring 
or balance-spring, and its application to the 
balance, and the discovery that within cer- 
tain limits its vibrations were made in 
equal time. Both Huyghens and Dr. Rob- 
ert Hook'e claim this invention and discov- 
ery, and both probably made it, but Hooke's 
claim is prior to Huyghens' by fifteen or 



sixteen years, having been made in 1658 
or 1659, while Huyghens' earliest date is 
1674. For the next hundred years the 
watchmakers wearied themselves in the at- 
tempt to invent some new escapements; the 
"patent lever, or detached lever," "detached 
escapement," and "anchor escapement" 
vary more in form and efficiency of action 
than in principle. About 1700, the use of 
jewels — ruby, sapphire, chrysolite, garnet, 
or aqua-marine — for the bearings of pivots, 
was introduced. The compensating balance 
was invented by J. Harrison, in 1767, to 
equalize any influence exerted by variations 
of temperature to which the two metals of 
which it was composed might be subjected. 
The circumference of the compensating 
a'ance is divided into two sections, the 
jpposite ends of which are fastened to the 
cross bar of steel ; the outer rim of the bal- 
ance is brass; the inner rim, which is sol- 
dered to it, of steel, and each half of the 
circle has one end free, while the different 
contractility or expansibility of the two 
metals compensate each other. 

With these improvements the English 
watch attained its highest development. It 
was thick and clumsy, though less so of 
later years than formerly; when well made 
it was a fair time-keeper, seldom varying 
more than two or three minutes in a week, 
but it was necessarily high priced, for its 
different parts were made by hand in places 
widely distant, and necessarily required to 
be considerably changed before they could 
be made to work together harmoniously, 
and the individual excellence and steadi- 
ness of each workman was an important 
element in the perfection of the watch. 
The whole production was conducted waste- 
fully; each workman requiring but an 
almost infinitesimal quantity of the raw ma- 
terial, paid a higher price for it than if he 
could have purchased it in larger quanti- 
ties, and his individual profit must be 
greater from his isolated position ; every at- 
tempt at decoration involving any artistic 
taste greatly enhanced the cost. If now 
these various parts were to be assembled 
in the shop of a watchmaker of high repu- 
tation, he must carefully inspect and ad- 
just them before he would be willing to 
put his name upon them, and a doubling 
of the price gave him, in his opinion, no 
more than a fair profit. Thus it came to 
pass that an Arnold, Earnshaw, Tobias, or 
Frodsham watch of the first class com- 



2t 



MXi: 



4 






i 1 



il'° 



FIRST CLOCKS USED hy 
COUNTRY PEOPLE 

Without oafle, they were fastened 
la the wall, the weights runtime 
nearly to the Boor. Thay kept good 
time When the children did not plav 
with the pendulum. 




HOUR-GLASS. 

Shaped like wine-glasses, minus the 
itand part, one inverted, connected 
together by a small tube, by which 
the sand passed from one to the other 
in one hour ; it was then reversed 
and the sand ran back again. Wheth 
er our ancestors sat up nights to turn 
it over we can not tell. 




THE SUN-DIAL, 

By which our forefathers could tell 
when it was noon in fair weather. 
When cloudy they judged by tin- indi- 
cations of the stomach. 




MAKING WATCHES BY MACHINERY. 




VIEW OF THE ELfilX WATCH FACTORY. 




THE TRAIN ROOM. 




ELGIN MACHINE SHOP. 




SETTING UP THE WATCHES. 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



291 



manded from $200 to $800. If by any 
accident any part of the movement of such 
a watch gave way or was injured, all that 
could be done for it was to make another 
as nearly like the injured part as possible; 
it might fit well and do well, sometimes it 
did; if so, well; if not, the watch, how- 
ever costly, was rendered worthless. The 
French and Swiss watchmakers very early 
abandoned two features of the English 
watch as unnecessary, and as increasing 
the size, cost, and fragility of the watch, 
viz., the fusee and chain and the vertical 
escapement. In their watches, the great 
wheel, which had been attached to the base 
of the fusee, was transferred to the base 
of the barrel which held the mainspring, 
and set in motion the center wheel and 
pinion, which in turn imparted motion to 
the third wheel and pinion, and this to the 
contrate wheel and pinion, and thus con- 
nected directly with the balance and es- 
capement, which by their alternate motions 
regulated and compelled uniform action 
in the uncoiling of the mainspring, and 
availed themselves at the same time of 
the action of the hairspring, making its 
isochronism more perfect. But the Swiss 
carried the division of labor farther than the 
English. They employed over fifty different 
trades in the production of a watch, and 
often from 150 to 200 persons. While 
they had some machines for making parts 
of the watch or case, it was true that of 
the pieces made wholly by hand, workmen 
passed their whole lives in making dupli- 
cates of the same piece, and that often a 
very small one, and these workmen worked 
at their own homes, often many miles 
apart. Wages were very low, so low that 
the English watchmakers have for many 
years past imported the parts which made 
up the watch movements from Switzerland, 
put them together, stamped their own 
names on them, cased them, and sold them 
at a large profit as English watches. Yet 
this very cheapness of labor had its disad- 
vantages; there was much imperfect work. 
The best watchmakers say that more than 
one-third of all the pieces are rejected by 
the inspectors, but that it has been the 
practice of unscrupulous dealers to buy 
them up, put them together, and covering 
them with showy cases, send them to dis- 
tant markets— the United States, South 
America, Australia, etc.— and sell thorn at 
low prices as Swiss watches. These watches 
16 



were bad enough, though more comely 
than the "Nuremberg egg;" but they kept 
some kind of time, and did not vary more 
than an hour a day: they were practically 
driven out of the American market by the 
production of a low-grade American w r atch, 
which was a good time keeper, and though 
cheaply cased was a very durable and ser- 
viceable watch; but, driven to desperation, 
these psaudo- watchmakers are now sending 
over great quantities of the worst possible 
trash, plates and wheels not gilded, steel- 
work unpolished, cases imperfect, and the 
whole utterly worthless for any purpose, 
and these bogus watches are sold in gift 
enterprises, and as rewards for subscrip- 
tions to periodicals, and in the thousand 
ways known only to swindlers. The better 
class of Swiss watches are very good 
watches, the best made by hand labor, and 
though necessarily of higher cost than 
American watches of the same or a better 
grade, yet find a moderate market here. 

We turn now to the manufacture of 
American watches. This industry, consid- 
ered as the manufacture of watches mainly 
by machinery, has not yet reached its thir- 
tieth year. There were, it is true, isolated 
instances within seventy years past in 
which ingenious workmen, who had im- 
ported the springs, the jewels, the escape- 
ment, and the fusee chain, had supplied 
the remaining parts of a watch movement, 
and set it up so as to make a serviceable" 
watch; there were numerous instances 
where watchmakers, having imported all 
the parts of a watch movement, had put 
them together and made cases fcr them; 
but this was not the manufacture o E watches. 

To Mr. A. L. Dennison, a watchmaker' 
of Boston, belongs the honor of having, in 
1852, been the first to conceive the idea 
that it was possible, by improving on the 
systems in force in Switzerland by making 
the parts of a watch under one roof, oper- 
ating the tools by steam or water-power. 
and supplementing them by other ma- 
chines of American invention and by such 
hand labor as might be necessary, to create 
a manufactory which would turn out ten 
watches a day. Doubts were expressed 
of his sanity, but he persuaded three 
other gentlemen, Edward Howard, Da- 
vid P. Davis, and Samuel Curtis, to join 
him in erecting a watch factory in Rox- 
bury Mass. Difficultios surrounded them 
from the start. It was after a year of 



292 



AMERICAN WATCIIES. 



hard and at times almost hopeless labor cases eighteen karat fine 
that they completed their first watch in ture no cases of nickel 
1S53. They have made hundreds of thous- 
ands of more elegant watches since that 
time than this, their first-born, but it was, 
and is, an excellent time-keeper. But an 
unexpected obstacle now met them; the 
soil of that part of Roxbury immediately 
surrounding their factory is a fine clay, 
and in dry weather an almost impalpable 
dust arises from it, which they found fatal 
to the more delicate operations required in 
the manufacture of a watch. Nothing 
daunted, however, they removed to a site 
on the banks of the Charles river, a little 
above the village of Waltham, where other 
partners soon came in, and the manufac- 
tory was first organized as the Boston 
"Watch Co., and some years later, after 
some financial troubles, reorganized as the 
American Watch Co., of Waltham, Mass , 
Wit j its present managers. At first, they 
had the strong competition of foreign man- 
ufacturers, the prejudices of purchasers in 
favor of foreign watches, and the cupidity 
of many of the dealers, to contend with, 
but they have bravely overborne all oppo- 
sition, and their growth since i860 has 
been steady, uniform, and rapid. They 
now have a capital of $1,500,000, a manu- 
factory covering nearly two acres, with a 
park in front, an extensive enclosed flower- 
garden, cottages and other dwellings for 
their employees, and when running at full 
time, as they now are, employ about 2.000 
hands, half of them women, paying for all 
their work at such prices that the wages 
average $1.75 per day for women and 
$2.75 per day for men. They can turn 
out from 1,000" to 1,500 watch movements a 
day, and produce a vast quantity of silver 
watch-cases also at the factory; the gold 
cases, and the dust and water-proof silver 
cases, are made in their Waltham building 
in New York city, under the careful super- 
vision of Messrs. Robbins k Applcton, who 
are large stockholders and the general 
agents of the company. This part of their 
i S3 consumes a large amount of capi- 
tal, -ml yet cannot keep up with the de- 
mand. Nearly 1,000 gold cases are pro- 
duced in a week, and more than $20,000 
worth of gold melted, beside the constantly 
increasing quantity of silver for the dust- 



Thcy manufac- 
or base metal. 
Their actual production is about 400,000 
watches per annum. They have sold in 
this and other countries, in the twenty- 
seven years since they began work at 
Waltham, about two million watches, and 
have now a rapidly increasing demand for 
export to Great Britain and all the great 
consuming markets of the world, and a 
home market so large that they have great 
difficulty in keeping up with their orders. 
The foreign demand has been greatly en- 
larged since the Centennial Exposition of 
1876, the French Exposition of 1878, the 
Sydney Exposition of 1879-80, and that at 
Melbourne in 1880-81. The rapidity of 
the growth of the manufacture of these 
watches was thus stated by M. Edouard 
Favre-Perret, a commissioner from Swit- 
zerland to the Centennial, and himself a 
well-known Swiss watch manufacturer, in 
a speech addressed to Swiss watch manu- 
facturers after his return: "In 1860, the 
American companies produced only 15,000 
watches; in 1863, 100,000; to-day they 
produce 250,000. We sent to America, in 
1872, 366,000 watches; in 1875, 134,000 ; 
in 1876, barely 75,000. Had the Philadel- 
phia exhibition taken place five years later 
we should have been totally annihilated, 
without knowing whence or how we re- 
ceived the terrible blow The Walt- 
ham Company make the entire watch from 
the first screw to the case and dial. It 
would even be difficult for them to use our 
products, so great is the regularity, so mi- 
nute the precision with which their ma- 
chines work." 

It is a most significant fact that this 
company, not yet thirty years old, and 
which adopted its own calibers for its 
watches, entirely independent of and differ- 
ing from those of the Geneva makers 
from twenty to twenty-seven years ago, 
should have attained such a status that, 
except in the complicated repeating and 
other watches not made here, many of the 
Geneva makers have changed their calibers. 
and made them conform to the Americ; n 
standard, so that many foreign watches (ex- 
cept as above noted) will fit into a Walt- 
ham case. The Waltham works are, in 
one very important sense, the only complete 



proof silver cases. Their silver cases are j watch factory in the United States; they 
all warranted fflfo fine, or ^5- higher case their own watches, while all the others 
than American silver coin, and their gold | make watch movements only, leaving them 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



293 



to be cased by the dealers, who buy their 
cases where they can buy best. The evils 
of this practice, the Waltham people say, 
are manifold ; there is no satisfactory guar- 
anty, in most cases, of the fineness of the 
case; it is often carelessly and imperfectly 
made, and so may injure a really good and 
perfect movement. It is never really dust- 
proof or moisture-proof, and this is espe- 
cially the case with stem-winders and stem- 
setters; it is never so perfectly adapted to 
the watch movement as a case made espe- 
cially for that pattern and no other. A 
large manufactory with ample capital and 
the best machinery, made by its own ma- 
chinists, and buying, melting, and assaying 
its material on a large scale, has great ad- 
vantages over the small manufacturer, 
while in decorating or engraving the cases, 
their superiority is complete. 

The Waltham Company have not only 
fully maintained the guaranty with which 
they provided every watch of their manu- 
facture from an early day after their estab- 
lishment at Waltham, " that it is made of 
the best material, on the most approved 
principles, possessing every requisite for a 
reliable time-keeper, and that for any de- 
fect in material, workmanship, or perform- 
ance under fair usage, the Company at all 
times hold themselves responsible ; " but 
they have availed themselves of every 
opportunity of improving and perfecting 
their watches, until they should be, in the 
highest sense, even the lowest grades, " in- 
struments of precision." Long before 1870 
they had made their highest grade of 
watches, stem- winders, and stem-setters as 
well. Nearly two-thirds of their watches are 
now stem-winders and stem-setters, the key- 
winders being almost entirely of the less 
costly grades, or if of the higher, those in- 
tended for the London market, as John 
Bull clings to his old habits with great 
tenacity. All of their best watch move- 
ments, and especially all those intended for 
the use of travelers, railroad men, mining 
and civil engineers, have the "quick train," 
insuring a swift motion of 18,000 beats to 
the hour. The reasons for this are that 
the wheels and pinions revolving quickly, 
the balance itself spinning with great ve- 
locity, shocks and other disturbances, while 
the watch is in motion, exert very little in- 
fluence upon it. This is particularly true 
with watches carried by railroad engineers 
and conductors, and mining and civil en- 



gineers. Severe shocks do not perceptibly 
alter the rate of such a watch. These im- 
provements in some form are, we believe, 
adopted by several of the American com- 
panies. Kogg's patent pinion, whose office 
is to prevent the breaking down of other 
parts of the watch if the mainspring breaks 
— a most ingenious contrivance — is an in- 
vention exclusively used by this company. 
The chronograph, a timing watch which 
works out the minute subdivisions of time 
through an attachment not affecting the 
main watch, and records them down to 
one-fifth of a second on the face, or on a 
dial on the back of the watch, is another of 
their remarkable additions which will be 
appreciated by the sporting fraternity. 
There is very little demand for what are 
known as fancy watches — under which 
general title are included repeaters, watches 
which give the days of the month, the time 
of the sun, moon, and stars' rising and set- 
ting, the signs of the zodiac, or the preces- 
sion of the equinoxes, in this country, and 
as they are greatly complicated in their ma- 
chinery by these additions, and so more 
liable to run irregularly, none of our Amer- 
ican manufacturers have been disposed to 
make them. Perhaps one of their best im- 
provements, so far as the safety and regular- 
ity of action of the watch is concerned, is 
their dust and water-proof case. Several of 
the companies have had contrivances for 
diminishing the amount of dust which is lia- 
ble to enter a watch, such as dust-proof 
bands, etc., but the American Watch Com- 
pany have devised a case which has not 
only a dust-proof band, but a screwing to- 
gether of the two halves of the case out- 
side of this band, and a cementing of the 
heavy crystal so completely and by such 
admirable mechanism as to render it en- 
tirely impervious to either dust or water. 
The watch, well and carefully oiled when 
put together, will run perfectly, does not 
need to be opened for five years, and then 
does not require much cleaning. There 
are well attested instances where watches 
with these cases have lain for three months 
in snow, ice, and water, and at the end of 
that time have been wound and set. and 
were none the worse for their bath. These 
watches are in great demand at the west, 
and in tropical countries, where the con- 
stant moisture to which they are exposed 
would soon ruin an ordinary watch. 

The American or Waltham Company is 



294 



AMERICAN 'WATCHES. 



by no means the only manufacturer of 
watch -movements in the country, though 
it was the first and is much the largest. The 
exact number of these companies at the 
present time we cannot give. A few of 
them have a deservedly high reputation. 
The first, we believe, was that of Mr. Ed- 
ward Howard, one of the original mem- 
bers of the American Watch Company, 
who withdrew from it at an early date, and 
est a lilished himself in Roxbury, Mass., in 
the manufacture of watches, chronometers, 
regulator clocks, and tower clocks. Mr. 
Howard has not attempted to produce so 
large a number of watches as some of the 
others, his production ranging from fifty 
to sixty watches a day, and employing 
about 250 men, but his watches, like all 
his time-pieces, are of excellent quality, 
and all of the higher grades. 

In 1864-65 several companies wei'e or- 
ganized. The most prominent and success- 
ful of these was the National "Watch Co., 
established at Elgin, Illinois, and now gen- 
erally known as the Elgin National Co. 
The capital (.$1,300,000), as well as the 
enterprise, which originated this company 
came from Chicago, but some of its earliest 
and best workmen were from the Waltham 
Company's works. It is much the largest 
company, after the Waltham Co., in the 
United States, employing 700 or 800 hands, 
more than half of them women, and turn- 
ing out about 600 watch movements a day 
(or 175,000 to 180,000 a year), of sixteen 
different grades. They make no cases, pre- 
ferring to have their movements cased by 
the dealers. They have a demand for 
their movements in Europe, and export 
considerable quantities of them thither, as 
well as to other countries. Their agency 
in London was not successful, not from 
lack of merit in their watches, .but from 
other causes. Their watches of the higher 
grades are excellent time-keepers, and like 
all the better class of American watches, 
have good lasting qualities. They have 
gone very largely into the cheaper grades 
of movements, which, though without com- 
pensating balances, are very fair time- 
keepers, and sold as low as the cheap Swiss 
watches, while for permanent value and 
accuracy they are infinitely preferable to 
them. The New York Watch Manufac- 
turing Company, at Springfield. Mass., the 
Springfield, 111., Watch Co., the Cornell 
Watch Co., now, we believe, given up, the 



Rockford, Illinois, Co., the Lancaster, I a., 
Watch Co., the Philadelphia Watch Co., 
and the Waterbury Watch Co., of Water- 
bury, Conn., are the only others of which 
we have any knowledge. The last named ex- 
hibited its watches at Melbourne, Australia, 
in 1880-81, but by some misfortune failed 
to make a very good showing, while the 
American Watch Company, which also 
exhibited both there and in Sydney, car- 
ried off the chief honors. The Waterbury 
Company are said to make fair cheap 
watches, but like several of the other 
companies named, their establishments are 
not large. 

And now let us attempt to describe what 
an American watch is ; for though differ- 
ing in some minor details, the American 
watches are substantially alike. We will 
take the Waltham watch as our type. The 
foundation of the watch is what is techni- 
cally called the plate, which is in reality 
two plates, an upper and lower, between 
which the train or running gear, except 
the balance-wheel and hairspring, are 
placed. In these plates are drilled the 
twenty-one holes for the jewels on which 
the axles of the wheels revolve, and for 
the tiny screws which hold the jewels in 
place. These plates, which are of hard- 
ened brass, or, in some of the movements, 
of nickel, are drilled, and if of brass are 
gilded, and then sent to the engraving- 
room for such lettering as is to be placed 
upon them. The jewels, whose use has 
been already described, and which in 
American watches are always of ruby, 
chrysolite, garnet, or aqua-marine, and fin- 
ished with great care — the pivot-holes, or 
the perforation for the pinions of the 
wheels, varying according to the size of 
the watch movement, -^fa to T oVo °f an 
inch in diameter. The finest movement 
made by the American manufacturers has 
sixteen jewels; the cheapest has seven. The 
jewels having been inserted and fastened 
in their places by the infinitesimal screws, 
the axles of the wheels of the train are in- 
serted in these minute pivot-holes, and the 
wheels being geared to each other, the 
watch-movement is "set up." The Amer- 
ican watch • movement has no fusee or 
chain; its mainspring and going-barrel 
store the power which is to move the 
wheels of the watch; the escapement and 
compensating balance let out this power in 
regular motion; and thus regulated, it is 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



295 



distributed to the hands of the watch, 
through the toothed wheels and the pin- 
ions that fit them. 

All the American manufacturers use the 
anchor escapement only, and however firm- 
ly they may he constructed and adjusted 
by means of their true compensating bal- 
ances, and with the aid of the most minute 
regulators, micrometrical or excentrical, 
they are always lever watches. The an- 
chor escapement is by far the best for all 
practical purposes, keeping under proper 
compensations almost absolutely accurate 
time, with less liability to get out of order, 
and requiring far less care in handling (and 
very few people are as careful as they 
should be of a good watch), than the far 
more costly chronometer escapement. All 
the wheels of the American watch-move- 
ment are stamped out in blanks from the 
hardest brass, and the teeth cut by machin- 
ery in quantities of from 50 to 1,500 at a 
time ; but this, which is a very simple mat- 
ter in the ordinary wedge-tooth wheels, is: 
far more difficult in the epicycloidal-toothed 
wheel, and in the peculiarly shaped tooth 
of the escape wheel, of both of which we 
give an illustration, and each tooth in- 
volves six different operations. The epi- 
cycloidal tooth is one of the great discov- 
eries of clock and watch mechanism ; it has 
many advantages over any other form of 
tooth for a watch wheel, and is now in use 
in all the best clock and watch movements. 
The number of teeth on a 'scape wheel 
varies with the different sizes and grades 
of the escapements, but in the American 
watches is seldom an even number. The 
machine which produces them is a very in- 
genious one; 30 to 50 of the blanks are 
slipped upon a rod and screwed in a firm, 
compact mass, and then put into the es- 
capement-wheel machine. On the cylin- 
drical face of the machine are six revolv- 
ing cutters, each pointed with sapphire; 
and as the rod with the blanks upon it 
passes automatically along the cylinder, 
one of these cutters ploughs through the 
thirty wheels, making a deep furrow; as 
the rod comes back, the cylindrical face 
has turned one-sixth round, and a -second 
cutter is ready to do its work at a differ- 
ent angle from the first, and so on till each 
of the six cutters has performed its part 
and one tooth is finished. The process is 
repeated — the blanks being turned auto- 
matically the space between each two teeth 



each time — till the whole number are cut, 
when the machine throws itself out of gear, 
and waits for another set of blanks to be 
fed to it. The epicycloidal goes through 
the same number of operations, though in 
an entirely different machine. 

The number of parts or pieces in an 
American watch range from 156 to 162. 
The most striking peculiarity of the Amer- 
ican watch movements, and one which 
gives them an immense advantage over all 
hand-made watches, is that every part, even 
to the infinitesimally-small screws, is ex- 
actly duplicated thousands of times, so that 
any broken or defective parts can be sent 
by mail to any part of the world, if the 
number of the watch is known. The per- 
fection to which the higher grades of 
American watches have attained as time- 
keepers is marvelous. The reports of the 
Centennial Exposition, and the Paris, Mel- 
bourne, and Sydney expositions of 1878, 
'79, and '80, where the large majority of 
the judges were foreigners, and most of 
them watch manufacturers themselves, and 
where all the watches offered for examina- 
tion were subjected to the most rigorous 
tests to ascertain their rate of variation for 
many days, and their uniform award of 
the highest medals and prizes to the Amer- 
ican Waltham watches, on all points, is con- 
clusive on this subject. And yet in neither 
of these exhibitions were the highest grades 
subjected to the test. A thoroughly well 
made watch, on whose adjustment a year's 
time and $100 expense may have been lav- 
ished, may work admirably under these se- 
vere tests, but what the public want to 
know, and what these tests demonstrate to 
them, is, that an ordinarily good watch, 
such as a railroad conductor or engineer 
needs, will, without any long or careful 
adjustment, keep almost absolutely accu- 
rate time, and can be offered at a very low 
price, and warranted. An order for 1,000 
watches for the use of the railroad engi- 
neers and conductors on the India railroads, 
was filled by the London office of the 
American Watch Co., after the most rigid 
testing and examination at an average 
price of $21.25. The cases were solid nickel 
by government direction. The order could 
have been duplicated in silver cases at a 
lower figure, but it was far below that of 
any of the English or Swiss manufacturers, 
while the watches were much better time- 
keepers than those of their competitors. 



296 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



ELECTRO-PLATING 

Electro-plating is the art of depositing, 
by means of electro-galvanism, upon the sur- 
fa se of the baser metals, copper, brass, nickel 
silver, britaunia or white metal, &c, a film 
it coat of silver or gold. The discovery of 
the process followed that of electrotyping, 
describee, elsewhere in this work, and was 
made about 1839 by Mr. C. J. Jordan. 
Previous to 1839 silver-plating or gilding 
was executed in the old way or various ways. 
Iron was gilded by polishing its surface and 
then heating it till it acquired a blue color. 
"When this was done, leaf gold was applied, 
Blightly burnished down, and exposed to a 
u'eiitle fire, after which it was burnished 
again. Copper or brass may be gilded in 
the same manner. Gilding metals by amal- 
gamation was effected by forming the gold 
into a paste or amalgam with mercury, and 
was chiefly employed for gilding silver, cop- 
per, or brass. The metal being well cleaned, 
is dipped into the amalgam or spread over 
with it, when a quantity will adhere to the 
surface. The metal is then exposed to the 
heat of a furnace, which volatilizes the mer- 
cury, leaving the gold adhering; this is after- 
ward burnished. In this way, buttons and 
similar articles are gilded. 

Ornamental figures were also delineated 
in gold upon steel by a very ingenious pro- 
cess, by means of ether. Gold was dissolved 
in nitro-muriatic acid, and a quantity of 
ether was added, and the mixture shaken. 
The ether taking the gold from the acid, an 
ethereal solution of gold was produced, which 
was separated and applied to the surface of 
the steel by a camel hair ; the ether was 
evaporated, leaving the gold on the surface 
of the steel. The metal was then heated 
and the gold burnished. In this way sword- 
blades were ornamented. Instead of ether, 
the essential oils may be used. 

Making gilded trinkets was brought to 
such perfection that the use of real gold 
was very much diminished. The most ele- 
gant patterns were struck in thin copper, and 
then gilded so perfectly as not to be distin- 
guishable in a general way, while new, from 
gold, and with proper care they would last 
for a considerable time; but when the gild- 
ing once wore off, the color could not be 
restored, as in the case of jeweler's cold. 
These were the processes in use up to 1839, 
when Mr. Ames was one of a committee 



sent to England by the government to ac- 
quire knowledge in aid of a government 
arms manufactory, and his attention was 
attracted to the subject of depositing silver 
by electricity, which was then being dis- 
cussed, and its theory established. No pro- 
cess of depositing the silver upon any base 
metal, as nickel silver, had been discovered. 
Subsequently, pursuant to some suggestions 
of Professor Silliman, it was discovered that 
cyanide of potash would hold the silver in 
solution without oxidizing the baser metals. 
This removed a part of the difficulty, but 
there yet remained to deposit any given 
weight of silver that might be required. 
This was also removed by the addition of the 
cyanide of silver to the solution. 

The early process was to dissolve sulphate 
of copper in a vessel, and to suspend a zinc 
plate by wires soldered to it, and the object 
to be coated by the same wires in the liquid 
facing the zinc and very near to it. On the 
application of the electric battery, the zinc 
dissolved, and about the same amount of 
copper deposited itself upon the object to be 
coated, which was attached to the negative 
pole of the battery. A quantity of sulphate 
of copper was suspended in bags in the upper 
portion of the liquid to supply that which 
deposits. In electro plating with gold or 
silver, there should be a constant motion 
sustained, in order to aid in equalizing the 
deposit. In plating, the utmost care is to be 
taken to remove all traces of grease by boil- 
ing the object in alkali. This process was 
extensively employed for depositing a coat- 
ing of silver upon german silver, britannia, 
pewter, or brass, by which the apparent 
beauty of the precious metal was imparted 
to them. The mode of dissolving the silver 
was originally by pure nitric acid; distilled 
water then being added, the silver is precip- 
itated as a cyanide by a solution of cyanide 
of potassium. The precipitate being col- 
lected and washed, is dissolved in a solution 
of cvanide of potassium, and this is used for 
silver, in place of the sulphate of copper used 
for the deposit of that material. The object is 
more conveniently obtained by connecting a 
plate of silver with the positive pole of the 
battery, suspended in a solution of cyanide 
of potassium, and allowing the current to pass 
until the silver begins to deposit upon the neg- 
ative pole. The copper wire is then attached 
to the object, which is dipped in nitric acid, 
and then placed in the solution; after being 
in it some minutes it is taken out and well 




NO, 7.— COMBINATION ICE WATER SET.— MBRIDEN BRITANNIA CO., 



E LECTRO-PL ATINO. 



297 



brushed with sand. It is then replaced in 
the solution, and in a few hours' time it 
will have acquired a coating of dead white 
silver as thick as tissue paper. It may then 
be burnished or polished with a hard brush 
and whiting. A later process deposits the 
silver with a brilliant surface. To produce 
the natural hardness of the hammered 
metal, it is requisite to preserve certain 
proportions between the size of the silver 
plate and the object to be plated. If the 
time of the operation is prolonged, the de- 
posit may be thickened to almost any ex- 
tent. To deposit a plate as thick as ordi- 
nary writing paper, will require 1£ or 1£ 
ounces of silver to twelve square inches. 
The pure metal thus deposited is as dura- 
ble as that used for silver coin. By the 
electro-plating process, all ornaments, how- 
ever elaborate as designs, however compli- 
cated they may be, can be produced in as 
great perfection as in solid silver. 

The adaptation of the electro-plating 
processes to the production of table-ware, 
etc., is not yet forty years old in this coun- 
try. It was first started in Great Britain, 
in 1840, by Joseph Shore and George R. 
and Henry Elkington, all of Birmingham. 
The Elkingtons used copper as their basis 
at first, and have continued in the business 
to the present time, making vast fortunes 
out of it. In this country, the first electro- 
plated wares were made by the Cowles 
Manufacturing Co., in East Granby, or 
Bloomfield, Conn., in 1846. They were 
unsuccessful, and failed; but out of their 
failure sprang two firms which have at- 
tained eminence in the business. Asa 
Rogers, of Hartford, had been connected 
with the Cowles Company, and after its 
failure started the business of making 
plated forks, spoons, etc., with his brothers 
in Hartford, and originated the Rogers 
Brothers firm, subsequently merged in the 
Meriden Britannia Co. 

Samuel Simpson, of Wallingford, Conn., 
then engaged in the manufacture of brit- 
annia ware, visited the Cowles Manufactur- 
ing Co., in 1846 or 1847, and attempted at 
first to use the electro-plating process on 
his Britannia wares, but finding the com- 
position too soft to burnish well, abandoned 
it, and used a much harder white metal, 
composed of block tin, copper, antimony, 
etc., which had already been tested in Eng- 
land, and with this succeeded in making 
very fine goods. At first he found the 



jobbers unwilling to take his goods, as they 
were making more money on the inferior 
English goods; #ut selling to the retailers 
he soon brought them to terms. Now 
there is not only very little electro-plated 
ware imported, but we export largely to 
all civilized countries. Mr. Simpson has 
still an active interest in the electro-plating 
business, with which he has maintained his 
connection through several firms, being for 
ten years one of the leading men in the 
Meriden Britannia Company, and now at 
the head of the large manufacturing house 
of Simpson, Hall, Miller & Co., of Walling- 
ford, Conn., and New York. 

There are many establishments engaged 
in the manufacture of these electro-plated 
goods, and the annual production is nearly 
twenty millions. The largest manufac- 
turers, not only in the United States, but 
in the world, are The Meriden Brittania 
Company, who have eight large factories 
at West Meriden, Wallingford, Conn., and 
elsewhere, and salesrooms of great extent 
and beauty in 46 E. 14th st., New York, 
in Chicago, San Francisco, and Hamilton, 
Ont. They employ an average of 1,200 
hands, and make wares of more than 30,000 
patterns on nickel, silver, and albata, or 
white metal, and of single, double, triple, 
or quadruple thickness of plate. They 
have long been distinguished for the artis- 
tic beauty and variety of their ornamental 
designs, many of which, drawn by their 
eminent artists, are unsurpassed in excel- 
lence. They have introduced all the 
styles of finish of solid silver and gold 
goods, the hammered, repoussee, and the 
so-called Russian finish, in which the goods 
are oxidized with gold, and have enamel 
designs in various figures. Their new 
illustrated catalogue for 1882, just issued, 
is itself a miracle of art, and cost them 
more than $40,000. It has over 2,000 
illustrations of goods of the following 
classes: tea sets and waiters; castors; in- 
dividual castors, peppers, salts ; pickles and 
salad stands; celerys, wine stands; eperg- 
nes, fruit stands; ice cream and berry 
dishes; knife-rests, nut bowls; dessert sets, 
sugars, creams; cake and fruit baskets; 
butterdishes; spoon 1 oilers, syrup cups; 
cups, prize cups, napkin rings ; jewels, card 
stands (a new design of these has a por- 
trait stamped in the center); toilet wares, 
vases; candlesticks, cake dishes, tureens, 
vegetable dishes; hotel ware, bar goods; 



298 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



biscuit jars, sardine boxes; ink stands, jar- 
dinieres, cigar holders, and boxes; tobacco 
and match, boxes; teapot stands, paper- 
weights, communion ware; nickel silver, 
art work ; spoons and forks, and as a spe- 
cialty, what they call sectional plate, spoons 
and forks reinforced at the points of great- 
est wear by extra heavy plating ; plated 
knives, and fancy special knives and forks ; 
solid silver spoons, forks, etc., cased goods 
of great beauty, call-bells, star salts, etc. 
This dry catalogue, while it exhibits the 
immense variety of their manufactures, for 
there are several dozens of designs for each 
class, gives no idea of the exquisite beauty 
of many of the goods. The annual sales of 
this company, which has been in existence 
nearly thirty years, exceed $4,000,000. 

Another house of nearly equal extent 
and longer in the business, is the firm of 
Reed & Barton, established at Taunton, 
Mass., in 1824, for the manufacture of 
Britannia wares, and engaged in the pro- 
duction of electro-plated goods since 1847. 
Their wares have the highest reputation 
for beauty of design, solidity and durability 
of plating, and excellence of finish. They 
sell largely throughout the United States 
and in all civilized countries, their goods 
displacing the famous "Sheffield wares" 
of Dixon, the English manufacturer, 
wherever they are brought in competition 
with them. They manufacture many 
thousands of different designs, employ 
about a thousand workmen, and do a busi- 
ness well up in the millions. They have 
fine salesrooms in Boston and at 686 
Broadway, New York. 

The house of Simpson, Hall, Miller & 
Co., of Wallingford, Conn., and 36 East 
14th street, New York, probably ranks 
third in the business. They manufacture 
all descriptions of electro-plated table-ware, 
both in nickel-silver and white metal ; have 
about 20,000 designs, many of them of 
great beauty, and are constantly adding 
new ones; employ between 400 and 500 
hands, and produce goods annually to the 
amount of $700,000. 

The Meriden Silver Plating Co. is not 
very far behind the Wallingford Co., either 
in its patterns, the number of its employes, 
or the amount of its annual product. The 
Middletown Plate Co., at Middletown, Ct., 
produces much excellent work, and has a 
high reputation. It employs about 150 
hands. Hall, Elton & Co. are also an old 



and successful house. These and many 
others have been long engaged in electro- 
plating, and all of them produce very fine 
goods. 

In electro-gilding the metal is dissolved 
in nitro-muriatic acid, when the chloride 
of gold thus obtained is digested with cal- 
cined magnesia. The oxide precipitated is 
washed by boiling in nitric acid, and is 
then dissolved in cyanide of potassium. 
The temperature in gilding copper should 
be at least 130° F., and in gilding silver 
still higher. The positive plate of the bat- 
tery must be of gold, and the negative of 
iron or copper. Some of the metals, as 
iron, steel, and lead, do not readily receive 
the gold in deposit, but being first covered 
with a light coat of copper the gold is de- 
posited upon that. The solution should 
contain as much gold as will perfect the 
desired work at once. In this operation 
very small quantities produce extraordinary 
effects. An ordinary watch-case may re- 
ceive a heavy coat on the outside, and be 
well covered within, and yet the expendi- 
ture of gold will be only twenty grains, or 
the value of $1.50. "A magnificent gold 
pencil case " will have taken three grains, 
or twenty-two cents. Many of the cups, 
flagons, toilet and flower vases, salts and 
peppers, spoons, etc., of the electro-plating 
companies are gold-lined, i. e., have a thin 
film of gold deposited on the silver, which 
answers an excellent purpose in keeping 
them from oxidizing or turning black. 

Nickel-plating is a new form of electro- 
plating which has made a great progress 
since 1870. Nickel makes an admirable 
coating for many articles, from its hard- 
ness, silver-like surface, and slight tenden- 
cy to oxidization. It is largely used in the 
sewing machine manufacture for orna- 
mental trimmings, as well as in harness, 
carriages, lamps, buttons, lever clocks, etc. 
Experiments, long and carefully conducted, 
have recently demonstrated that it can be 
rendered as malleable and easily worked 
as silver, and that some of its new alloys 
are excellent substitutes in manufacturing 
for gold and silver. 

In this connection, something should be 
said of the manufacture of solid silver and 
gold goods. These are articles of luxury 
only, and there is very little demand for 
them, until a country has become wealthy 
and prosperous; they are. thus, a test of 
its progress in wealth, and the ability to 



ELECTRO-PLATING. 



299 



indulge in luxuries. At the beginning of 
the present century, there were not, in 
all probability, one hundred customers 
throughout the country, in any one year, 
who would have been willing or able to 
purchase a set of silver plate for family 
use. Every article of this kind was im- 
ported from Europe, and at heavy cost; 
and even there, their use was confined to 
the tables of the very rich — silver table 
and teaspoons having taken the place of 
those of wood, horn, and pewter, between 
1760 and J 790. About 1820, the manu- 
facture of silver spoons was commenced in 
this country. A bar of silver was heated 
in a common blacksmith's forge, rolled to 
the proper thickness by rolls operated by a 
windlass, and then hammered into shape. 
Each spoon in course of manufacture had 
to be heated nine times before it was fin- 
ished. Two men, by hard work, could 
make two dozen teaspoons in a day, no two 
of which were alike in shape or weight. 
After some years, thimbles, combs, and a 
few napkin rings were also produced. It 
was not till after 1830 that some machin- 
ery, driven by horse-power, was introduced 
in this manufacture, and forks, children's 
cups, and a few other small articles added 
to the number of American manufactures 
of silver. Mr. Jabez Gorham, of Provi- 
dence, R. L, was, probably, the pioneer in 
this business, having commenced in a mod- 
erate way in 1831. To have attempted the 
production of tea or dining sets at this time 
would have been as foolish as it was im- 
possible. The machinery and the skill to 
make them were both wanting, and no sets 
for table-service which lacked the " Hall 
mark " — the British coat of arms — stamped 
upon them as evidence of their purity, 
could have been sold to an intelligent pur- 
chaser. The first marked indications of 
progress occurred between 1840 and 1850. 
Some eminent jewelers, who were im- 
porters of silver wares, desired to become 
silversmiths also. Among these were two 
firms in New York, Tiffany, Young & 
Ellis, afterward Tiffany & Co., and Ball, 
Tompkins & Black (a firm name subse- 
quently changed). They had commenced 
business about 1840, and with laudable 
ambition sought to lead in every depart- 
ment. At first, their efforts were confined 
to the smaller wares — spoons, forks, nap- 
kin rings, etc., etc., of which they produced 
new and elegant patterns. It was not till 



about 1850 that they made any efforts for 
the production of hollow ware of solid sil- 
ver. Both firms, and especially the first, 
have made great progress since, and they 
now employ a large force of workmen, and 
have produced, besides table and commun- 
ion services, many vases, groups, and fancy 
pieces of wonderful beauty and rare artis- 
tic skill. But working in silver has been, 
with them, hardly more than an incidental 
portion of their vast business, and not its 
chief object and end. 

When, in 1850, only a generation ago, 
Mr. John Gorham, the son of the founder 
of the Gorham Company, decided to com- 
mence on a large scale, and with machin- 
ery driven by steam power, the manu- 
facture of all descriptions of silver goods, 
the act was one of greater courage than 
has often been witnessed in business cir- 
cles. The enterprise was entirely new to 
this country; there had been no efforts, 
at least no successful ones, to produce hol- 
low ware goods of solid silver here. 
Spoons, forks, napkin rings, children's 
cups and the like were made, but these 
only within a few years with the aid of 
some simple machines. Even in Europe, 
the greater part of the labor was performed 
by hand by skilled workmen, and a careful 
investigation made in person satisfied Mr. 
Gorham that there were few, if any, ma- 
chines in use there which it would pay to 
import or copy. The machines must be 
invented for the work here, and the mate- 
rial was so costly that there must be no 
blundering. The workmen must be im- 
ported, for there were no hands skilled in 
this work here ; and these workmen, whose 
skill in hand-labor was their most valuable 
possession, must be taught to do by ma- 
chinery much which hitherto had been 
done by hand. Then there was the pur- 
chasing public, as yet not large in numbers, 
but increasing, whose confidence must be 
gained, and who now firmly believed that 
nothing American could be as good, as val- 
uable, or as artistic as the products of Eu- 
ropean workshops. They must be edu- 
cated, also, to comprehend that the absurd- 
ities and crudities which they now so 
greatly admired were unworthy of regard, 
and that the highest art was that which 
drew its inspiration from an intimate com- 
munion with nature. 

The financial aspects of the enterprise 
were not especially assuring. It required 



300 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



a large investment of capital, with very 
small returns for some years, and if there 
should be panic and disaster, there was a 
probability of its utter failure. But Mr. 
Gorham was a man of strong faith and 
great patience and perseverance, and, after 
numberless difficulties and disasters, he 
achieved a grand success. To-day, the 
great factory of the Gorham Company em- 
ploys 500 skilled workmen; among them 
designers of the highest genius, and arti- 
ficers whose skill in hand-work, the result 
of years of patient endeavor, is not sur- 
passed anywhere; its name is favorably 
known in every civilized country on the 
globe for the artistic beauty of its de- 
signs and the perfection of its workman- 
ship; while the stamp of the company is a 
higher guarantee of the purity of its wares 
than the Hall mark of the British silver- 
smiths. Their warehouse in New York is 



one of the wonders of the metropolis; and 
every article there, whether for use or or- 
nament, and every decoration and design 
in relief, draws its lines of beauty from the 
only true school of art — the teachings 
of nature. They have added to their fac- 
tory at Providence a department for the 
production of electro-plated wares, and 
these are of such exquisite beauty of de- 
sign and excellence of finish that they can 
only be distinguished from the sterling sil- 
ver plate by the marks of the manufacturers, 
and the fact that the same design is never 
used for both kinds of goods. Whether 
this great company have amassed a colossal 
fortune, by its more than thirty years of 
persevering toil and achievement, we know 
not; it has certainly accomplished a nobler 
and better work; it has educated a nation 
to a juster and truer comprehension of the 
beautiful in nature and art. 





CHASED ICE PITCHER. 



CHASED URN. 




BUTTER DISH. 



NAPKIN RINGk 



300£ 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



FISHERY- 

The fisheries were the first successful indus- 
try of the colonies, and they laid the founda- 
tion of our national commerce and marine. 
The results are not singular in this respect, 
since the most flourishing commercial coun- 
tries of the modern world owed their origin, 
like the Romish church, to the "poor fisher- 
man." When the subjects of ancient Rome, 
flying before the hordes of Attila, retreated to 
the lagunesof the Adriatic, nothing remained 
to them but the sea and its treasures. This 
pursuit enabled them to rear on the rocks 
that had sheltered them, the proud Venice 
which awed the world, and whose power fell 
only when the republic had become a cor- 
rupt oligarchy, and the young general Bona- 
parte, the agent of a new republic, called 
them to account. With the same origin, 
Genoa grew into the dominion of the seas, 
and encountered the same fate when wealth 
and corruption succeeded the humble virtues 
of the founders. The Dutch, from a band 
of herring-catchers, whose collection of fish- 
ing huts was called Amsterdam, carried on 
that system of energetic industry that con- 
quered Holland from the sea, and prevented 
the future encroachments of that element 
by dikes ; while the country grew rich and 
so powerful that the successors of those old 
herring-busses carried a broom at the mast- 
head in token of the sovereignty of the seas. 
To them succeeded the English, whose 
fishing-nurtured marine, coupled with an 
aptitude for commerce, gave them the mas- 
tery over the wealth-enervated Dutch. The 
English felt the maritime sceptre tremble in 
their grasp for the first time, when the New 
England trained fishermen met them in 
battle, and almost every engagement re- 
sulted in the triumph of the "bit of striped 
bunting." But warlike supremacy is the 
least of the triumphs, since the commercial 
and maritime superiority has every day 
become more manifest, from the moment 
when Paul Jones "began to fight" and 
" old Stewart " out-manoeuvred the English 
fleet, to the success of the yacht America in 
the British waters. The vigor and address 
with which the New Englanders early em- 
barked in the cod and mackerel fishing, 
and built vessels with which to prosecute it, 
not only excited the admiration of the 
mother country, but roused the alarm of 
the government, who foresaw, in their indus- 



try and intelligence, the causes of the defeat 
they sustained a century later. 

About the time of the Declaration of In- 
dependence, the trade growing out of the 
cod fishery furnished the northern colonies 
with nearly one half of their remittances to 
the mother country, in payment for goods. 
All the seaport towns were engaged mostly 
in it, and thus grew in proportion to the 
success of that business. Under these cir- 
cumstances, the fishing rights were a very 
important part of the negotiations entered 
into at the peace. The general result of the 
negotiations was that the Americans might 
catch fish anywhere except within three 
miles of certain English colonial coasts, and 
might land to dry and cure on the southern 
side of Newfoundland and other convenient 
coasts. Congress, by law, also granted a 
bounty to vessels of which all the officers 
and three fourths of the crew were American 
citizens. This bounty was continued, in 
one form or another, till 1874, for a con- 
siderable period; in an allowance of so 
much per ton, and afterwards in some spe- 
cial privilege, such as a drawback on im- 
ported salt, etc., etc. Nearly $15,000,000 
was paid out in direct bounties — almost the 
whole of which went to fishermen in all the 
New England states (except Vermont) and 
New York. 

The fisheries, and particularly the cod 
and mackerel fisheries, have been a con- 
stant source of difficulty between the United 
States and the British Provinces, now the 
Dominion of Canada. The first treaty reg- 
ulation was in 1783, which gave liberty to 
U. S. fishermen to take, cure, and dry fish 
along the coasts of the Provinces, but not 
in settled districts without the consent of 
the proprietors of the lands. In 1818 a 
convention made at London limited these 
concessions somewhat, and the stipulation 
was exacted from the U. S. that in all the 
coasts not named by the treaty they should 
not take fish within three marine miles of 
the coast, but they might enter the bays or 
harbors thus excepted for purposes of shel- 
ter, repairing damages, or obtaining wood 
and water. In 1854 the Reciprocity treaty 
was negotiated; this, while confirming the 
previous privileges, allowed also fishing, 
curing, and drying fish at other points not 
specified in previous treaties, when it did 
not trespass on private property, but gave 
Canadian fishermen the same rights on 




-^-i^m^^ \^\ f^ltl ■* 







III". llj 




FISHERIES. 



305 



Before the construction of railroads, the 
whole number of halibut annually caught 
and brought into Cape Ann did not exceed 
2,500, which were nearly all sold fresh for 
immediate consumption ; for not having 
been in demand, when cured in any man- 
ner by salt, for the domestic or foreign 
markets, but few were prepared for that 
purpose. In fact, so worthless were they 
considered as salted fish, that the owners 
of the vessels employed in the fisheries 
generally instructed the crews to cut adrift 
all the halibut which were drawn up, and 
every year many thousands had been thus 
turned back to the deep with a fatal 
wound. But such was now the facility of 
transporting them fresh to the New York 
market, that at least 16,000 were taken, 
and a large portion of them sent to that 
city by the railroads and steamboats. 

The mode of taking halibut is as follows: 
The lines are thrown over and allowed to 
sink to the bottom; a heavy lead is at- 
tached, for the undercurrent on the Banks 
is very strong; the fish takes the hook by 
suction, but the force of suction is sufficient 
to enable the fisherman to discover that he 
is "thar;" then commences the "hauling 
in," and the reader may believe it is no 
joke to haul in a line, in a rough sea, of 
some eighty or ninety fathoms in length, 
with a fish of from twenty-five to two hun- 
dred pounds' weight at the end. Some- 
times the fish comes up very readily to the 
surface, but in most cases it is necessary 
to "drown" it, by drawing it some ten or 
twenty feet from the bottom, and very 
suddenly letting go. This last process is 
of course a very tedious one. The fish, 
upon coming to the surface, is seized by a 
" gaff," an oaken pole or stick with a strong 
hook attached, drawn on board the vessel, 
and thrown into the ice-house. Each man 
keeps account of the number of fish he 
takes, of which he receives the proceeds 
from one-half the amount of sale. 

Formerly the halibut was only caught 
late in the spring and during the summer 
and autumnal months, on the south shoals 
of Nantucket, along the coast of Cape Cod. 
in Barnstable Bay, on Cash Ledge, and 
some other places, where they were most 
abundant at certain seasons of the ) r ear, 
and always in deep water, being consid- 
ered, as it is termed, a bottom fish. But 
since the demand for this American tur- 
bot, as it may with propriety be called (for 



it much resembles that delicious fish in 
form and flavor), has so vastly increased, 
the fishermen have made explorations in 
search of other haunts, and, to their great 
astonishment, found them in immense 
quantities on George's Banks, early in 
March ; and what was still more surprising, 
and a fact until then entirely unknown to 
them, they appeai-ed in extensive shoals on 
the surface of the water, like mackerel, and 
were taken with but three or four fathoms 
of line, instead of from twenty-six to sev- 
enty, which they had been accustomed to 
use time out of mind in the bottom fishing. 
The Cape Ann vessels take from two hun- 
dred to five hundred each trip, weighing 
from twenty-five to two hundred pounds. 
The fish is packed and shipped mostly, if 
not altogether, in Boston, and thence sent 
to the most distant points of the south. It 
much surprised the epicures of New Or- 
leans when it popped out of the ice-box in 
the market, not only by the strangeness of 
its appearance, being altogether unknown 
in those parts, but also by the delicacy of 
its rich flavor. 

The growth of this fishery has been so 
rapid that from a small beginning it has 
in a few years increased to $125,000 per 
annum, and employs one hundred nearly 
new and well-adapted vessels, chiefly owned 
at the port of Gloucester. 

The mackerel fishery was one of the 
earliest pursued, but it did not reach much 
importance until the close of the last cen- 
tury; and it is now mostly confined to 
Maine and Massachusetts. There are now 
about 30,000 tons employed in it, and the 
number of barrels caught annually will 
vary from 131,000 to 360,000 barrels. 
Nearly the whole of the business is carried 
on in Massachusetts, the other states doing 
but little in it. A few vessels from Maine 
and Connecticut fit out at Gloucester, the 
chief place for that industry. The mer- 
chants of Philadelphia, New York, and 
Boston have their agents at that place to 
purchase and ship for them. There are 
now employed in it over 1,000 vessels, and 
10,000 men. The value is given as follows 
by the inspector general of Massachusetts: 

Value of vessels and outfits in Massa- 
chusetts $fi,030.000 

Value avenge of catch, 4,400,000 

The American mackerel-catchers took of 
this fish one year as follows: 188,336 bar- 
rels in American waters, and 140,906 bar- 



306 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



reis in waters now claimed as the exclusive 
right of the Earl of Derby. 

Gloucester sends out annually about four 
hundred schooners, ranging from 05 to 110 
tons, and averaging 90 tons. Their crews 
for the mackerel fishery generally consist 
of from ten to fourteen men, according to 
the size of the craft; for the cod and hali- 
but fishery, of about eight men. The ves- 
sels are nearly all of a clipper build, fore- 
and-aft rig, and are valued at an average 
of about $4,000. Most of them have all 
the conveniences of a mechanic's house on 
shore, and their cabins will generally com- 
pare, in a due proportion of course, with 
the cabins of any merchant-ship. It is the 
fisherman's pride that his craft shall com- 
pare in beauty with any other he may 
meet. In Gloucester the value of shipping 
tonnage is $1,600,000. In the months of 
May and June, nearly all the vessels owned 
in the port commenced "fitting out" for 
the Bay of St. Lawrence, in which locality, 
for the past few years, mackerel abound 
in the greatest numbers. The " fit-out " 
consists in the craft being newly painted, 
rigging and sails renovated, anchors and 
cables replenished, if necessary, men 
shipped, and bait, salt, and provisions 
taken on board. She is then ready for a 
start. For the first few days of the pas- 
sage all hands are busily employed in ar- 
ranging or deciding for their fishing quar- 
ters at the rail. The best men are generally 
given positions near the main rigging, 
which is considered the most advanta- 
geous, as the fish usually rise there in 
greatest numbers. The men are shipped 
"on shares," as it is termed, i. e ., each man 
is entitled to one-half the fish he takes — the 
other half going to the vessel. After about 
a week's sail they arrive at their destina- 
tion, which comprises the Bay of St. Law- 
rence, from Cape Breton Island on the 
south and Prince Edward's Island on the 
west to the mouth of the St. Lawrence on 
the north. When arrived, bait is got up 
and ground. The "toll -bait," as it is 
called, is generally menhaden, or porgies, 
a small bony fish, little used as an article 
of food. This is supplied in great quanti- 
ties to each vessel. It is finely ground in 
a mill provided for the purpose, then 
mixed with water, and it is ready for use. 
Upon the appearance of a school of mack- 
erel, which is indicated by a rippling of 
the surface of the water not unlike that of 



the schools of herring, the vessel is '• hove 
to," and the " toll - bait " thrown. The 
fish will generally fellow this bait to 
the side of the vessel, where all hands 
are at their quarters, and anxiously await- 
ing the first "bhe." And now com- 
mences a general excitement. Each man 
has his barrel by his side, and to those who 
have never seen the operation, the rapidity 
with which the fish are taken frcm the 
water is almost incredible. The men are 
also provided with two lines each, and up- 
on a "strike," which means when the fish 
bite rapidly, these lines are in constant 
motion, and what seems strangest of all is 
the fact, that although a space of enly 
about a foot and a half or two feet is 
allowed to each man for himself and his 
barrel, it is very seldom that the lines be- 
come entangled, even when the school be- 
ing at some distance from the vessel, some 
fifteen or twenty fathoms of length of line 
is required, and the fish, as soon as the 
hook is felt, dart hither and thither with 
the rapidity of lightning. After a "deck " 
of mackerel is obtained (which signifies a 
goodly number of barrels), all hands im- 
mediately prepare to put them in salt. 
The operations of "passing up," "split- 
ting," and "gibbing" are gone through, and 
they are packed in salt in the barrels. 
Another direction in which the fisheries 
were of comparatively little importance 
twelve or fifteen years ago, but where they 
have suddenly attained a great magnitude, 
is the lake fisheries, and especially those of 
the lake white fish, salmon-trout, the lake 
herring, and sturgeon. These fish are sent 
to market, fresh, salted, frozen, and smoked, 
and caviare, isinglass, and oil are prepared 
from them. As late as 1870 this industry 
occupied only a comparatively few hands, 
and produced not more than $825,000. In 
1879, there were 43.122,270 pounds of 
fish reported, and the total value of fishery 
products on the great lakes was $1,784,- 
050, an amount which is rapidly increasing 
every year. The river and small lake, in- 
shore fisheries undoubtedly aggregate more 
than any others. The shad fishery alone is 
of great magnitude, amounting to about 
$1,200,000 annually, and the bluefish, 
weak fish, rock and black bass, perch, pick- 
erel, pike, porgies, roach, flounders, flat- 
fish, Spanish mackerel, bonitas, eels, lam- 
preys, lance fish, the muscalonge, lake- 
trout, brook-trout, graylings, and some 



FISHERIES. 



307 



twenty other species of fish with which the 
markets of all the country are supplied 
make an immense aggregate. 

The oyster trade is a large one. The 
oysters are of numerous varieties, partly de- 
pending upon the locality where they are 
fatted. Many of them, in the original beds, 
are unfit for market until they have been 
transferred to a favorable locality for them 
to fat. The different localities impart to 
them various flavoi-s, more or less salt, and 
which are difficult to discriminate other- 
wise than by the name of the place where 
they were fatted, as "East Rivers," 
" Shrewburys," etc. The setting, planting, 
and bringing them to market occupy a 
great number of men and no inconsiderable 
tonnage. They attain a remarkable size in 
about eighteen months, and breed very 
rapidly. When the oyster vessel arrives 
in the spring from the south, it is anchored 
near the site of the proposed bed. The 
cargoes are then put into small boats that 
come alongside. The beds having been 
staked off into small squares, about fifty 
bushels are spread over one of the squares 
in such a manner that no oyster shall be 
upon another. By the fall, the oysters 
will have considerably increased in size, 
and greatly improved in flavor. If allowed 
to remain too long in sheltered waters, the 
oyster not long acclimated will perish with 
the rigor of the northern winter. The 
breeding time of native oysters is in April 
and May, from which time to July or Au- 
gust, they are said to be sick, or in the 
milk, and in most localities laws forbid tak- 
ing them until the first of September, with 
a view to favor their growth. They are 
then caught in a net, which has on its low- 
er edge an iron scraper. This being at- 
tached to a rope and cast over from a boat, 
is dragged along the bottom by a forced 
motion when rowed by the fishermen. The 
iron scraper turns up the oysters and they 
are retained in the net, which from time 
to time is drawn up to be emptied. When 
the water is shallow a pair of hugh tongs 
are used to pick up a number at a time. 
In some places the drag or dredge is very 
large and heavy, and is drawn along by 
the vessel under sail. The process is for- 
bidden by law in some districts, since the 
heavy drag crushes and destroys as many 
as it catches. AVhen the season sets in, 
the fishermen crowd the waters where the 
,oysters are to be had, and sell their catch 



in the neighboring cities. The larger 
dealers buy their oysters in Virginian 
waters, and carry them north to plant un- 
til they are fat. There are, however, 
occasional discoveries made of native 
beds in Long Island Sound, or in some 
of its estuaries, which in size are nearly 
equal, and in quality superior to the 
finest transplanted Virginia bivalves. One 
of these, a few years since, discovered near 
Huntington, L. I., has proved of great 
value; another discovered in 1881 is said 
to be still larger and likely to be of greater 
importance. The Virginia oyster trade 
was for some years previous to the war of 
great importance. In 1858, about 16 mil- 
lion bushels, worth not far from 8 million 
dollars, were taken from the Virginia oys- 
ter beds. During the war this trade was 
entirely suspended, and supplies were 
drawn from Baltimore and Chesapeake 
Bay, and from the New Jersey and Long 
Island oyster-beds. The price went up, but 
the supply was as great and the quality as 
good as ever. Baltimore is one of the great 
marts of the oyster trade. In 18 02, thirty- 
three oyster firms of that city packed 
1,500,000 bushels of oysters, those sold in 
the shell netting $700,000, and about $3,- 
200.000 worth being opened, canned and 
packed for exportation the same year. In 
1869 the business is said to have reached 
over fifteen millions of dollars. The num- 
ber of hands employed was about 16,000. 
In 1880, the aggregate exceeded $20,000,- 
000. New York city now ranks next to 
Baltimore in this trade. Oysters are now 
largely exported in the shell to England. 
From $8,000,000 to $10,000,000 are the 
proceeds of the oyster trade in that city. 
Fair Haven, Conn., is also very largely en- 
gaged in the trade. The native oysters, or 
what are considered such, being propa- 
gated from old plants, are taken mostly for 
the city trade, while the transplanted oys- 
ters find their way all over the country 1 \y 
railroad. To preserve them, they are first 
opened and put into kegs or cans of a ca- 
pacity of twelve to twenty gallons each. 
These are then put into boxes and sur- 
rounded with ice. There are some 450 
vessels employed in carrying oysters to 
New Haven. There are about 20 houses 
engaged in the business, the largest having 
branches in Buffalo, Cleveland, Hamilton, 
and elsewhere! These firms employ a g: eat 
number of boys and girls in opening the 



308 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



oysters. The operation is performed with 
incredible dispatch by the experienced 
hands. The instruments used are a ham- 
mer to crack the edge on a slip of iron fixed 
upright in the bench, and a knife. The 
latter is always held in the hand, while the 
hammer is seized, the blow given, and 
dropped, the knife inserted, and the oyster, 
being seized between the knife and the 
thumb, is pitched into the tub. The move- 
ment produces a constant click-gouge- 
splash, click-gouge-splash, as the tub rapid- 
ly fills with the "bivalves" previous to 
packing. The openers formerly received 
two cents a quart, and earned from $1 to 
$2 a day. There are 150 oysters to the 
gallon, and to earn $2, 100 quarts, or 3,750 
oysters, must be opened, or during twelve 
hours fifty per minute! They now get four 
cents a quart. 

One of the most remarkable fisheries is 
carried on in Long Island Sound and some 
other localities. It is the taking of men- 
haden or bony fish. These fish go in im- 
mense schools, which show themselves in 
ripples upon the surface of the water. 
They are taken by nets, which may be seen 
by the steamboat traveler, hung upon im- 
mense reels at the water's edge to dry. 
These nets are weighted with lumps of lead 
at the lower edge, having floats at the top, 
so as to keep them upright in the water. 
The fishers, in boats, pay out the net from 
one and the other, and encircle the school 
with it. The two ends then being carried 
to the shore, are drawn in with great force, 
and an immense haul of fish results. "With 
the bony fish, many of a better class are 
caught, but if the aggregate will not equal 
150 cart-loads it is not thought large. This 
branch of the fishing industry, long carried 
on in a desultory way, for the purpose of 
using this supposed worthless fish for ma- 
nures, on the sandy alluvium of the shores 
of Long Island, is now thoroughly organ- 
ized, and fleets of small steamers with their 
boats are engaged in taking the fish, while 
several hundred factories are engaged in 
expressing the oil, which finds a ready sale, 
and preparing a guano made from the 
scrap. From 300 to 400 millions of these 
fish are caught annually. 

The whale fishery began at the close of 
the 17th century in Nantucket, and that 
has been, until very recently, its chief loca- 
tion. About the close of the*revolutionary 
war, Massachusetts employed 183 vessels, 



of 13,820 tons, navigated by 4,059 men, 
and producing about 2,000,000 per annum. 
The business progressed until the Ameri- 
can seamen nearly drove all others from 
the seas in that pursuit. England, to en- 
courage her whalers, imposed a duty on 
foreign oils, but finding her fishermen 
coming home very frequently without oil, 
while her wants were great, and the Amer- 
can whalers offering to supply them, 
" caved in," and took off the duty, in or- 
der to encourage her own manufacturers. 
Our own whalers have never had the boun- 
ty of the government, like the cod fishery, 
to encourage them, but have on the other 
hand been compelled to encounter the op- 
position of " prairie whales," which yield 
their lard oil, and the enormous produc- 
tion of petroleum oils, and illuminating 
gases, while from the growing scarcity of 
whales, which are deserting their old feed- 
ing grounds, the extreme difficulties and 
dangers of the business are continually in- 
creasing. Nevertheless, the hardy Ameri- 
can seamen continue to chase them, even 
into the extreme Arctic regions, whither 
the whales resort, as it was said by an old 
"ship's lawyer," to supply the "northern 
lights " with oil. The business is conducted 
in a peculiar manner, differing from any 
other fishery. The voyage being projected 
by the owners, the officers and crew are 
shipped on " lays," every man having an 
interest in the voyage. If the voyage is 
not successful he gets nothing, but if the 
usual success is met with, he gets a certain 
number of gallons proportioned to the 
whole, and is thus interested in the price 
as well. The shares of officers and men 
equal one third of the whole. Of late 
years the whale fishery in the Atlantic 
ports has fallen off sadly, the number of 
vessels decreasing every year. New Bed- 
ford, which once had a whaling fleet of near- 
ly 500 vessels, has now but 134, and New 
London,. Conn., Fair Haven, Nantucket, 
Westport, Mass., and Sag Harbor, L. I., 
which once had from 100 to 150 vessels 
each, have but forty altogether each. The 
fishery is more active in San Francisco and 
other Pacific ports. San Francisco has 
fitted out twenty-five or thirty whaleships 
annually, but the number is not increasing. 
in 1859 there were 185,728..tons of ship- 
ping employed in the whale fishery, and 
the year previous, 198,594 tons, the high- 
est point ever reached; from that time to 



FISH CULTURE. 



311 



the present there has been a great falling 
off; in 1875, there were 38,229 tons, and 
in 1880, 38,408 tons, only about one-fifth 
of what found employment in 1858. 



FISH CULTURE. 

Fish Culture is the name given to an 
industry whose beginnings in this country, 
in 1853, were very small, but which has 
now attained a magnitude and influence 
which are astonishing, and which augur 
great and valuable results in the near fu- 
ture. We believe every nation in Europe 
has now its Fish Commission, and many of 
them associations for fish culture, while in 
the United States there is an admirably 
efficient National Fish Commission, organ- 
ized in 1871, state commissions in almost 
every state and territory, with numerous 
hatcheries east and west, the establishment 
of the American Fish Culturists' Associa- 
tion in 1871, and of many minor organiza- 
tions since. Large sums have been ex- 
pended by individuals for this object, and 
nearly $1,50 0,000 by the national and state 
governments. 

The object primarily had in view by 
these commissions and organizations was 
to increase the number and, as far as pos- 
sible, improve the quality of the supply of 
food fishes in the various states and coun- 
tries in which they act. They have suc- 
ceeded in demonstrating that an acre of 
water devoted to the propagation of fish 
will yield a larger and surer crop than can 
be produced by any ordinary process from 
an acre of land. The processes by which 
this result can be accomplished are simple 
and not very expensive, especially under 
the liberal arrangements of the National 
and State Commission. Fish culture is 
based on these considerations : 1 . That the 
possible annual increase of fish, though 
greatly varying in different families, tribes, 
genera, and species, is yet, at the lowest, 
enormously large. 2. That of this increase, 
of which nearly nine-tenths is lost in na- 
ture, certainly eight-tenths may be saved 
at a comparatively small expense by arti- 
ficial impregnation and hatching. 3. That 
the food on which the fish subsist in the 
water is not. except in rare instances, a 
source of any expense to man. 4. That 
though, perhaps, in most parts of this coun- 
try the supply of food is as yet Bufficienl 
for the demand, and with some room for 



export, yet the variety resulting from a 
greater use of fish as diet is healthful, and 
leaves a larger margin of other food arti- 
cles for export, and with our constant and 
rapid influx of immigrants, who are for a 
considerable period non-producers, and the 
sudden climatic changes which may greatly 
diminish our crops, as they have recently, 
there is a certainty that wise measures are 
needed for the increase of the food sup- 
plies. 

Let us briefly sketch the progress of fish 
culture, and then state what is its present 
status in our own country. It is now gen- 
erally acknowledged that Stephen Ludwig 
Jacobi, 1707-1784, a wealthy landed pro- 
prietor of Hobenhausen, in the Duchy of 
Lippe, Germany, was the first practical 
fish culturist in the world. He commenced 
the artificial impregnation and propagation 
of trout and salmon in 1724, and he and 
his descendants continued it till 1825 ; he 
wrote largely on the subject, brought it to 
the attention of learned societies, and was 
very successful in his efforts to increase 
greatly the numbers of these excellent food 
fish. He was indeed somewhat before his 
time; but learned and scientific men took 
up the subject, and as early as 1770 not 
only was his work known in Germany, but 
it had been published in a translation in 
France. Something was done, in a practi- 
cal way, in Germany, especially in Lippe, 
from 1820-1827, but not much elsewhere 
till about 1840. In 1837 John Shaw be- 
gan in a small way experimenting on the 
eggs and young of salmon, and in 1841 
Gottlieb Boccius raised young trout at Ox- 
ford and Chatsworth. In 1842-44 Remy 
and Gehin, two French fisherman of the 
Vosges, successfully practised fish culture, 
and it w r as established in Switzerland about 
the same time. In 1843-44 Dr. Barrett, 
of Middletown, Conn., began to advocate 
it, as indeed Dr. John Bachmann, of 
Charleston, South Carolina, had dune as 
early as 1804. Quatrefages' work, a stand- 
ard authority, was presented to the French 
Academy in 1848, and the French govern- 
ment took measures to promote it about 
1850. It was commenced in Alsace and 
in Norway the same year, and in Finland 
in 1852. In 1853 Dr. T. Garlick and Prof. 
H. A. Ackley, of Cleveland, Ohio, suc- 
ceeded in propagating brook trout artifi- 
cially; Kellogg and ( ihapman did the same 
thing in 1855, N. E. Atwood in 1856, Mul- 



312 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



ler and Brown in 1857, Ainsworth in 1859, 
and Seth Green in 18G4. The Massachu- 
setts Fish Commission commenced its 
work in 1856, but was not efficiently or- 
ganized till 1865. Between 1857 and 1871 
ten states had established fish commissions, 
and salmon, whitefish, shad, lake and brook 
trout, cod, and pike-perch had been suc- 
cessfully propagated, and Seth Green, of 
Caledonia, N. Y., had been the first man 
in the country to make the artificial prop- 
agation of fish commercially profitable. In 
1871 the American Fish Cultural Associa- 
tion and the National Fish Commission 
were organized. Between that time and 
1881 the shad and the eastern salmon were 
introduced successfully into California, 
Oregon, and Washington Territory, the 
whitefish, land-locked salmon, salmon trout, 
grayling, black bass, shad, eels, and many 
other food fishes, into eastern lakes and 
rivers, the carp, from Europe, into Ameri- 
can lakes and ponds, and some efforts made 
to do the same thing with the sole and tur- 
bot, successfully hatched and distributed 
the young cod, mackerel, halibut, the Span- 
ish mackerel, and other hitherto rare fish 
in the inshore and coast waters of the U. S. 
The return of full-grown salmon and shad 
to several rivers which they had long de- 
serted were secured, the operations for fish 
culture greatly extended, fish commissions 
having been formed in most of the remain 
ing states and territories. The members of 
the different fish commissions had also in- 
vented many contrivances for the more cer- 
tain success of the processes of fish hatch- 
ing and preservation. In 1880 the U. S. 
government built a large steamer, the Fish 
Hawk, for the National Commission, to be 
used exclusively for their work of the dis- 
covery, impregnation and propagation of 
food fishes. In the spring of 1880 an In- 
ternational Fishery Exhibition was held 
in Berlin, Germany. At that exhibition 
the United States received six of the ten 
gold medals, one of the five silver medals, 
one of the seven bronze medals, and two 
of the fifteen honorable mentions. The 
fruits of these fifteen years of earnest work 
are beginning to be seen in the increase of 
our best food fishes, but there is abundant 
room for still greater exertions, and the 
work should not cease until all our waters 
are abundantly supplied with the best gen- 
era and species of food fishes to be found 
in any part of the globe. 



The labors of Hon. Spencer F. Baird, 
Chief Commissioner of U. S. Fish Commis- 
sion, of Hon. Frederick Mather, Livingston 
Stone, William Clift, F. N. Clark, N. W. 
Clark, Prof. Theodore F. Gill, G. Brown 
Goode, C. G. Atkins, Seth Green, R. B. 
Roosevelt, E. G. Blackford, Major T. B. 
Ferguson, and others, in promoting this 
good work, have been worthy of all praise. 

The methods of fish impregnation and 
hatching differ with different fish, and can 
best be learned by those who propose to 
engage in it by addressing the U. S. Fish 
Commissioner at Washington, Hon. Spen- 
cer F. Baird, LL. D. If he who causes a 
blade of grass to grow where none grew 
before, is, as has been said, a benefactor of 
the human race, how much more he who 
renders watery wastes fruitful in nourish- 
ing and delicious food. 



ICE. 

"Hast thou entered into the terrors of the snow, or 
hast thou seen the terrors of the hail '! "—Job. 

For how many years, not to say centu- 
ries, was the vast icy wealth which nature 
confers upon northern latitudes in such 
profusion, and within reach of every indi- 
vidual, utterly unappreciated and neg- 
lected ! The use of ice was indeed known 
to the luxurious few in remote ages. The 
ancient Romans learned to cool their choice 
wines with frozen water, and almost in 
every age the "upper ten" were acquainted 
with its merits. Like education, and suf- 
frage, and freedom of opinion, and tolera- 
tion in religion, it however became known 
to, and extended among the people, only 
under our federal government. It is now 
no longer regarded as exclusively a luxu- 
ry, but has become a necessity. Under 
almost all circumstances, water is made 
palatable by it, and wines are improved by 
its application. The introduction of water 
into large cities by aqueduct, is made ac- 
ceptable to citizens not only in the sum- 
mer but also in the winter by the use of ice. 
The excuse for ardent drinks based on poor 
water, is removed by the possession or 
ice, since tepid water is rendered attractive 
by it. When water is thus rendered agree- 
able, the temptation to indulge in strong 
drinks is diminished. By its use, also, the 
supply of food is virtually enhanced, since 



315 



the surplus of districts, that might otherwise 
be lost, can be sent to a considerable distance 
to supply the wants of large cities. The 
surplus supplies that may thus accumulate, 
can be preserved for a longer time by the 
use of ice. The fruits of the West Indies 
may be preserved in the northern cities, and 
those of our own orchards are by the same 
means preserved for the markets of India, 
Brazil, and the West Indies. Packet ships 
no longer carry live fowls and pigs, since a 
small ice-house may be packed with fresh 
provisions for the voyage. The markets of 
all large cities are provided with hundreds 
of ice-chests, in which fresh provisions are 
preserved free from taint. Fishermen have 
become greatly dependent upon ice, which 
enables them to keep a large and full supply 
of fish in every variety, and almost every 
family has its refrigerator or ice-box, which, 
regularly supplied, is the recipient for butter, 
milk, and other food. Thus families are as 
readily furnished with ice as with milk. 
To country houses and substantial farmers, 
ice-houses have become a necessity for the 
same general reasons. 

Not the least important use of ice is its 
medical applications. It is a reliable tonic 
and. of the safest. In cases of fever it has 
become of general use. In India the first 
prescription of a physician is ice, and some- 
times it is the only one, and the ice is always 
American ! If India sends us her opium, 
she gets as valuable a return in ice. That 
article is also a styptic, and has many impor- 
tant medical applications. All these benefits 
and many more were annually provided 
for humanity in the frosts of winter and 
in the congealing of water, but were disre- 
garded until an enterprising Yankee adopted 
the notion of harvesting that crop. Massa- 
chusetts to be sure has but two crops, and it 
required two centuries to discover them. 
For more than 200 years the snow fell upon 
and melted from her granite hills, before 
speculation, putting its hand upon them, sent 
them along the coast by schooner loads as 
material for palaces. For more than 200 
successive winters the clear and sparkling 
ice showed itself upon her ponds, and van- 
ished under the vernal sun, before enterprise 
detected in its preservation the means of in- 
creasing human enjoyment. Those frozen 
lakes were each winter covered with gold, 
but, like that of California, it was long undis- 
covered. It will, however, never run out, 
since, without ploughing or sowing, nature 
" 17 



sends the annual crop, which like the manna 
has only to be gathered, and the market for 
it is ever increasing. 

There were many farmers possessed of ice- 
houses in the middle states, at a date as far 
back as the formation of the government. 
But the idea of making a trade of it, seems 
to have occurred first to Frederick Tudor, 
Esq., of Boston, in 1805. He shipped a 
cargo in that year from Boston to Martinique. 
The ice was cut with axes, and carted in 
wagons to Gray's wharf, Charlestown, where 
it was shipped. The voyage proved a total 
loss, as did several succeeding ones, until the 
war put an end to trade. Mr. Tudor resum- 
ed it at the peace, and persevered in face of 
continued losses, until 1823, when he ex- 
tended it to the southern states, and the 
"West Indies, and it began to pay. As lono- 
as it was a losing business he had it all to 
himself; as soon as his perseverance had 
mastered the business and made an art of it, 
he began to have competitors. 

The use of ice extended itself in all the- 
cities of New England, and in Boston be- 
came very general. The quantity used in 
the city is about 150,000 tons per annum, 
against about 27,000 tons in 1847. The 
ice is cut mostly from Fresh and Spy 
Ponds; at the former the houses are capa- 
ble of containing about 130,000 tons. The 
price of ice for shipping is usually $3 per 
ton, and rises from that to $9 after mid- 
winter. The article is served to families 
at the rate of $10 for the season, May to 
October, for nine lbs. per day; fifteen lbs. 
are served for $12, and twenty-four lbs. 
for $ 1 6. When large quantities are served, 
the price is 25 cts. per hundred, and $4 per 
ton to hotels, when 500 lbs. per day are 
taken. In New York the quantity used is 
more than a million tons. This is supplied 
in varied proportions from Rockland Lake, 
Highland Lake, New Rochelle, Athens, 
Rhinebeck, Kingston Creek, Catskill, and 
Barrytown. In a favorable season, about 
1,400,000 or 1,500,000 tons are stored, as 
there is considerable waste and loss from 
floods, fires, the sinking of boats, etc. Of 
this quantity the Knickerbocker Ice Com- 
pany secure from 750,000 to 900,000 tons, 
and the rest is stored by the other compa- 
nies. In an unfavorable season, a warm, 
mild winter, they may not be able to store 
half this quantity; but the- Knickerbocker 
Company has its ice-houses on the Kenne- 
beck or Penobscot, and secures as much as 



316 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



is needed there, and the other companies 
buy from Maine companies. At such times 
the price of ice, especially to families, rises 
to a fearful height, reaching in some cases 
$1.50 or more a hundred pounds. It com- 
menced at Syracuse in 1844 for the supply 
<>t* a saloon, and it was gradually extended 
to batchers and families, and the quantity 
there used is about 25,000 tons, taken mostly 
from Onondaga Lake, from which it is drawn 
two or three miles to be stowed in an ice- 
house. The other cities of western New 
York have followed the example, and the 
average price is 35 cts. per hundred. Cin- 
cinnati used to draw its supply of ice from its 
own vicinity; but the railroad facilities per- 
mit of drawing it cheaper and better from 
the lakes. Chicago is well supplied from 
the same source. In the neighborhood of 
Peru, Illinois, a large quantity is cut for 
the supply of the lower Mississippi. It is 
cut in the winter and packed in flat-boats 
which are allowed to freeze up in the Illinois 
river; there is therefore no other ice-house 
needed. As soon as the river breaks up in 
the spring, the boats float down stream and 
supply the markets below. In Philadel- 
phia. Baltimore, and Washington, ice is more 
important than in the cities of the North. 
When the weather sets in cold in the early 
part of the winter, they cut ice in the neigh- 
borhood, but the best supplies are from l!os- 
>ton or from more northern lakes. The 
Atlantic and Gulf cities of the South get 
most of their ice from Boston, which sends 
them about 110,000 tons per annum, and 
further quantities to Havana and the West 
Indies. Rio Janeiro, Callao, and Peru, 
Charleston, Mobile, and New Orleans, are 
large customers of Boston in the article 
of ice. In New Orleans, substantial brick 
ice-houses have been erected at a cost of 
&200,000, and similar arrangements have 
been made in Mobile for its distribution. 
The quantity exported to Europe i- large, 
and England takes about 1,000 tons of 
American ice. 

It follows as a matter of course, that where 
this object of industry and enterprise is 
formed by nature, the means of conducting 
the trade will gather around it, Hence 
the land in the immediate neighborhood 
of fresh-water lakes at the North rises in 
value, and good wages come to be earned in 
the winter by men who at the dull season 
would otherwise not be employed. The 
.question soon presented itself to those who 



were engaged upon cutting ice on the same 
pond as to their comparative rights. This was 
settled at Fresh Pond by a committee, who 
decided that each owner should hold the 
same proportion of the contiguous surface of 
the pond as the length of his shore line is to 
the whole, border. 

The time for cutting is December and 
January. The "experts" can in the middle 
of January estimate the value of the crop. 
"When the ice is sufficiently thick to cut, say 
from nine to twenty inches, the former for 
home use and the latter for exportation, if 
there should be snow upon the surface, it is 
removed by wooden scrapers drawn by 
horses. There is a layer of what is called 
" snow ice," that is not fit for market ; this 
must be removed, and for this purpose an 
iron scraper with a cutting-edged steel is 
drawn over it by a horse. A man rides upon 
the scraper, which in its progress cuts several 
inches of the snow ice from the surface of 
the clear and glittering article that is to go 
to market, "When this is completed, the 
field of ice is marked off into squares of five 
feet each. The marker is drawn by a horse, 
and is guided by handles like a plough. In 
the tracks of these marks and cross marks fol- 
lows the cutter. This is a remarkable inven- 
tion, which has reduced the cost of cutting 
ice in the neighborhood' of Boston alone, 
some $15,000 per annum. Acres of ice are 
thus cut into square pieces, which are then 
floated off through canals, and impelled by 
long poles, to the sides of the pond, where 
inclined planes lead up to the ice-houses; up 
this inclined plane each piece i- dragged with 
great celerity by a powerful steam engine. 
In the house it is directed by hand down 
other planes to be packed away by the 
requisite number of men. By the aid of 
steam ten tons of ice may be cut and housed 
in a minute. With a full power, it is not 
uncommon to stow 600 tons an hour. Some- 
times there are several parties on the pond, 
each vicing with the other in the rapidity of 
their operation's. 

Most of the ice-houses that we have seen 
are built of wood. Sometimes they are 
found of brick. They are very high and 
broad, and are usually from too to 200 feet 
in length. Fresh Pond, Cambridge, Mass.. 
has it- -hores almost covered with some fifty 
of these ice-houses. They present a singular 
appearance, neither looking like barns nor 
houses; and one unacquainted with the ice 
business would be almost certain to ask, on 



Fig. i. 

K'K HARVESTING. 
CLEAKINU TIIK ICK OK .SNOW. |2iffi 




Pig:. 2. 

MAI.'KIXli \\|i CUTTING 
THE ICE. 




Fig. 3. 
SAWING AND BARRING OFF. 





Fig. 4. 

CANALING TO THE ICE-HOU3R 



Fig. 5. 
THE ELEVATORS. 



Fig. 6. 
PACKING AWAY THE IC» 



PINS. 



319 



seeing them for the first time, " What are 
they ?" The construction of these houses, in 
which ice is to be stored until sold, must be 
regulated by the climate — the amount to 
be stored — the material nearest at hand — 
and the facility of reaching the shore — the 
object being to have a cool spot, where the 
influence of the sun and a warm atmosphere 
shall be least felt. Added to this, the mass of 
ice must be preserved as much as possible 
from wasting, by being surrounded by saw- 
dust, tan, shavings, rice-hulls, charcoal, or 
leaves, which must be used in the ice-house, 
or aboard ship, according to circumstances. 

Private ice-houses are constructed in dif- 
ferent ways. They were formerly merely 
cellars; they are now in the most approved 
methods erected above ground, with a drain 
under the mass of ice. The opening is gen- 
erally to the north, and the ice is the better 
preserved for a double roof, which acts as a 
non-conductor. The waste of ice is different 
under different circumstances ; shipping ice 
should not waste more than 40 per cent. ; and 
when shipped on an India voyage of Hi, 000 
miles, twice crossing the equator, and oc- 
cupying some months, if one half the cargo 
is delivered it is considered a successful 
voyage. The cost of the ice delivered is of 
course affected by this element of wastage. 
In Boston, it is $4 per ton; in Calcutta, 
2\ cts per lb., or $56£ per ton. The very 
high price of ice, even at the north, when 
the winters are mild, and the increasing de- 
mand for it for refrigerating ships and 
cars, as well as for the southern cities and 
large towns has led to many experiments 
for the manufacture of artificial ice. Some 
of these have been successful. Ice machines 
lave been imported from Halle, in Sax- 
ony, from France, from England, and other 
countries in Europe, and some good ma- 
chines have been made here. Perhaps the 
best is one which produces freezing effects 
by the evaporation of ammonia, and its re- 
covery. This produces intense cold at a 
moderate price, and can be used for cooling 
water and other liquids to a very low point, 
as well as in the actual production of ice. 
It is in use in a large number of breweries, 
and produces the low temperature in the 
refrigerating chamber of steamships which 
carry fresh meats, etc., for European mar- 
kets. It has also proved a great boon to 
southern cities and towns. 

When Daniel Webster took his farm at 
Marshfield, his ice-house cost $100, and it 



was filled annually at an expense of £25. In 
that he preserved his fresh meat and fish, and 
prevented his butter from " running away." 
sometimes farmers live in sight of fine ponds 
that would give a plentiful crop, that might 
be harvested and sent by railroad to good 
markets, without ever bestowing a thought 
upon the matter. To get $2 or $5 for hauling, 
would pay their otherwise idle teams at that 
season well. We may close this notice by 
an extract from an oration of the Hon. 
Edward Everett, as follows : — 

" When I had the honor to represent the 
country at London, I was a little struck one 
day, at the royal drawing-room, to see the 
President of the Board of Control (the board 
charged with the supervision of the govern- 
ment of India) approaching me with a 
stranger, at that time much talked of in 
London — the Balm Dwarkananth Tagore. 
This person, who is now living, was a Hin- 
doo of great wealth, liberality, and intelli- 
gence. He was dressed with Oriental mag- 
nificence — he had on his head, by way of 
turban, a rich Cashmere shawl, held together 
by a large diamond broach ; another < ash- 
mere around his body ; his countenance and 
manners were those of a highly intelligent 
and remarkable person, as he was. After 
the ceremony of introduction was over, he 
said he wished to make his acknowledgments 
to me, as the American minister, for the 
benefits which my countrymen had conferred 
on his countrymen. I did not at first know 
what he referred to ; I thought he might 
have in view the mission schools, knowing, 
as I did, that he himself had done a great 
deal for education. He immediately said 
that he referred to the cargoes of ice sent 
from America to India, conducing not only 
to comfort, but health; adding that numer- 
ous lives were saved every year by applying 
lumps of American ice to the head of the 
patient in cases of high fever.'" 



PINS. 



The manufacture of pins has reached a 
great development in the United States. 
where the most important invention in the 
art of making them, that of "solid heads," 
originated. So simple an article as pins 
formerly required a great manipulation in 
their production, but are now, like most ar- 
ticles that have been the objects of American 



320 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



ingenuity, produced in great perfection and 
abundance by machines. Up to the war of 
1812, pins, like almost every other article of j 
manufacture, were imported, and, as a con- 
sequence, became very scarce when commu- 
nication was interrupted, and the price rose ' 
in 1813 to $1 per paper, of a quality much 
worse than are now purchased for 6^ cts. per 
paper. These high war prices prompted 
the manufacture, and some Englishmen com- 
menced the business at the old State Prison, 
at what was called Greenwich village, now 
a part of New York city. The labor of 
the convicts was employed in the business. 
The return of peace bringing a deluge of 
cheap pins from abroad, put an end to that 
enterprise. The tools used in the manufac- 
ture at the prison fell into the hands of a 
Mr. Turman, who in 1820 undertook to em- 
ploy the pauper labor of the Bellevue Alms- 
house in the manufacture, which was, how- 
ever, unsuccessful. " Pauper labor" here, it 
seems, could not compete with pauper labor 
abroad. A machine had been invented dur- 
ing the war, for making pins, in Boston, but 
it did not work successfully. The old pins 
had the heads put on them ; but Mr. L. W. 
Wright, of Massachusetts, invented a ma- 
chine for making solid-head pins. He car- 
ried this to England and operated it there, 
and the first "solid-head" pins were sold in 
the market in 1833. In 1832 a pin machine 
was patented in the United States by John 
J. Howe. The machine was designed to 
make pins similar to the English diamond 
pins, the heads being formed of a coil of 
small wire fastened upon the shank by a 
pressure between dies. In December, 1835, 
the Howe Manufacturing Company was 
formed in New York for the purpose of 
manufacturing with this machine. The com- 
pany moved to Birmingham, Connecticut, 
where it continues operations with a new 
patent for manufactur'nii;- solid-head pins, got 
out by Mr. Howe in 1840. In 1838 another 
company was started at Poughkeepsie, not- 
withstanding that by an extraordinary over- 
sight pins were under the tariff admitted 
free of duty, while the wire of which they 
were made paid 20 to 25 per cent. duty. In 
1846 there was much excitement in respect 
to the pin manufacture, and many machines 
were invented ; few of them, however, suc- 
ceeded in doing good work. Most of the 
attempts t<> manufacture tailed. The Pough- 
keepsie Company was, however, sold to the 
American Pin Company, Waterbury, Con- 



necticut. About the year 1850 the copper 
from Lake Superior began to be used for the 
wire, giving an impetus to the business, and 
250 tons were used per annum. Great im- 
provements were made by self-acting ma- 
chinery superseding a process that formerly 
required six or seven hands. The old 
method of sheeting pins, or sticking them on 
paper, was a tedious process ; a good hand 
could stick five or six dozen papers in a day. 
By the improved machinery now in use, a 
hand will stick from 75 to 1 25 dozen aday, and 
do the work in far greater perfection. There 
are three patents in force for improvements 
in the machines in use for this operation, 
viz., those of S. Slocum, De Gras Fowler, 
and J. J. Howe. The present price of 
American solid-headed pins is only about two 
thirds of the lowest price at which imported 
pins of the same weight were ever afforded be- 
fore the manufacturing was introduced, and 
for service they are undoubtedly better than 
the article of which they have taken the 
place. The American improvements in both 
the pin-making and the pin-sticking ma- 
chinery have been for several years in oper- 
ation in England and some other parts of 
Europe. 

One firm in Waterbury, Connecticut, have 
in operation an improved machine for the 
manufacturing of pins which turns out tivo 
barrels per day. A barrel contains 4,000,- 
000 pins, consequently the product of that 
little manufactory is 8,000,000 per day, or 
48,000,000 per week, and 2,496,0U0*,000 
per annum. Well may it be asked li where 
all the pins go to?" The machine is perfect 
and simple in its operation. The wire is 
run into it from a reel, cut off the proper 
length, pointed, headed, and made a finish- 
ed pin before it comes out again. From this 
machine they fall into the hopper of the 
sticking machine, in which they are ar- 
ranged, stuck upon papers, and come out 
perfect, ready for packing for market. This 
last machine, tended by one girl, does the 
work of 30 persons by the old process. 
That is better than pauper labor. There 
are four other machines in the United 
States. These operating at the same rate, 
will make 312 pins per annum for every 
soul in the Union. There should be a 
large surplus for export to other coun- 
tries, and at a profitable rate, after paying 
freight and charges, since no European 
machines can compete with this little con- 
trivance. 



REFINED SUGAR. 



321 



REFINED SUGAR. 

The people of the United States are fa- 
mous for having a " sweet tooth," and if the 
story about " pork and molasses" is not quite 
accurate, it is nevertheless true that a " little 
sweetening don't go far" in a family, or, to 
use a New York phrase, into a family. In 
the year 1870, the quantity of foreign su- 
gar taken for consumption in the United 
States was 608,230 tons. The crop of 
Texas, Louisiana, and Florida, was 64,239 
tons, making together 672,469 tons of cane 
sugar. The result was a total of 1,344,937,- 
829 lbs., or about 34.9 lbs. per head. The 
amount of sugar imported in 1880 (all brown 
sugar except 15,654 lbs.) was 1,792,962,147 
lbs., or a little more than 800,429 tons of 
2,240 lbs. each, the import value of which 
was $78,853,466. the amount produced, 
including cane, sorghum, maple, and per- 
haps a small quantity of beet, and the su- 
gar or glucose from corn, was about 325,- 
000,000 lbs., making a grand total of 2,- 
117,962,147 lbs. Nearly the whole of this 
was refined, and 29,065,376 lbs. were ex- 
ported that year — about 14,533 tons. In 
1879, the export was much larger, 58,431 
tons, almost half of it going to Canada. 
The consumption of sugar alone in 1880 
was 41.65 lbs. per head. The consump- 
tion of Great Britain is 36.25 lbs. per head ; 
of France about 1 1 lbs., and of Germany 
still less. A generation grew up in the eco- 
nomical use of sugar, and even to this day in 
the rural districts, and among some of the 
old fogies of the cities, no other sugar is used 
than a piece of the sugar-baker's candy held 
in the mouth while the unsweetened liquid 
is drank. The story is told that this piece 
was formerly, in the times of privation dur- 
ing the war, suspended by a string from the 
ceiling over the table, and being taken in the 
mouth by one convive when drinking, was 
allowed to swing to that of her whose turn 
succeeded. The German idiomatic phrase 
of "pass auf or " look out" for the next was 
said to have thus originated. In our own 
colonies the refiner was not by any means 
considered a necessary go-between of the 
cane and the consumer, who went directly to 
the fountain-head and used the molasses, or 
u long sugar," not only for his coffee, but to 
compound his new ruin or "white-face" into 
"black-strap," with which he washed down 
his pumpkin pie, also sweetened with mo- 



lasses; and few edibles escaped that sweeten- 
ing, from a spoonful of brimstone in the 
spring to a mince pie at Christmas. Refined 
crept in, and with the use of this article va- 
rious grades of pure sugars made their ap- 
pearance. When the plants or canes are 
crushed in a mill, the juice flows abundantly 
through a strainer into the clarifier ; where, 
mixed with alkali, which assists the opera- 
tion, it is raised to a certain heat. It then 
passes through evaporating coppers, and 
the scum that arises in the process is re- 
moved. In the last copper it is boiled until 
it will granulate in the boiler. Here it soon 
ceases to be a liquid, and being placed in 
hogsheads with holes in their bottoms, the 
molasses drains out into a cistern below. 
When quite cured in this manner it is ship- 
ped as " brown" or " muscovado" sugar. 

The next grade of sugar is " clayed ;" when 
the sugar is properly boiled, it is poured into 
conical pots, apex down, with a hole in each. 
When the molasses has drained off, a stratum 
of moistened clay is spread over the surface, 
the moisture of which percolating through 
the mass contributes powerfully to its puri- 
fication. 

" Refined" sngar may be prepared by tak- 
ing either the clayed or muscovado, redis- 
solving it in water, and after boiling it with 
'some purifying substance, as blood, or other 
articles, pour it into the conical pots again 
with the clay application. 

The solutions of brown or clayed sugar, 
boiled until they become thick, and then re- 
moved into a hot room, form into crystals 
upon strings placed across the vessels, and 
become sugar-candy. 

The use of molasses ?nd brown suo-ar, as 
we have seen, is by far the most important 
in the United States. In the year 1857, 
when the Louisiana sugar' crop failed, the 
importation of these articles reached nearly 
$57,000,000, and the import contributed 
principally to the panic of that year. Grad- 
ually the use of refined sugar has extended, 
and in 1850 the federal census reported 23 
refineries, having a capital of $2,669,000, and 
using $7,662,685 worth of raw sugar, per- 
haps 70,000,000 lbs., and producing a value 
of $9,898,800. Since that period the busi- 
ness has greatly extended itself. In that year 
there were two in New York city, Woolsey's 
and Stuart's. These rapidly increased to fif- 
teen, which together refined 200,000,000 lbs. 
of sugar, or about half what was produced in 
the whole United States. The introduction 



322 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



of machinery moved by steam almost revolu- 
tionized the business of refining. An impor- 
tant improvement that was made in substitu- 
ting aluminous finings for bullock's blood, 
which was always productive of injurious 
consequences, greatly increased the produc- 
tion and raised the quality of sugar. The 
raw sugar of the Spanish West Indies and 
Brazil comes mostly in cases and boxes; that 
of New Orleans and the English islands in 
hogsheads ; South America generally, Ma- 
nilla, and the Mauritius send it in bags. 
When the refiner gets possession of any of 
these, he empties into a pan with a perforated 
bottom ; through these perforations comes a 
current of steam which dissolves the sugar. 
Chemical application then bleaches the sugar 
or takes all its color from it. It then passes 
into the vacuum pans to be boiled by steam. 
The sugar in this process becomes so con- 
centrated that it is held in solution only by 
the high temperature. The moment it be- 
gins to cool, a rapid crystallization takes 
place, producing the fine grain seen in loaf 
sugar. When the syrup has boiled suffi- 
ciently, it is poured into moulds which are 
prepared in the loaf form, for the purpose of 
facilitating the separation of the sugar. The 
liquor that runs from these moulds is sub- 
jected to a new boiling, when it yields lower 
grades of sugar. The syrup that exudes 
from this second process is sold as molasses, 
and the proportion of this is about 20 per 
cent, of the original quantity. 

The art of refining has been carried to 
greater perfection in this country than in 
Europe, and so manifestly that no imported 
article can equal the fine granulated sugars of 
the domestic manufacturer. The business 
has spread with the demand for the improved 
sugars. The increase of the manufacture has 
also been aided by the federal government, 
which allows a drawback upon refined sugar 
exported equal to the duty on the equivalent 
'•aw sugar imported. The export of re- 
fined sugar in 1879 was 116,862,583 lbs., 
valued at $9,646,065, on which there was 
a drawback of $3,365,297.52. In 1880, 
the export had fallen to 29,065,376 lbs. 
(Canada, which had been our best custom- 
er, having through some change in tariff 
ceased to take our sugars except in very 
small quantity); the value of this sugar 
was $2,706,129, and the drawback $913,- 
660.84. In 1881, there was a further re- 
duction to 24,012,595 lbs., worth $2,356,- 
669, on which the drawback was $758,- 
048.66. 



The consumption of molasses in the 
United States in 1880 was 45,299,184 gal- 
lons, of which 33,099,184 gallons were im- 
ported. The value of this was nearly 
$12,000,000. 

"'New Process' sugar," says the report 
of the N. Y. Chamber of Commerce for 
1881, "is an adulteration which has made 
its appearance within the past year, and is 
so largely sold that it deserves notice. It 
is made by taking yellow refined sugar and 
mixing it with about 25 per cent, of 
grape sugar or glucose. (This glucose is 
made from corn or potatoes by the use of 
sulphuric acid.) The color is thereby made 
white, resembling a coffee "A," but the 
saccharine properties are materially weak- 
ened. It is profitable to the seller, and 
difficult to distinguish from the pure arti- 
cle, but it is unprofitable to the consumer, 
and an adulteration which is as dishonest 
as it is undesirable." We may add that 
while this adulterated sugar has only about 
three-fifths of the sweetening power of the 
pure sugar, it is also objectionable as being 
the fruitful source of kidney and other dis- 
eases which are now so prevalent. Avoid 
" New Process " sugar as you would the 
small pox ! 

The sorghum sugar, of which we have 
spoken elsewhere, promises to be a product 
of great importance in the near fufrure. 
" It has passed," says the N. Y. Chamber 
of Commerce report, "its experimental 
period, and the growth of a practical in- 
dustry in its production may now be pre- 
dicted. The best beet-root sugar, after 
many failures, is now succeeding in Cali- 
fornia and in Maine. About 4,500,000 lbs. 
were marketed in 1880. The sugars and 
syrups from both these sources are of ex- 
cellent quality, and fully equal to the cane 
sugar and syrups in saccharine strength. 

The refining of sugar is an immense in- 
dustry, requiring large capital, and pro- 
ducing enormous values. Brooklyn, N. Y., 
is now probably most largely interested in 
it, though Philadelphia is not far behind, 
and San Francisco (which enjoys excep- 
tional advantages in obtaining the Hawai- 
ian raw sugars free of duty), Baltimore, St. 
Louis, Cincinnati, and New Orleans, and 
several points on the Hudson River, are 
largely engaged in it. The whole product 
considerably exceeds $150,000,000, and of 
this Brooklyn marketed in 1880 $59,711,- 
168 in value. The manufacture of candies 



SILK. 



!23 



is of much importance in connection with 
the refining of sugar. The product is be- 
tween $16,000,000 and $17,000,000, but 
the most shameless frauds are practiced by 
many manufacturers. Terra alba, or kaolin, 
a porcelain clay, and even inferior clays 
are much used, flour, plaster of Paris, and 
for the chocolate candies and caramels 
roasted peanuts, for flavors, fusel oil, and 
other artificial flavors, and for coloring 
many of the mineral poisons. 



SILK. 



The culture and manufacture of silk are 
among the oldest industries of the colo- 
nies, and many efforts on the part of Con- 
gress and of enterprising men have been 
made to promote them, but the industry has 
not thriven in any degree to be compared 
with some of those that have grown steadily 
under the intelligent perseverance of unob- 
trusive individuals. No branch of industry 
is ever planted, promoted, or perfected by 
means of government operations alone. It 
must grow, if at all, out of the spontaneous 
promptings of individual genius, and live 
upon the necessities that give rise to it or 
the wants it of itself creates, to be healthily 
prosperous. Hence all the efforts that have 
been made to encourage the silk culture 
and manufacture have proved abortive, while 
individuals not encouraged have prosecuted 
branches of the trade not contemplated, 
with success. The southern colonies were 
early silk producers. So important had it 
become in 1753, that at a meeting of the im- 
perial Board of Trade, Oct. 26, of that year, 
" the state of the colony of Georgia was 
taken into consideration, at a Board of Trade 
and Plantations, and it appeared that the 
colony produced upward of £17,000 [75,- 
000 dollars] worth of raw silk, since January 
1752, besides what is not yet come to the 
notice of the board." The other colonies 
of the South were also well engaged in it. 
Virginia in particular was largely interested 
in that industry. The culture of cotton and 
tobacco, however, in the early years of the 
Union, were so profitable as to absorb all 
other culture ; and silk nearly disappeared, 
although numbers of farmers preserved their 
mulberry groves, and continue to make 
small quantities of raw silk. The state of 
Connecticut seems to have made the most 



decided efforts in that direction. The New 
London Gazette of 1768 informs us that 
William Hanks of Mansfield, had "raised 
silk enough for three women's gowns." 
The gowns of " three women" at the present 
day would involve a formidable amount of 
silk, but we are to presume he meant three 
" dresses" simply. The term gown, like 
''vandyke," seems to have become some- 
wnat obsolete. Mr. William Hanks also ad- 
vertised in the Gazette, 3,000 mulberry 
trees, three years old, and of one inch diam- 
eter. The best time to set them out, he 
says, is at the new moon of April. They 
were to be sold cheap, in order to promote 
the culture of silk. Sundry gentlemen in 
Windham had large mulberry orchards, in- 
tended to supply a silk factory erected at 
Lebanon. While all manufactures were in 
so depressed a state and struggling for life 
under the disability of deficient capital, it 
was hardly to be expected that so hazardous 
an undertaking as silk manufacture could 
make much progress. When, however, the 
high tariff policy after the war gave the 
spur to manufacturing of all kinds, that of 
silk was revived, mostly in Connecticut 
and Pennsylvania This had so progressed 
that in five small towns of the first-men- 
tioned state, there were raised in 1829, 2£ 
tons of raw silk, valued at $21,188. In 
Washington, Pennsylvania, sewing silk was 
successfully produced, and some garments 
were made by individuals who performed 
the whole work, from the management of 
the worms to the weaving of the fabric. 
The town of Mansfield, Connecticut, was in 
that year the great seat of that industry. 
The population was 2,500, and produced as 
many pounds of silk. This silk was con- 
verted into the most beautiful sewing silk 
and some other manufactures by the skill 
and industry of that ingenious people. 
Thus prepared, the silk was at that time 
worth $8 per lb. This industry was carried 
on without interrupting the ordinary occu- 
pations of the people, and also employed 
the young and old not suited to the labors 
of the field. The mulberry trees are orna- 
mental as shade trees, and do not impover- 
ish the soil as much as fruit; and they 
will flourish in almost all latitudes, or 
wherever the apple will grow; and where- 
ever they are present the silk-worm may be 
reared. 

The feeding of the worms commences 
with the first opening of the mulberry leaf, 



324 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



and continues for the period of 32 days, 
when the worm commences its spinning, 
and ceases to eat. The leaves are gathered 

for the worms, and this gathering is the ap- 
propriate work of young children. Having 
wound itself in its eocoon, it requires nurs- 
ing and watching, that the young may not 
eat its way out and by so doing destroy the 
silk. The cocoons .being placed in warm 
water to soften the natural gum upon the 
silk, the winding is begun by women, one 
of whom can make 16 lbs. of raw silk in 
the season of six weeks. 

The excellence of the silk depends upon 
the properties of the mulberry leaf, and these 
are considerably diversified. The white mul- 
berry is decidedly the best, and of this there 
are several varieties. The kind to be culti- 
vated and the mode of proceeding are to be 
learned from experience, which was very 
limited in the United States in 1829, when 
the attention of Congress was called to the 
silk culture by the petition of G. 13. Clark, of 
the city of New York, for a grant of 262 
acres of land owned by the United States, 
at Greenbush, New York, and used for mili- 
tary purposes, to aid him in rearing mulberry 
trees. The grant was made in the shape of 
a lease, on the condition that 100,000 mul- 
berry trees should be planted, and that he 
should procure a sufficient number of worms 
to consume all the foliage that could be 
gathered from the trees. The culture never 
amounted to much, but the tax, 15 percent., 
imposed upon imported raw silk in order to 
encourage the culture, was a great drawback 
upon the manufacture. Nevertheless, the 
excitement in relation to the mulberry trees 
progressed, and in the year 1831, the project 
of rearing silk-worms was renewed in various 
parts of the Union, with great vigor ; and 
the subject not only attracted the attention 
of Congress, but bounties were offered by 
the legislatures of several States for all the 
raw silk produced within their limits for cer- 
tain periods of time. The business soon 
began to be prosecuted with extreme ardor, 
ami continued several years, resulting in the 
establishment of extensive nurseries of mul- 
berry trees, but it ended with the downfall 
of the famous " Morus Multicaulis Specula- 
tion," in 18.59. The rates of the mulberry 
cuttings were at 2 cents each in 1838. In 
that year, in the neighborhood of Hartford, 
Connecticut, many thousand trees were Bold 
at 20 to 50 cents each. The trees were sent 
»dl over the country, and it was stated that 



the growth per acre gave from three to five 
thousand dollars. The demand for trees was 
from those who undertook, in all sections of 
the country, to plant mulberry groves for the 
supply of silk factories that were to be 
started. The sales of trees were often made 
on the ground, standing, at the rate of 12-£ 
eents per foot, those "trees" not 12 inches 
high being rejected. That speculation was 
second only to the famous tulip mania of 
Holland, or the South Sea bubble of En- 
gland, or the Mississippi scheme of France. 
The mulberry buds sold at fabulous prices, 
and passed rapidly from hand to hand of the 
speculators, till the bubble burst. The real 
evil, however, which the mania inflicted, was 
that the means taken to stimulate a doubtful 
culture retarded the manufacture of sewing 
silk and goods. In 1836, the state of Massa- 
chusetts paid $71 bounty on silk made in 
that year. This bounty rose to $2,111 in 
1841. All the means used had raised the 
quantity of silk made in the United States in 
1840, to 61,552 lbs., worth about $250,000. 
In 1844, the quantity was stated in the report 
of the commissioners of the United States 
census at 396,790 pounds, worth $1,400,- 
000. In 1850, however, the quantity had 
fallen to 14,763 lbs., and in 1860 to 11,964 
pounds. The effort to produce the silk failed, 
and retarded the silk manufacture, which had 
grown in England in some degree to rival 
France, where the silk is raised, by means 
of entire freedom from tax on the raw article. 
In the year 1769, on the recommendation 
of Dr. Franklin through the American Phil- 
osophical Society, a filature of raw silk was 
established in Philadelphia, byr private sub- 
scription, and placed under the direction of 
an intelligent and skillful Frenchman, who, 
it is said, produced samples of reeled silk 
not inferior in quality to the best from 
France and Italy. In 1771, the managers 
purchased 2,300 pounds of cocoons, all the 
product of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and 
Delaware. The enterprise was interrupted 
by the Revolution. In 1819, five tons of 
raw silk were produced in Mansfield, Conn. 
In 1830, M. Hornerqne attempted the silk 
manufacture in Philadelphia, and large quan- 
tities of cocoons were brought to him for 
sale, but for want of capital the enterprise 
failed. The production of silk and silk 
goods has been continuous in Mansfield, 
Conn., for more than fifty years. In 1841, 
the convicts in Auburn prison, New York, 
were employed in the manufacture of silk 




SILK SPINNING FRAME. 




STLK RKKD MILL. PANFORTTI LOCOMOTIVE AND MACHINE WORKS. PATERSON, N. J. 



FIRE-PROOF SAFES AND SAFE-LOCKS. 



327 



tor a tune, with much success. In the first 
year a value of $12,762 was produced of 
sewing silk, pronounced superior to the im- 
ported article. The domestic supply of the 
raw article running short, the manufacture 
began more severely to feel the weight of the 
duty of 15 per cent, ad valorem on raw silk, 
and of 10 to 30 per cent, on dyestuffs. 
Many manufactories of ribbons grew in favor, 
and produced goods with a texture, finish, 
brilliancy of color, and general adaptability 
for an extended consumption that gave them 
advantage over the imported goods. In 
sewing silk, particularly, the American man- 
ufacturer has excelled. The American ar- 
ticle is in every respect equal in color and 
finish to the imported, and superior in the 
spinning and "fixing the cord" (the great 
desideratum in this branch of manufacture) 
to the Neapolitan article. 

Messrs. Cheney Brothers commenced the 
manufacture of silk goods at Manchester, 
and soon after at Hartford, Conn,, about 
1840, and in 1870 were employing over 
1,000 hands, and making 60,000 pounds of 
thrown silks, 60,000 pounds of " patent 
spun," 100,000 pieces of belt ribbons, and 
600,000 yards of wide dress silks. They 
have also long held a very high rank as 
manufacturers of sewing silks. Paterson, 
N. J., is largely engaged in this manufac- 
ture, having 83 silk factories, some of them 
very large, and employing more than ten 
thousand operatives. At Hoboken, 1ST. J., 
Schenectady, Troy, Yonkers, and New 
York city, the business is extensively car- 
ried on. The state of New York reported, 
in 1880, silk goods manufactured to the 
net value of $9,268,525, and New Jersey, 
$12,851,045. The total net value of silk 
goods manufactured in the United States 
had risen from $6,500,000 in 1860, to 34,- 
410,4 63 in 1880, of which all but $509,000 
were produced in the five states of New 
Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachu- 
setts, and Pennsylvania. The total im- 
ports of manufactured silk goods for the 
same year were $32,188,690. Making all 
allowance for undervaluation, the importa- 
tion of manufactured silks did not exceed 
in real wholesale Value $40,000,000; yet, 
owing to the general prosperity, the im- 
ports of 1880 were twenty-five per cent, 
more than in any previous year since 1873. 
Tho exports of manufactured silk amounted 
in the same year to $163,013. American 
sewing silk has not only driven imported 
swings out of the market, but we are ac- 



tually exporting it to Continental Europe. 
We manufacture two-thirds of our ribbons, 
the greater part of our satins, nearly all 
our handkerchiefs, trimmings, and passe- 
menteries, about one-third of our braids 
and bindings, one-fifth of our silk laces, 
and one-third of our dress goods, but no 
velvets, and not many mixed goods. 

The attempts to produce raw silk here 
have not been very successful, not from the 
quality of the cocoons, which are of the 
very best, but from the difficulty of having 
it reeled cheaply and well. From 1830 
to 1850, the importation of raw silk in- 
creased 300 per cent. The largest portion 
of the silk comes directly from China 
and Japan. 



FIRE-PROOF SAFES AND SAFE-LOCKS. 

But a very few years ha\*e passed, since it 
was a matter of necessity for individuals to 
keep their valuables in their own houses, and 
to defend them from the attacks of burglars 
and the risks of fire, as they best could. For 
these purposes, strong boxes were in requisi- 
tion. In modern times, paper promises have 
been substituted for the hard currency of 
former times, and banks become the deposi- 
tories for that money, thus relieving individ- 
uals of the risk of keeping coin in their 
houses, to attract thieves. The banks are 
also depositories for plate and jewelry, and 
insurance companies guarantee from loss by 
fire. Under these circumstances, it was 
hardly to be anticipated that a demand for 
strong boxes should arise, when the use of 
them was apparently on the decline. Singu- 
larly enough, however, the art of making 
strong boxes has only been developed in the 
present century. It is to be considered, 
however, that with the progress of the credit 
system in the last 150 years, and the exten- 
sion of commerce, paper securities and ac- 
count-books of all kinds have multiplied, 
causing a greater demand than ever for iron 
chests. The manufacture of these, and of 
the locks to secure them, has taken great 
dimensions. 

It is obvious that, in the construction 
of a chest, designed to be not only bur- 
glar but fire-proof, iron, as a material, 
w-ould naturally suggest itself. Neverthe- 



328 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



less, oak seems formerly to Lave been a 
favorite material, probably from the facility 
of working and ornamenting. An example 
of this kind of coffer is afforded in the chest 
in which the crown jewels of Scotland were 
deposited in 1707. The chest, beautifully 
ornamented, was secured with iron bands, 
hasps, and staples. There were three locks, 
which then, no doubt, afforded security, but 
each of them could be opened in five minutes 
with a bit of crooked wire in our clay. At 
the close of the last century there began to 
be made the iron chests, known as " foreign 
coffers." These were constructed of sheet 
iron, strongly riveted to hoop iron, crossed at 
right angles on the outside. A lock throw- 
ing eight bolts inside, and two bars and 
staples for padlocks outside, were employed 
to secure the lid. Over the door lock was a 
cap beautifully pierced and chased, and a 
secretly operated escutcheon concealed the 
key-hole. These were formidable to look at, 
and no doubt answered their purpose all the 
better, that the science of lock-picking was 
then not so advanced as in the present day. 
About the beginning of the present cen- 
turv, cast-iron chests began to be made 
for common purposes, and the manufacture 
flourished to a considerable extent. The idea 
of introducing non-conducting substances as 
a protection against fire, occurred but some 
years later. The favorite substance for this 
purpose is gypsum or plaster of Paris. This 
material was first used in Paris for the con- 
struction of fire-proof houses. The practice 
for more than fifty years had there been to 
erect hollow walls with spaces between them 
varying from five to nine inches in width. 
Plaster of Paris, mixed with water to a 
proper consistency, was poured into these 
spaces, where it set and became hard. After 
the beams and rafters were fixed in their 
places, boards were nailed to them, and the 
same material was spread thereon. The lower 
floors of the building were of plaster, over 
which tiles were laid. The same material 
was applied to fire-safes in Paris, and these 
were, to some extent, imported into New 
York about the year 1820. The first port- 
able fire-proof chests introduced for sale in 
New Fork, were imported from France, by 
the late Joseph Bouchcaud, Esq., about 1820, 
and DO doubt many of our old merchants ami 
bankers remember them, as many were sold 
for use in counting-houses ami hank vaults. 
They were constructed of wood and iron; 
the foundation was a box of hard, close- 



drained wood, covered on the outside with 
plate iron, over which were hoops or bands 
of iron, about two inches wide, crossing 
each other at right angles, so forming squares 
on all sides of the chest. Holes were made in 
the bands and plates, through which well- 
made wrought-iron nails or spikes, "having 
" holloiv" half-spherical heads, were driven 
into and through the wooden box, and then 
'■'•clinched.' 1 '' The inside of the chest was 
then lined with a covering of sheet iron. 
These chests had a well-finished but very 
large lock, having from six to eight bolts, 
operated by one turn of the key. 

The first actual application of plaster of 
Paris to safes in this country seems to have 
been by James Conner, the type-founder, of 
New York. His business made him ac- 
quainted with the non-conducting qualities 
of plaster of Paris, and he applied it to an 
iron chest in his office, which chest has been 
in use ever since. Soon after, Jesse Delano, 
of New York, began making chests of the 
Paris pattern, substituting solid cast-iron 
heads, to secure the bands. In 1826, he 
patented an improvement, which consisted 
in coating the wooden foundation with a 
composition of equal parts, clay and lime, 
plumbago and mica, or saturating the wood 
in a solution of potash lye and alum, to ren- 
der it incombustible. These were generally 
used in the country, and as a curious in- 
stance of the fire-proof qualities of these safes, 
we may state that one stood many years near 
the stove, in the counting-house of Lyman 
Stockbridge, of Hartford, until its fire-proof 
qualities seem to have been exhausted, since 
it spontaneously took fire and burnt up about 

20 years since, without doing other injury 
on the premises. In this case, it would seem 
the fire-proof quality was inverted — viz., that 
the fire could not get out, instead of failing 
to get in. After Mr. Delano, C. J. Gayler 
began the safe manufacture, and in 1833 he 
patented his " double" fire-proof chest. This 
consisted of two chests, one so formed within 
the other as to have one or more spaces be- 
tween them, to inclose air or any known non- 
conductors of heat. In the same year, one 
of these double chests was severely tested 
by being exposed in a large building in Thom- 
aston, Maine, that was entirely destroyed 
by fire. The chest preserved its contents in 
good order. This excited the public admira- 
tion, and one enthusiastic writer described it 
as a " Salamander," which name has ever 
since been popularly applied to safes. 




herring's patent champion triple banker's safe. 





WW. 




fire-proof safe, with inside banker's chest. 





FIRE-PROOF SAFE. 



FIRE-PROOF SAFE. 




BUFFET SIDEBOARD SAFE. 





HOUSE SAFE, DOOR OPEN. 



HOUSE SAFE, CLOSED. 






FIRE-PROOF SAFES AND SAFE-LOCKS. 



331 



The majority of the so-called "safes" in 
nse at the time of the great fire in New York, 
in 1835, were simply iron closets, and were 
of little protection against the devouring ele- 
ment. There were then about sixty of Gay- 
ler's double chests in use, and a few of these 
preserved their contents. Soon after, John 
Scott obtained a patent for the use of asbes- 
tos for fire-proof chests. In 1837, Benjamin 
Sherwood obtained a patent for a revolving 
interior safe, filling the spaces with plaste'r 
of Paris and charcoal. 

In 1843 Enos Wilder obtained a patent 
for the construction of a safe of heavy iron 
plates, filled with hydrated plaster of Paris, 
and soon after, Mr. Fitzgerald, whose disco- 
very was made previously, was associated 
with him. About 1841, Mr. Silas C. Herring 
became interested in Wilder's safes, first as 
agent and afterwards as a manufacturer. 
The Wilder safes proved a protection 
against fires which destroyed the Gayler and 
other patents. In 1844, Enos Wilder's 
patent was transferred to his brother, B. G. 
Wilder, but the safes under this patent were 
made by Mr. Herring; and not long after, 
Messrs. Roberts & Rich commenced the 
manufacture on the same principles, but 
paid no royalty. After a protracted lawsuit, 
a compromise was effected by which both 
parties continued to manufacture. Other 
parties tried hydraulic cement, soapstone, 
alum and glue, alum alone, mica, asbestos, 
and other articles for filling, but none proved 
as effectual as the hydrated plaster of Paris, 
which, under the influence of intense heat, 
gave up its water of combination, and form- 
ing an atmosphere of steam in the inner 
portion of the safe, protected the books or 
papers from destruction. It was found, how- 
ever, as early as 1854, that the plaster after 
a time gave up a part of its water of combi- 
nation, made the interior of the safes moul- 
dy and damp, and rusted the plates of iron 
till they were eaten through. Messrs. 
Herring & Co. had offered a reward of 
$1,000 for any filling which should stand 
the test better than the plaster which they 
were using. In 1852, Mr. Spear, a chem- 
ist of Philadelphia, discovered that the re- 
siduum of the soda fountains, after the 
liberation of carbonic acid gas for the so- 
called soda-water, possessed remarkable 
non-conducting powers. This residuum, 
which had been previously thrown away^ 
was, by Spear's process, preserved, washed 
to free it from the sulphuric acid, which 



had acted upon the chalk, dried in a kiln, and 
when in a dry and almost impalpable pow- 
der, rammed into the safes. Messrs. Her- 
ring & Co. purchased Mr. Spear's discovery, 
and subsequently made an artificial patented 
composition for filling, consisting of whiting 
(carbonate of lime) prepared for use by a 
chemical process, and mixed with Epsom 
salt (liydrated sulphate of magnesia), carry- 
ing out Spear's principle with greater cer- 
tainty. This was a dry powder, not deteri- 
orating by age, not producing rust, and 
lighter in weight than other fillings. Mr. 
B. G. Wilder had meantime commenced 
the manufacture of safes under his patent, 
himself; and the successors of Messrs. Rob- 
erts k Rich, under several firm names, as 
Rich & Roff, Roff & Stearns, and Stearns 
& Marvin, also manufactured the Wilder 
safe. Next came a demand for burglar- 
proof safes. Lillie's safes were highly com- 
mended for this purpose, he using thick 
slabs of chilled cast-iron, and flowing cast- 
iron over wrought-iron ribs in their con- 
struction. It was found, after a time, how- 
ever, that the burglars succeeded in drilling 
these sufficiently to blow them up in a few 
minutes, and that the dependence placed 
on them was not justified. Messrs. Her- 
ring & Co. a few years since adopted the 
plan of making their burglar-proof safes 
externally of boiler-plate wrought-iron, with 
inner layers of five plates of steel of differ- 
ent degrees of hardness, followed by a 
Franklinite plate, the hardest of all known 
metallic ores, over which was placed a 
wrought-iron basket-work, and iron and 
steel melted and cast over it, and all 
are secured together by conical bolts, 



which do not pass directly through the 
safe, and are irregularly placed. These 
were subjected to the severest possible test 
in 1879 by scientific experts, who worked 
continuously with the best helpers for 
almost twenty-six hours, used 125 drills, 
and could only penetrate 3.89 inches. 

Among the burglar-proof locks, the Bra- 
mah, invented in England in* 1784, was in 
high repute for many years, but was picked 
by Hobbs, a Boston locksmith, in 1851. A 
"permutation lock" was invented by Dr. 
Andrews, in 1841, and another by Newell, 
about 1843. Both were finally picked, 
and Newell then invented one with a 
detached tumbler, which was, after a 
time, picked by William Hall, of Bos- 
ton, by the "smoke process," by which 



332 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



a smoky flame is introduced by the key-hole, 
and this leaves a fine deposit of lamp-black 
upon the "bellies" of the tumblers. When 
the key is next introduced, it removes the 
lamp-black from the parts it touches. By 
means of a small reflector, a strong light is then 
thrown in, bringing the key marks to view. 
The exact sizes for a false key are thus ob- 
tained. To prevent this operation, it was 
supposed that concealing the tumblers would 
be all that was requisite. II. C. Jones, of 
Newark, accomplished this by concentric 
rings and curtain ; and Pyes did it more ef- 
fectually with eccentric rings and curtain. 
The lock was now thought perfect. It was 
called the parautoptic (concealed from view) 
lock. A. C. Hobbs, with one of these at the 
English exhibition of 1851, defied the best 
English operators. One of these locks was 
used at the Bank of England, and they came 
into general use in the United States. In 
1855, Linus Yale, jr., of Philadelphia, by 
means of the impression process, picked this 
great lock. In 1843, Linus Yale, senior, pat- 
ented a " pin" lock and then the duplex lock, 
for which two keys are required. One being 
introduced, it was necessary to unscrew and 
remove its handle, then close the key-hole 
entirely with a hardened plate, before the 
other key-hole could open. The ingenuity 
of his son dispelled the idea that this was 
absolutely secure, by picking it. Yale, jr., 
being convinced that no lock is secure so 
long as the shape of the key prevents the en- 
tire closing of the hole, he set to work upon 
that principle, and in 1851 he invented the 
magic lock. In this lock, the key and its 
bits appear as of one piece ; on being intro- 
duced into the lock, the bits are taken up by 
a pin, which enters through them into the 
centre of the key-shaft. The key then being 
turned in the usual manner, puts in motion 
a set of gear wheels. These first separate 
the bits from the key,' and then carry them 
into the interior of the lock, away from the 
key -hole. They there operate upon the tum- 
blers out of sight and beyond the reach of 
any picking tools. The same motion which 
carries away the bits effectually closes the 
key-hole. When the bolt is passed, the key- 
hole re-opens, the bits come back and join 
the handle to he taken out, as they were put 
in. The bits may be taken away in the 
pocket, if desired, leaving the handle with 
the lock. This mechanism seems to effect 
perfectly the conditions sought for security 
against picking. E. B. Denison, the famous 



clockmaker, of London, remarks in relation 
to this, as well as to Newell's, " that the cast- 
ing of both these American locks (which have 
all their heavy parts of cast iron) is vastly 
superior to any iron castings we have ever 
seen made in England ; and, on the whole, 
the United States are evidently far ahead of 
us in the manufacture of both good and 
cheap locks." This is certainly very grati- 
fying praise to the national pride, when we 
reflect how few years since we depended en- 
tirely upon England for bank locks. 

In the progress of the times, these locks 
have given place to those which are still bet- 
ter, and the efforts of the burglar have never 
been successful in either picking or forcing 
the Dexter combination locks. An addi- 
tional safeguard has been that of the time- 
lock, which could not be opened, until the 
time for which it was set had expired. 

Several new models of fire and burglar- 
proof safes have been patented within a few 
years past, but none of them seem to involve 
any new principle, and Herring's have thus 
far stood all tests with complete success. 



GLASS MANUFACTURE. 

When we contemplate by turns each of 
the great materials most conducive to man's 
advancement in civilization, we are at times 
lost in the attempt to give precedence to 
any one, since so many have held so high a 
rank in the scale of usefulness. Iron has, 
perhaps, been the most important in respect 
of industrial purposes, and paper has been 
the means of recording and promoting that 
general intelligence without which progress 
could not be very extensive, but glass has 
entered more into the necessities of science, 
as well as those of social life and every-day 
comforts, than most materials. The great 
properties of glass are its transparency, its 
hardness, its power of assuming any possible 
form when hot, and its non-conductibility. 
Employed as windows, it transmits light into 
our dwellings while protecting us from the 
inclemency of the seasons and permitting a 
view of exterior objects ; wrought into the 
form of vessels, it preserves all liquids with- 
out alteration, while we can inspect the con- 
tents. This quality, added to its indestruc- 
tibility by any of the acids (except fluoric), 
has much facilitated the investigations of 
chemists. The physical sciences are not less 
indebted to it. It is the principal auxiliary 



GLASS MANUFACTURE. 



333 



of optics. With his glass prism, Newton de- 
composed light; it is by its means that as- 
tronomy makes its observations and discov- 
eries in the infinity of space ; combined in 
the microscope, it carries the vision of the 
naturalist into the most minute formations of 
nature ; with it, those of short sight have 
the perception extended, and by it, the flat- 
tened vision of age is restored to its natu- 
ral powers. To the science of fluids it is 
indispensable, and most of the experiments 
in caloric and electricity are due to its 
agency. If all the sciences are more or less 
dependent upon it, the ordinary usages of 
life are no less promoted by it. It gives 
mirrors for the toilet and for ornament to 
houses; it serves the table with liquids ; it 
preserves works of art from the dust, orna- 
ments lustres, and with it the precious stones 
can be imitated in all respects but in their 
hardness. In the arts its wonderfully varied 
powers may be put in requisition for almost 
all purposes, from the delicate spring of a 
chronometer watch to the heavy pipes for sup- 
plying water to cities. For the former pur- 
pose, its insensibility to climate and temper- 
ature gives it advantages over the metals used 
for that purpose. 

The use of glass is of a very remote an- 
tiquity — how remote is left to Conjecture. It 
had been supposed that the ancients were not 
acquainted with its use. Glass beads have, 
however, been found on mummies more than 
3000 years old, and in the ruins of Nineveh 
bottles and vases have been found of glass ; 
and the exhumations of Pompeii and Hercu- 
\aneum disclosed the fact that it was in those 
cities used for windows, as well as for very 
numerous utensils, all of which gave evidence 
of great skill in glass work. The manufac- 
ture of glass spread from Italy to other coun- 
tries of Europe, at first into Gaul. Bohemia 
was, however, possessed of the best materi- 
als in the greatest abundance, and the manu- 
facture settled and acquired for Bohemian 
glass a reputation which has come down to 
our times for vessels. The use of glass for 
mirrors seems to have originated in Venice. 

The manufacture of glass was carried on 
in England as early as 1439, according to 
Horace Walpole. Flint glass was made in 
London in the middle of the 16th century, 
and the manufacture of plate glass was com- 
menced by the Duke of Buckingham, who 
imported Venetian workmen. Since then 
great progress has been made, and English 
tiint glass has won a great reputation. The 



manufacture was one of the earliest intro- 
duced into the colonies. At Jamestown, Va., 
a glass-house was broken up by an irruption 
of Indians in 1632. There appears, how- 
ever, to have been no accurate account of 
any until that of Mr. Ilewes, of Boston, in 
Temple, N. II., 1780. Those works were op- 
erated by Hessians and Waldeckers, desert- 
ers from the British army; and one of the 
first articles there produced is now the prop- 
erty of Harvard University. Washington, 
in his diary, 1789, alludes to a glass-house 
in New Haven. In 1803 a German, of the 
name of Lint, undertook glassworks in Bos- 
ton, and the state made him a bounty on 
every table of window glass made. From 
that time the works prospered, or at least 
were sustained. 

The manufacture of crown glass was early 
commenced at Pittsburg, Pa., by Colonel 
O'Hara, who, in 1798, started glassworks in 
that city, to which the materials were brought 
from 30 to 100 miles' distance. The con- 
cern had a considerable success, and was 
followed by others until, in 1814, there were 
five glassworks at that place. In 1812, 
Messrs. Bakewell & Co. established at Pitts- 
burg the first flint-glassworks in the Union. 
They brought the manufacture to great per- 
fection, bringing out workmen from Europe 
at high wages. The style of cutting and en- 
graving was thought equal to the foreign, 
and the operations of the house extended 
until the works became the largest for glass 
manufacture in the country. There were 
there made sets of glass for two Presidents 
of the United States ; and a set of splendid 
vases there produced 40 years since, still 
adorns the saloon at La Grange, the seat of 
Lafayette. The house have also received 
the silver medal of the Franklin Institute. 
In other parts of the country the manufac- 
ture progressed to a greater or less extent, 
and in 1832 a committee of the New York 
convention made a report on the glass man- 
ufacture, from which it appears there were 
then in operation 21 glass furnaces, having 
140 pots for the manufacture of crown 
glass ; of these, 6 were at Boston. There 
were also in operation 23 for the manufacture 
of cylinder glass; of these, 10 were in Penn- 
sylvania, 2 at Wheeling, 2 in Maryland, 2 
in New York, 2 in Ohio, 1 in Massachusetts, 
1 in New Hampshire, 1 in Vermont, 1 in 
Connecticut, and 1 in the District of Colum- 
bia. The whole value of flint glass then 
produced was given at $1,350,000. The 



334 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



most extensive green bottle factory was at 
that time Mr. Dyott's, near Philadelphia. 
There were there melted 4 tons per day, or 
1,200 tons per annum. At that period the 
glass manufacture received an impulse, and 
in 1S;J4 there were 6 works at Pittsburg, 
making crown and cylinder glass, green bot- 
tles, and apothecaries' phials. One bottle 
factory produced 1,000 dozen weekly, and a 
phial factory 2,200 gross weekly. There 
were also at Wheeling 2 crown and flint- 
glassworks, and 1 for phials and bottles. At 
Wellsburg, 16 miles distant, there were 1 
flint glass and 1 green bottle factory. 

The census of 1840 showed that there were 
then in the United States 81 glass-houses, 
employing 3,236 men. The aggregate cap- 
ital was given at 12,014,100. "Of" these, 2 
were in Virginia, 28 in Pennsylvania, 25 in 
New Jersey, 13 in New York, 2 in Vermont, 
3 in Connecticut, 4 in Massachusetts, 3 in 
New Hampshire, and 1 in Michigan. The 
census did not distinguish the different 
branches of the glass manufacture, nor the 
modes of making window glass. In 1850 
the number of works had risen to 94, with 
an aggregate capital of $3,402,350, employ- 
ing 5,571 men, and producing a value of 
$4,641,676 per annum. In 1870 there 
were 166 establishments, with an aggre- 
gate capital of $10,866,382, employing 12,- 
863 persons, paying $6,343,558 wages, 
using $4, 73 2,4 U8 of raw material, and pro- 
ducing $15,425,534 of glass. Of these es- 
tablishments, 48 were in Pennsylvania, 52 
in New York, 19 in Massachusetts, 10 in 
New Jersey (some of them very large), 10 
in Ohio, 5 in Kentucky, 4 in Missouri, 3 
each in Connecticut, Illinois, and Indiana, 
and 2 each in Maryland and California, 
and one each in Michigan, West Virginia, 
and District of Columbia. In 1865 there 
were 34 glass manufactories in New York, 
producing $1,664,000 worth of glass. In 
1853 the first plate-glass manufactory in 
the U. S. was established at Cheshire, 
Mass. The hammered plate glass manu- 
facture was established in 1856 in Philadel- 
phia; also a new description, called " Ger- 
man flint," but better adapted for the use 
of apothecaries, chemists, perfumers, etc. 

The materials for glass are several ; the 
chief, silica, obtained from the sea beaches in 
the form of quartz sand, and from the quartz 
rocks of the interior. The name of "flint 
glass " came from the use of flints, calcined 
and ground to powder. This process is now 



supplanted by the use of sand, of which a 
fine article is imported into England from 
Austria. The purest used in the United 
States is obtained from Lanesborough, Ma?s., 
being a disintegrated quartz rock. This 
is used for the best flint and plate glass. 
Lime is used either in the form of pure lime- 
stone or quicklime. Potash is derived from 
common wood ashes, and the ashes of sea- 
plants supply soda. Pearlash is sometimes 
used; also the refined alkalies. Common 
salt and kryolite furnish carbonate of soda. 
In addition to these, saltpetre, alumina, and 
waste glass, enter into the ingredients of 
glass, the proportions of several kinds of 
which are as follows : — 

English bottle glass — sand, 100 lbs.; lixiv- 
iated ashes, 100; wood ashes, 40; kelp, 40; 
clay, 80 ; cullet, or waste glass, 100. For Bo- 
hemian crystal, are used — 100 lbs. sand ; pu- 
rified potash, 60 ; chalk, 8 ; cullet and man- 
ganese, 40. In window glass are used — 100 
lbs. sand ; chalk, 40 ; carbonate of soda, 35 ; 
of broken glass, from 60 to 180; and some 
manganese and arsenic. For plate glass — 
Lynn sand, washed and dried, 720 lbs; alka- 
line salt, of which 40 per cent, is soda, 450 
lbs. ; lime, 80 ; .nitre, 25 ; broken plate glass, 
425. These will give 1,200 lbs. of glass. 
For Faraday's heavy optical glass — protox- 
ide of lead, 140 lbs.; silicate of lead, 24; 
dry boracic acid, 25; and 100 lbs. of sand. 
Artificial gems are composed of 100 lbs. of 
quartz crystal, or sand ; pure minium, or red 
lead, 154 lbs.; caustic potash, 54 lbs.; bo- 
racic acid, 7 ; and some arsenious acid. 

The introduction into this country of the 
kryolite (a natural double fluoride of alu- 
minium and sodium found in large quantity 
only at Ivigtut, in the southeastern extremity 
of Greenland), has led to considerable changes 
in the manufacture of glass, of which car- 
bonate of soda and soda ash, produced most 
cheaply from the kryolite, are important in- 
gredients. Nearly 3,000 tons of the kryolite 
are also consumed annually in the manufac- 
ture of hot cast porcelain, a species of opaque 
glass which is fast taking the place of glass, 
porcelain, and bisque, for many uses, as well 
as tiling for floors, from its superior beauty 
and cheapness. The American Hot ( last 
Porcelain Co., and the Atlantic Quartz Co., 
both of Philadelphia, are engaged in this man- 
ufacture. 

Bituminous coal, coke, or seasoned wood, 
may be used for fuel, though wood is gen- 
erally preferred. In some glassworks of the 



GLASS MANUFACTURE. 



335 



United States, rosin is preferred to all other 
fuel, since when pulverized it may be added 
in small quantities at a time. It burns with- 
out giving off impurities that may mix with 
or injure the glass, and it leaves no residuum. 

In proceeding to manufacture, when the 
combination of materials is formed, they 
are thoroughly ground, mixed together, and 
sifted. The glass furnace is a large circu- 
lar dome, in the centre of which is the fire. 
This is surrounded by 8 to 12 melting pots, 
which being raised to a white heat, receive 
the mixed glass in quantities about one 
eighth at a time. As each instalment melts 
down, the others are added. The entire 
quantity being melted, the fires are urged to 
the utmost, while the workmen watch the 
operation, with long iron rods, by means of 
which they extract from the boiling mass 
portions, from time to time, until transpar- 
ency, on cooling, indicates that perfect fu- 
sion of all the materials has taken place. A 
scum rises during the boiling which is re- 
moved as it appears. The heat is then 
raised to the highest degree, to perfect the 
fusion. The glass is now made, but it con- 
tains many impurities, being substances that 
would not melt ; and there is also still a quan- 
tity of gas, which, if not got rid of, will form 
those bubbles that are sometimes seen in 
common window glass. The mass is therefore 
kept fluid for about 48 hours, by which 
means the "metal" is fined, that is, all the bub- 
bles of gas will have disappeared, and insolu- 
ble matters will have settled to the bottom. 
The heat is then allowed to subside until the 
metal becomes thick enough to work, at 
which point the temperature is maintained 
in order to keep the glass in this condition. 
The pots that surround the furnace will gen- 
erally thus hold enough to employ the force 
day and night for the first four days of the 
week, the hands being divided into gangs 
that relieve each other every six hours. 

The glass materials, being thus brought into 
suitable combination, arc ready for some of 
the numerous branches of manipulation in 
which that article is employed — the manu- 
facture of window glass, plate glass, bottles, 
phials, flint glass, vessels of all descriptions, 
gems, optical instruments, etc. The manu- 
facture of window glass is perhaps the most 
extensive, and this is conducted in two modes. 
By one the glass is blown into "tables," like 
cart wheels, and by the other it is formed into 
cylinders, that are cut open lengthwise and 
flattened out. The former is the more gener- 



ally practised. That description is generally 
known as English crown glass. In the 
manufacture, the melting pots, of which 
there are usually eight, hold about half a 
ton of metal each, and this will suffice for 
100 tables of crown glass. When the glass 
is in its proper state, the workman is armed 
with a pipe, or blowing tube, 4 or 5 feet 
long, with a bore { to 1 inch in diameter, 
and a little larger at the mouth end than at 
the other. It is, as it were, a long hand, 
with which, the end being heated red hot, 
the workman reaches into the pot of melted 
matter, and gathers up the quantity he re- 
quires. By long experience he is enabled 
to do this with great exactness, and this, 
for crown glass, will not vary much from 9 
lbs. The pipe being cooled to admit of 
handling, the lump is rolled upon the man 
ver (which is a polished cast-iron slab), to 
give it a conical form. Blowing through 
the tube, at the same time, causes the lump 
to swell. It is then heated in the furnace, 
and again rolled and enlarged by blowing. 
In this operation, the portion next the tube 
becomes hollow, and the greater portion 
of the glass works toward the point of the 
cone it forms in rolling. The solid point is 
called the bullion. This being softened in 
the furnace, the tube is laid across a rest, 
and made to revolve, while the glass is blown 
to a globe. During this operation, a boy 
supports the soft end, or bullion, w T ith an 
iron rod. The globe, by continually revolv- 
ing, increases in size, and flattens out, the 
bullion point still forming a thick centre, to 
which an iron rod, called a pontil, which has 
a little molten glass on its end, is applied ; 
at the same moment the globe being sepa- 
rated from the blow pipe by the application 
of a piece of cold iron to its " nose," re- 
mains upon the pontil. As the tube breaks 
away, it leaves a circular opening, which the 
workman, holding by the pontil, presents to 
the furnace. By this means it is softened al- 
most to melting, and being made to revolve 
rapidly, the opening grows rapidly larger by 
centrifugal force. The heated air in theglobe 
prevents the two opposite faces from coining 
together. The portion next the fire appears 
to roll inside out, and it suddenly, with a 
noise like opening a wet umbrella, flattens 
out into a circular disk, which is then re- 
moved from the fire, and kept revolving un- 
til it is cold. The pontil is then cracked 
oil', and the disk removed to the annealing 
oven, and set up on edge with the rest, ar- 



336 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



ranged in rows, and supported by iron rods, 
so as not to press against each other. The 
annealing is completed in 24 to 48 hours. 
These "tables" are generally 52 inches in 
diameter ; sometimes, however, as much as 
70 inches. 

Plate glass imperfectly annealed will, when 
once cracked, soon fall all to pieces. The an- 
nealing process is simply to place the hot 
glass in a hot oven, and allow the whole 
to cool gradually. By this operation it is 
found that glass is deprived of much of its 
brittleness. The explanation is, that the glass 
is a non-conductor, and when made, the exte- 
rior cools first, forming a crystalline crust 
which shelters the interior particles, so that 
these continue longer in the fluid state, and 
are prevented from expanding as glass 
usually does when it cools. The interior 
has thus a constant tendency to expand or 
burst out. When the whole is allowed to 
cool slowly in an oven, all the fibres of the 
glass assume their proper and natural places, 
and the mass becomes tough and elastic. 
The effect of sudden cooling is manifest in 
the toys called " Prince Rupert's drop's." 
These are simply hot glass dropped into 
water. In so doing, most of the drops burst 
to pieces, but some retain a pear shape. 
These, when taken out, will bear a smart 
blow without breaking ; but the smallest 
break at the stem will cause the whole to 
fly to pieces with a loud explosion. Bo- 
logna phials are formed of unannealed glass 
4 or 5 inches long, and J inch thick. These 
will bear a hard blow, or a bullet may be 
safely dropped in. If, however, a sharp 
fragment of sand is introduced, the phial 
will fly to pieces. Annealing deprives them 
of these qualities. 

From the annealing kiln the tables go to 
the warehouse, and are there assorted ac- 
cording to defects and qualities. Each one 
is then laid in turn upon a "nest" or cush- 
ion, and is divided by a diamond into two 
pieces, one of which, the larger, contains the 
bull's eye. These are then cut into square 
panes. The circular shape and the bull's 
eye involve much waste in cutting. The 
glass thus manufactured, however, has a re- 
markable brilliancy, and for that reason it is 
preferred to the cylinder process, by which, 
however, larger panes are made. 

The cylinder process has been pursued to 
a great extent in the United States. It is 
practised by a number of workmen. Some- 
times 10 are arranged side by side, with a 



raised platform extended in fron*; of the fur- 
naces 10 feet above the bottom. Standing 
upon this, each man gathers a proper quantity 
of metal from the pot before him. By ap- 
plying the lump to a wooden mould and 
blowing, it takes a globe form. This he 
heats, and then holds upon the pipe verti- 
cally over his head, at the same time blow^ 
ing into it. This causes the globe to flatten. 
It is then held down so as to swing below 
the platform on which the worker stands. 
This, with continued blowing, causes the 
glass to elongate in the form of a cylinder. 
The workman watches with care lest the 
elongation should proceed too rapidly, in 
which case he raises it again over his head. 
This operation is dexterously continued until 
the cylinder attains 47 inches in length, and 
10 inches in diameter. The end is then 
softened in the fire, while the pipe is closed 
with the thumb. The air within the cylin- 
der then expands so as to burst out the end. 
The edges of the opening thus caused are 
then spread and trimmed. The tube end is 
cut off when the glass is cool by the applica- 
tion of a hot iron, and letting fall a drop of 
water on the heated line. The cylinder is 
now to be cut open lengthwise in order that 
it may be flattened out into a pane. For 
this purpose two methods may be employed 
— one with the hot iron and cold water, and 
the other by a diamond applied inside the 
cylinder along a rule. The cylinders are 
now carried to the flattening furnace, where 
they are laid, slit uppermost, on the flatten- 
ing stone. Here, as they soften, they open 
out, and a workman with an iron rod aids 
the operation. Another at the same time, 
with a rod having a block of wood at the 
end for polishing the sheets, works down the 
irregularities of the surface. The sheet is 
then passed into the annealing oven. In 
every stage of this process, the sheets are 
exposed to imperfections, and, in conse- 
quence, few are perfect. Most answer for 
inferior uses. None have the brilliancy of 
crown glass. The main difficulty is in the 
wrinkling. The glass being made in the 
cylinder form, the inner and outer surfaces 
are of unequal lengths. In the flattening 
out, this inequality produces undulations, 
called cockles, which distort objects seen 
through the glass. The unevenness also 
made it very troublesome to polish the sur- 
face until the difficulty was overcome by the 
device of pressing upon each sheet soft 
leather, which, acting like a boy's " sucker," 




GOBLET MAKERS. 




PRESS FOR MOLDING GOBLETS. 



GLASS MANUFACTURE. 



341 



adheres to the glass hy atmospheric pres- 
sure. Two plates thus held are laid face 
to face, and, by the action of machinery, 
rapidly rubbed together with the interven- 
tion of polishing sand and water. By this 
means a beautiful polish is bestowed. 

By these two methods of manufacture 
most of the glass used in the United States 
is produced. For the ten years 1871-80, 
the annual importation of glass has aver- 
aged $5,012,032; of this, about one-third 
has been plate glass. The average export for 
the same period has been about $660,000. 

Various causes affect the combination 
and the qualities of the compounds. The 
alkali in window glass, powdered and 
moistened, is detected by its action upon 
turmeric paper, and may be dissolved out 
by boiling water. Atmospheric agents 
sometimes remove it in part from window 
panes, leaving a film of silicate of lime. 
The glass of stable windows is liable to 
change its appearance and assume prismatic 
colors from the action of the ammoniacal 
vapors upon the silica. When moderately 
heated, glass is readily broken in any di- 
rection by the sudden contraction produced 
by the prompt application of a cold body- 
to its surface. It may be bored with 
a steel drill kept slightly moistened with 
water, which forms a paste with the pow- 
der produced. Copper tubes, fed with em- 
ery, also serve to bore holes in glass. 

As very large panes of glass could be 
made by neither of the above methods, the 
large plate glass used for mirrors and for 
shop windows is cast. The mixtures em- 
ployed do not vary much from those used 
in sheet glass. A larger proportion of 
soda is used; but this pushed to excess 
gives a greenish tinge. The greatest care 
is taken in the selection of the materials. 
"When the glass is melted in the pots, it is 
ladled into cisterns or cuvettes placed in the 
fire by the side of the pots. Some manu- 
facturers allow the metal to remain fluid in 
the pots sixteen hours, and an equal time 
in the cuvettes ; and in some cases, in order 
to allow the soda to volatilize and the air- 
bubbles to escape, the time is prolonged to 
forty-eight hours. When nearly ready, the 
temperature of the glass is allowed to fall 
in order that the material may assume a 
pasty consistency. Meantime the casting- 
plate is prepared. This is usually a cast- 
iron plate, perhaps seven inches thick, 
eleven feet broad, and twenty feet long. 
18 3 ° 



It has raised edges to prevent the glass 
from flowing off, of a depth proportioned 
to the proposed thickness of the glass plate. 
On a level with this table, and arranged 
along its side, are the annealing ovens. 
Each of these is sixteen feet wide and forty 
feet deep. Hot coals are heaped upon the 
plate to bring it to a proper temperature. 
The cistern swung on a crane is then ap- 
proached to the table, which is thoroughly 
cleaned, and the melted glass carefully 
skimmed with a copper blade. By canting 
the cistern, the glass is then poured upon 
the table. A copper cylinder, three feet 
in diameter, extends across the table, rest- 
ing on the raised edges. This, being rolled 
forward, sweeps before it the excess of 
glass, spreading the whole uniformly of a 
thickness governed by the raised edges of 
the table. The effect of the passage of the 
copper roller upon the brilliant surface of 
the glass is very beautiful, leaving, as it 
does, a splendid play of colors. The super- 
fluous glass being then trimmed from the 
edges, the plate is thrust forward into the 
annealing oven, previously raised to a red 
heat. Successive plates are thus cast until 
the annealing oven is full, when it is closed 
up and left five days to cool. When taken 
from the oven the plates are examined for 
defects, and the mode of cutting decided 
upon is then done with a diamond. 

The invention of the sand-blast by Tilgh- 
man, of Philadelphia, and its wonderful 
adaptation for carving, etching, engraving, 
and drilling glass has added greatly to the 
economical uses of glass. It is equally well 
adapted to cutting, etching, carving, and 
boring plate and blown glass, and by its 
use any design made in paper, lace, or 
other material composed of vegetable fiter 
may be worked out in a few moments with 
the utmost perfection. As a consequence, 
plate glass one-fourth to one-half an inch in 
thickness is used for small shelves at the 
teller's, cashier's, and bookkeeper's desks 
in banks, insurance offices, and stores, in 
hand-mirrors, parlor summer pieces, for 
the sides of fine clocks, and the covering 
of the dial plates, for furniture, library 
doors, the floors of vestibules, etc., etc. 

There are many modes of grinding and 
polishing, but in this, as in most other arts, 
the latest improvement is an American in- 
vention, which, highly successful here, was 
introduced into England in 1856. A circu- 
lar plate of cast-iron, 1 feet in diameter and 



342 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



2 inches thick, is secured upon the upper 
end of a vertical shaft, so as to revolve with 
it. Above the table, frames are arranged to 
hold the plates of glass, which are laid in a 
bed of plaster of Paris, with the face to be 
polished resting upon the revolving table. 
The frames are so arranged that the friction 
of the table upon the glass causes them to 
revolve so as to present every portion of the 
glass surface to an equal amount of rubbing. 
When sand is required to grind down the 
glass, it is fed in from a box above the 
frame. This is found to be the best mode ; 
but sometimes the surfaces of the plates are 
ground together. After grinding, they are 
smoothed with emery powders of successive 
fineness until they are ready for polishing. 
This, in the American machinery, is per- 
formed by rings coated with felt and screwed 
to the surface of the iron table. Oxide of 
iron or rouge is applied to the felt as a pol- 
ishing agency. When this is completed 
they are ready for silvering. 

In the process of silvering, a large stone 
table is prepared so as to be canted, by means 
of a screw beneath it, on one side. Around 
the edges of the table is a groove, in which 
quicksilver may flow, and drop from one 
corner into bowls placed to receive it. The 
table, being made perfectly horizontal, is 
covered with tin foil carefully laid over it. 
A strip of glass is placed along each of three 
sides of the foil to prevent the mercury from 
flowing off. The metal is then with ladles 
poured upon the foil until it is a quarter of 
an inch deep, and its tendency to flow is 
checked by its affinity for the tin foil. The 
plate of glass, well cleaned, is dexterously 
slidden on from the open side. Its advan- 
cing edge is carefully kept in the quicksilver, 
so that no air or any impurities can get be- 
tween the metal and the glass. When ex- 
actly in its place it is held until one edge of 
the table is raised 10 or 15 degrees, and the 
superfluous metal has run off. Heavy weights 
are then placed on the glass, and it is so left 
several hours. It is then turned over, and 
placed upon a frame, the metal uppermost, 
which becomes hard in the course of sev- 
eral weeks. Patents have been taken out 
for precipitating silver upon the glass, but 
thi-< process is not so successful as the old. 

When these plates are used for shop win- 
dows, sonic of them require to be bent in 
\.ui mis manners. This is a separate branch 
of business, and is carried on at Newark, N. 
J., extensively. The bed is made of suitable 



material, on the floor of the furnace, and 
made in the required form. The sheet of 
glass is laid upon this, and as it softens in 
the heat, it assumes the form of the bed 
on which it is laid. 

The manufacture of flint glass for domes- 
tic purposes requires great care in the selec- 
tion of the materials. It possesses the 
properties of great transparency and high 
refractive power. Its brilliancy and density 
are in some degree due to the introduction 
of oxide of lead. Oxide of zinc has also 
been found effective for the same purpose. 
In order to protect the glass from effects of 
smoke or other elements which might dis- 
color it, it is melted in a covered pot, with 
an opening in a short neck on one side. 
The heat is made very intense that the fusion 
may be rapid. The moment fusion and 
fitting have thoroughly taken place, the heat 
is reduced, to prevent the deleterious action 
of the materials of the vessel upon the glass. 
In the United States, when the metal is 
taken out by the workmen, it is shaped in 
the required form by pressing into a die. 
For this purpose, when the article is large, 
considerable pressure is required. The cx^ 
perience and skill of the workman are put 
to the test in taking up just the quantity of 
metal required to fill the mould, which is 
kept at a red heat. The objects, being 
formed, go through the cutting process, as 
it is called, but really the grinding proc- 
ess. Circular stones or metallic disks are 
made to revolve, being fed with sand and 
water for coarse grinding, and emery for 
finer work. The marks left in the coarse 
grinding are removed by application to 
wooden revolving wheels, fed with pumice 
or rotten-stone, and finally Avith putty pow- 
der, a preparation of tin and lead. The 
fine polishing of chandelier drops, and sim- 
ilar ornaments, is effected by a lead wheel, 
supplied with rotten-stone and water. Globes 
and lamp shades are polished on the inside 
by filling them with sand, and placing them 
in a drum, which revolves rapidly for a 
length of time. 

The glass most important in the arts is 
certainly that used for optical instruments. 
Flint and crown glass are both used for that 
purpose, but both have their defects. Those 
of the former arise from the difficulty of ef- 
fecting uniform fusion, and crown glass is 
seldom possessed of the requisite uniformity 
of texture. These difficulties were so great 
that, until the early part of the present cen- 



GLASS MANUFACTURE. 



343 



tury lenses larger than three and a half 
inches could not be made. At that time a 
Swiss clockmaker, Guinand, produced them 
as large as nine inches, of the greatest per- 
fection. The secret remained with him for 
a long time, but was finally, by one of his 
sons, imparted to M. Bontemps, who, in 
1828, produced lenses of twelve to four- 
teen inches. The secret was in keeping 
the mixture actively stirred when liquid, 
and then suffering it to cool and anneal in 
the pot. Lenses are now made of flint 
glass twenty-nine inches in diameter, and 
weighing two cwt. 

The production of vessels of colored glass 
is conducted in a very ingenious manner. 
The coloring matters are various. Blue 
transparent glass is made with two lbs. ox- 
ide of cobalt; azure blue, four lbs. oxide 
of copper; ruby red, four oz. oxide of 
gold ; other colors by various combinations. 
Sometimes the color is incorporated merely 
with the outer portion of the glass. This 
is effected in the blowing by dipping the 
lump of clear glass, when shaped upon the 
marver. into the pot of melted colored 
glass, and then blowing it to the shape re- 
quired, and flashing out, if desired to con- 
vert it into panes. The color may after- 
wards be reduced in depth by grinding, 
and clear spots reached by grinding through 
the color. In the process of "casing," a 
portion of partially -blown flint glass is in- 
serted into a thin shell of colored glass, and 
then blown until it fills the shell, with 
which it becomes incorporated by heating 
and further blowing; casings of different 
colors may be thus applied. In painting, 
the color, mixed with a flux that will fuse 
at a lower temperature than the glass, and 
with boiled oil, is laid on with a brush as 
in ordinary painting, or by blocks, as 
in calico printing. The glass is then 
heated, when the flux melts and sinks into 
the body. The painting of glass for church 
windows was formerly carried to a high de- 
gree of excellence that moderns have not 
been able to equal. Although the recipes 
have been preserved in ancient treatises, 
the process has been lost. 

Enameled glass has been much used for 
the last thirty or forty years. In this pro- 
cess the enamel substance (which consists 
of silica, soda, and oxide of lead, made 
opaque by oxide of tin or antimony) is 
ground to an impalpable powder, and then 
laid with a brush, in a pasty state, upon the 



glass. After the paste is dried, the orna- 
ment is etched out either by hand or by 
machinery. The glass being then softened 
in the intense heat of the furnace, the 
enamel becomes vitrified and incorporated 
with it. It then passes to the annealing 
furnace. This process was invented by 
Mr. William Cooper, of the firm of Cooper 
& Belcher, New York, whose extensive 
works at Newark, N. J., supplied 60,000 
feet for the New York Crystal Palace. 
Another variety, the flocked, has now come 
more into use. The process is nearly the 
same, except that a smooth opaque surface 
is given to the glass before the enamel is 
applied. 

Pittsburgh and its sister city, Alleghany, 
are more largely engaged in the manufac- 
ture of glass than any other city or town 
in the United States. Window glass of all 
descriptions is made here in vast quantities; 
plate glass, though not of the highest qual- 
ity, all descriptions of glass for table ware, 
their pressed glass being so perfect that 
even experts are deceived and mistake it 
for cut glass, and all descriptions of glass 
ornaments, stained, colored, and enameled 
glass. Two or three descriptions of glass- 
ware are, however, made in greater perfec- 
tion in Belleville, New Jersey, and the 
other glass works of Messrs. Whitall, 
Tatum & Co., than anywhere else in this 
country or Europe. In their two manufac- 
tories, which are said to be the largest 
glass works in the world, they produce 
druggists' bottles and vials which are su- 
perior to any others, and are largely in de- 
mand in England and France. They also 
make the best glass jars for canning pur- 
poses, and most bottles for mineral waters, 
etc. Brooklyn, N. Y., is also extensively 
engaged in the glass manufacture. 

Soluble glass has been made of later 
years of equal parts silica and caustic 
potash. This is soluble in boiling water, 
and is used extensively for making build- 
ings and all combustible bodies fire-proof. 

In the manufacture of bottles, the metal, 
on being withdrawn from the melting pot 
on the end of the blowing tube, is, if for 
common black bottles, shaped in concavi- 
ties that are made in the edge of the mar- 
ver. Fine bottles of flint glass are shaped 
in moulds of brass or iron, which are made 
in two parts hinged together, so that they 
may be opened and start with the foot. 
Bottles for champagne, soda-water, etc., 



344 



GLASS MANUFACTURE. 



are made of extraordinary strength, and 
tested before using by hydraulic pressure. 
They ought to support, for this purpose, a 
pressure of foi'ty atmospheres, or 600 lbs. 
on the square inch. Notwithstanding the 
great strength with which they are usually 
made, the breakage in the manufacture of 
champagne bottles is rated at 30 per cent. 
The glass is drawn out into tubes in a 
manner that illustrates the curious manip- 
ulations of the metal. The workman, with 
his blowing tube, accumulates a certain 
quantity by successive dips into the melting- 
pot. This is then blown into a globe. 
Another workman then takes hold with a 
pontil, at a point exactly opposite the blow- 
ing tube. The two men then separate, and 
the globe contracts in the middle, which 
being drawn out to the size of the tube de- 
sired cools, and the hotter portions succes- 
sively yield to the drawing, until a tube of 
100 feet or more hangs between the work- 
men. The diameter of the bore retains its 
proportion to the thickness of the glass; 
hence thin tubes must be drawn from 



globes blown to a large size. These tubes 
of colored glass may be converted into 
beads. Beads have always been a great 
element in the trade with the North Amer- 
ican Indians, being highly prized by them. 
Within the last decade (1870-1880) sev- 
eral manufacturers have produced tough- 
ened, or as it is sometimes (though incor- 
rectly) called "indestructible glass." As 
at first made, it was produced by cooling 
the external surface rapidly, on the same 
principle as the "Rupert's drops," but it 
was found that glass toughened in this 
way, while it would stand very rough hand- 
ling, would, if struck by a sharp point so 
as to puncture in the slightest degree this 
external coat, fly at once into a thousand 
pieces, and often imperil the eyesight or 
the life of a person holding it. A better 
method, and one which rendered the glass 
very tough, was annealing it in heated oil. 
By this process, glass, formerly the most 
fragile of wares, is now rendered almost as 
durable as metal. 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



345 



INDIA-RUBBER AND ITS MANUFACTURE. 

One of the most remarkable American 
discoveries of the present century is, un- 
doubtedly, the mode of manufacturing and 
applying the article known to commerce as 
"India-rubber," but which, among the peo- 
ple of South America, is called "caout- 
chouc." The article in question is a gum 
procured from a peculiar tree in the hottest 
regions of the equator. The tree which 
yields this gum in the East Indies is some- 
what different from that which produces it 
in the equatorial regions of South America. 
The former (" ficus elastica") is represented 
in an engraving on another page. Although 
the gum was used in a rude fashion since 
many ages by the inhabitants of the countries 
which produce it (and it had been known 
to commerce for a long time, having been 
discovered by a French philosopher in 
1736), it is only within 20 years that its 
value has been appreciated. In that time, 
under the genius of American manufacturers, 
it has risen to a rank equal, perhaps, to that of 
iron and glass among the materials that admin- 
ister to the necessities and comforts of man. 

In the forests of equatorial South America 
the " siphonia elastica" grows to a height of 
60 or 70 feet, and is covered with a scaly 
bark. It bears a fruit, which encloses a 
white almond highly esteemed by the na- 
tives. A slight wound on this tree causes 
the sap to flow freely, thick, white, and unc- 
tuous, like the sap of the milk-weed. On 
being exposed to the air, this soon becomes 
solid. This sap is collected by the natives, 
who make a longitudinal cut in the centre 
of the tree, and lateral cuts leading diago- 
nally into it. At the bottom of the perpen- 
dicular cut a banana leaf is placed to con- 
duct the sap, as it flows, into a vessel placed 
to receive it. The sap is used for the for- 
mation of bottles, boots, shoes, and various 
articles. The process is to form the figure 
of the thing desired in clay, and cover it on 
the outside with many coats of the gum, ex- 
posing it to fire to dry. When the desired 
thickness is obtained, the mould is soaked 
out in water, and the article is ready for use. 
Clumsy shoes, rudely fashioned in this man- 
ner, were long an article of importation from 
Para into the United States, and extensively 
sold down to within 20 years. There was 
little other use made of the article except to 
erase pencil marks, and for which purpose 
was charged 50 cents for i a cubic inch. The 



nature of the gum did not, however, long 
fail to become an object of research. The 
learned decided that it was neither gum nor 
resin, but of a peculiar nature analogous to 
resin, from which it differed in not being 
soluble in alcohol. Many attempts to make 
it useful in the arts were made, and finally it 
was found that by dissolving it in volatile 
oil there was obtained a sort of varnish very 
useful in making certain tissues and fabrics 
water-proof. A thin coat, placed between 
two sheets of stuff, caused them to adhere 
closely and made them impervious as well 
to water as to air. This application of it 
was made in the manufacture of mattresses, 
cushions, pillows, boots, bottles, etc. A so, 
lution in linseed oil is called an excellent var- 
nish for making leather water-tight. .The 
best solvents are said, however, to be oil of 
turpentine, coal, naphtha, and benzole. Al- 
cohol will not dissolve it, but will precipitate 
it from ether. Another solvent is of rubber 
itself, called caoutchoucin. It is produced 
by exposing rubber to a heat of 600°, when 
it goes off in a' vapor, which, being con- 
densed, produces the solvent. All these 
applications, however, utilized only one 
of the distinguishing properties of rub- 
ber, viz., its imperviousness to water. An 
inventor, however, by the aid of a new 
solvent, found means to spin threads of the 
rubber of various degrees of fineness and 
strength. These threads, covered with tex- 
tile fabrics — silk, wool, cotton, or linen — be- 
came light and supple tissues of extraor- 
dinary elasticity. This opened the way to 
an immense number of employments. 

In some machines the rubber is kneaded, 
and compressed in various ways, and finally 
a number of the balls thus treated are brought 
together and powerfully squeezed by a screw 
press in cast-iron moulds, in which, being 
firmly secured, the mass is left several days. 
This process is somewhat modified in differ- 
ent establishments. In some, the cleaned 
shreds are rolled into sheets, from which 
threads and thin rubber are sliced by the 
application of suitable knives, worked by 
machines, and kept wet. The sheets are at 
once ready for the purpose to which this 
form is applied, or, by machinery of great 
ingenuity, they are cut into long threads of 
any desired degree o( fineness. It' then re- 
quired to be joined, a clean oblique cut is 
made, with a pair of scissors, and the parts 
being brought together, readily and perfectly 
unite by the pressure of the fingers. As 



346 



INDIA-RUBBER AND ITS MANUFACTURE. 



the threads are reeled off, they are elongated 
about eight times their original length by 
passing through the hands of a boy, and by 
the same operation they are deprived of 
their elasticity. After remaining on the reel 
some days, they are wound upon bobbins, 
and are then ready for weaving and braiding. 
The threads are of different fineness. A 
pound of caoutchouc can, by one machine, 
be made into 8000 yards of thread. This 
may, by another, be divided by 4, making 
32,000 yards. Elastic braids are these 
threads covered with silk and other mate- 
rial. In woven fabrics, caoutchouc thread 
makes the warp, alternately with threads of 
stuff to receive the extreme strain that would 
destroy the rubber, and the other materials 
form the weft, or cross-threads. When wo- 
ven, a hot iron is passed over the stuff, and 
this causes the rubber to regain its elasticity. 
Another mode of forming the threads per- 
fectly round and smooth, is to convert the 
caoutchouc into a soft paste. This is done 
by macerating it for some hours with about 
twice its weight of sulphuret of carbon, add- 
ing 5 per cent, of alcohol. The paste is well 
kneaded by compressing it through dia- 
phragms of wire gauze, placed in cylinders, 
and is then forced through a line of small 
holes at the bottom of another cylinder. 
The threads, as they issue, are taken on a 
web of velvet, from which they pass to 
another of common cloth, and are carried 
slowly along for 6u0 to 700 feet, when be- 
coming dry and hard by the evaporation 
of the solvent, they are received in a little 
■cup. The threads produced of vulcanized 
rubber retain their elasticity, and are, when 
woven, kept stretched by weights. On re- 
leasing them, the material woven with them 
is drawn back, producing shirred or corru- 
gated fabrics. 

Caoutchouc supplanted the metal elastics 
for many purposes, since it would not cor- 
rode in moisture. It was at once in demand 
fir suspenders, garters, corsets, and number- 
less appurtenances of apparel. 

It came to be used for water-proofing 
cloths, surgical instruments of all kinds, 
elastic bauds, in the arts and trades. Book- 
binders have used it for securing the leaves 
in books, imparting flexibility and freedom 
to the opening volumes. In thin sheets, it 
has been used for taking impressions of 
engravings. In this form, also, it is an ex- 
cellent material for covering the mouths of 
bottles, and similar applications requiring 



the exclusion of air and moisture. Pre- 
pared with other ingredients, it forms a ma- 
rine glue unsurpassed in adhesiveness when 
applied to wood. A pound of fine rubber 
is dissolved in four gallons of rectified coal- 
tar naphtha and well mixed. In ten or twelve 
days this will attain the consistency of cream, 
when an equal weight of shellac is added. 
It is then heated in an iron vessel having a 
discharge pipe at the bottom. As it melts, 
it is kept well stirred, and the liquid flowing 
out is obtained in the form of thin sheets. 
When it is applied, it is heated to 248° and 
applied with a brush, and retained soft un- 
til the jointing is made, by passing heated 
rollers over the surface. This has been, it is 
said, applied to masts of vessels, which have 
been so firmly spliced that fractures take 
place in the new wood sooner than to sepa- 
rate the glued portion ; and it has been held 
that parts of vessels may be, by these means, 
so firmly put together that iron bolts would 
be unnecessarv. 

Rubber has been made use of for paving 
stables, lobbies, and halls, here, as well as 
in England, where Windsor Castle carriage- 
way is so paved. There are a multitude of 
uses for the material, such as baths, dishes 
for photograph and chemical purposes, tele- 
graph wire covers, boots, shoes, coys, life- 
preservers, clothing, furniture covers, travel- 
ling bags, tents, beds, water pails. It is 
being constantly applied to new uses, as the 
chemical modes of treating the article de- 
velop new properties. 

The uses of the article were, however, 
still comparatively limited. The water-proof 
qualities were, to some extent, availed of, and 
its elasticity was ingeniously applied in many 
minor directions. The native article itself 
was still an impracticable object in the man- 
ufacture. It had baffled the philosopher, 
the chemist, and the artisan in investigating 
its nature and in controlling its properties. 
Repeated attempts were made to transport 
the pure juice or gum to Europe, there to 
be operated upon, but without success, since 
it was found that it rapidly degenerated. .V 
method of doing this was finally devised by 
Mr. Lee Norris, of New York. The liquor 
is first filtered and mixed with I its own 
weight of ammonia. On being poured out 
on any smooth surface, and exposed to a 
temperature of 70° or 100° of heat, the am- 
monia, which had preserved it from the ac- 
tion of the atmosphere, is evaporated, and 
leaves the gum in the form of the object 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



347 



-which holds it. Its intractable nature was 
finally, however, conquered by Charles G-ood- 
ycar, who controlled it, apparently, as Rarey 
does horses, viz., by producing the result 
without any one being able to explain the 
phenomenon. Mr. Goodyear spent 20 years 
of the most unremitting toil in experiment- 
ing upon India-rubber, and finally discovered 
that a mixture of sulphur, white lead, and 
caoutchouc, exposed to regulated tempera- 
ture from 8 to 12 hours, becomes " vulcan- 
ized," or an entire new substance unlike any 
other. The native rubber, being exposed to 
the extremes.of heat and cold, is destroyed ; 
but those agencies have no effect on the 
same article vulcanized. The liquids which 
dissolve the pure rubber do not influence the 
new article, which, however, acquires a far 
higher degree of elasticity — becomes, in 
fact, an "elastic metal." The article, when 
put into the heaters, is a tough, sticky, une- 
lastic dough. It comes out endowed with a 
high degree of elasticity, insensible to heat, 
or cold, or solvents, and applicable to almost 
every want of life. It has been since dis- 
covered that the white lead contributes but 
little to the change undergone in the heat- 
ers, the cause or manner of which has baf- 
fled the skill of the most scientific chemists 
in this country or Europe. In mixing the 
proportions of the compounds, reference has 
always been made to the nature of the ob- 
jects to be manufactured. The form and 
adaptation of the articles are perfected before 
the "vulcanizing." The general mode of 
preparing the rubber is the same. The rub- 
ber imported from the East Indies is said to 
be of a stronger fibre than that of South 
America, and the gum is selected in accord- 
ance with the manufacture proposed. It is 
imported in rude masses, in which sticks, 
leaves, and dirt are thickly mingled. These 
are about 2 feet long and 1 foot thick. The 
first process that the gum undergoes is the 
expensive and laborious one of cleaning, by 
which the mass loses about 4 of its weight. 
A large vat is filled with hot water, and in 
this the rubber remains until the exterior is 
sufficiently softened to allow of the removal 
of the coarse basket-work that covers and 
adheres closely to it. When this is done, 
the lumps are, by means of a circular knife 
of a diameter of 4 feet, revolving with great 
speed under the influence of powerful ma- 
chinery, cut into slabs about 1 inch thick. 
The engraving will give a good idea <>t' the 
operation. These slabs are then carried to 



the " cracker," of which an illustration will 
be found on another page. This is formed 
of two large cylinders grooved longitudinally, 
and revolving slowly but irresistibly. Between 

these the slabs, as they are passed, are elon- 
gated and twisted, by which operation much 
of the dirt and bark works out. The 
stretched slabs are then taken to the wash- 
ing machine, where numerous sharp knives, 
revolving under the water, cut it into small 
pieces, as seen in the baskets on the right of 
the illustration, which, at the same time, are 
kneaded and washed until they are thor- 
oughly cleansed. They are then ready for 
the grinding machine. This consists of 
large hollow cylinders, made of cast iron, 
and revolving in opposite directions. The 
small pieces that come from the washing 
machine, being fed in, are kneaded by the 
cylinders again into thick sheets or. mats. 
With this process the preparation is sus- 
pended for several months in order to allow 
the mats to be thoroughly dried and cured 
by the action of the air. This involves the 
necessity of keeping on hand a large stock 
of rubber. 

When the rubber is quite cured, it is taken 
to the mixing machines, where it is to be 
combined with the various metals and sub- 
stances to which the metallic rubber owes its 
peculiar properties. The mixing machines, 
like most of those used in the manufacture, 
are hollow revolving cylinders. The mixing 
cylinders are of great size and strength, and 
acquire the necessary heat to work the rub- 
ber from the steam let in at the ends. These, 
revolving toward each other, knead the 
rubber like dough. In the process, a con- 
stant series of explosions, like pistol-shots, is 
caused by the air confined in the folds of 
the substance being forced out by the action 
of the cylinders. This, on a grand scale, 
repeats the boy's amusement of chewing 
rubber soft in order to explode on his fist 
the air- bubbles created in it. As the rub- 
ber softens under this action, the workman 
slowly mixes in the various substances re~ 
quired. These consist mostly of sulphur, to 
which are added the oxides of various metals, 
zinc, lead, iron, etc. Here the greatest skill 
of the manufacturer is brought into requisi- 
tion. Every quality of rubber requires a 
different compound, and every difference in 
the compound requires a different treatment 
in the subsequent stages of the manufacture. 
Thus prepared, tie' substance is ready to be 
moulded and shaped into the various forms 



348 



INDIA-RUBBER AND ITS MANUFACTURE. 



in which it is to be finally perfected and 
used. The modes of preparation are various, 
according to the ultimate object — whether 
that may be for it to assume the form of the 
hard, unelastic comb, a door spring, a steam 
valve, a carpet, or any of the thousand shapes 
it is made to take. 

It may be here remarked that the dis- 
covery, great as it was, was but the first step 
in the great series of improvements that has 
resulted from it. After 18 years of incessant 
labor, Mr. Goodyear had perfected a raw 
material — but a raw material for what ? It 
was necessary to know to what articles it 
could be applied before there could be any 
demand for it; until then it was of no market- 
able value. It was necessary to invent or dis- 
cover all the uses to which it might be ap- 
plied. The shoe business was the first to 
make it available ; but since then, vast as 
has been the number of manufactures based 
on it, discoveries are being daily made to 
extend it. 

The manufacture of "belting" and "hose" 
is a very large business. The belts are 
used for driving machinery, and are superior 
to every other means. They are stronger 
than the best sole leather, and adhere to 
the drum or pulley with a tenacity that 
prevents slipping. This manufacture is a 
peculiar process. Cotton duck, similar to 
that of which sails are made, is woven in a 
mode to give double the usual strength lon- 
gitudinally. This duck is impregnated with 
the rubber, under the influence of powerful 
machinery, wdiich drives the substance 
through and through its meshes. It is then 
taken to the calender machine, seen in the 
engraving. The large cylinders of which it 
is composed have a perfectly polished sur- 
face. The rubber having gone through the 
mixing process, is in the shape of sticky, 
slate-colored dough, and passing through 
the calenders, is rolled out into a perfectly 
even sheet, upon the prepared duck. When 
this is completed, the " bolts" are taken to 
the belt-room, spread out upon tables 100 
feet long, and cut into the strips desired for 
the various kinds of belting. For one of 
great strength, several of the strips are 
placed one upon the other, and then pressed 
together with immense power, by rolling- 
machines ; thus giving them the strength of 
metal, with the peculiar friction surface 
found only in rubber. The belts are now 
ready for the heaters. These are long steam 
boilers, the door of which being opened, 



there is drawn out a long railway carriage. 
On this are placed the goods, which are 
then rolled in, the boiler closed, and steam 
admitted. In from 8 to 12 hours, the sin- 
gular transformation known as vulcanizing, 
takes place. 

The manufacture of " Croton hose " is 
similar. A long iron tube, of the proper 
diameter (and hose is made from £ inch to 
12 inches) is covered with a sheet of care- 
fully-prepared rubber. This, however, in- 
tended to be pliable, would not of itself be 
of sufficient strength to sustain a strong 
head of water, hence it is covered with 
webs of cloth prepared in the manner of 
the belting duck. When a sufficient num- 
ber of folds have been applied to give the re- 
quired strength, an outside covering of pure 
rubber is applied. A heater of immense 
length then receives the pipes, with the 
hose on them, to be cured by the same 
process as the belts. The hose is then 
drawn off the pipe to be subjected to proof. 
This hose will withstand a pressure that 
will burst the most powerful leather hose. 

One of the most useful applications of vul- 
canized India-rubber, is steam packing. The 
vulcanized rubber is the only material that 
will preserve its elasticity and counteract the 
expansion and contraction of metals exposed 
to the heat, of steam, thus making a joint 
perfectly steam-tight. It is used to pack 
round piston rods in steam machines ; to 
place between the iron plates of steam pipes, 
wherever a joint is required ; for gaskets, 
valves, and rings. Some ocean steamers 
have huge rubber valves, five feet in diam- 
eter, which play up and down in the vast 
cylinder, opening and shutting like the 
valves of a colossal artery. The use of 
rubber is now so great a necessity, wherever 
steam is used, that the mind wonders how 
it could ever have been dispensed with. It 
is not only steam, however, but every branch 
of mechanics that demands its presence, in 
the shape of sheets, plates, rings, hollow el- 
lipses, of all imaginable forms and sizes, of 
which none but a mechanic can conceive 
the number applicable to his own art. 

The use of rubber for car-springs has be- 
come almost universal. The high degree of 
elasticity which the sulphur imparts, makes 
that application an admirable one, and the 
more so that it does not lose the elasticity 
by prolonged use. 

The " elastic metal " supplants the rigid 
one in numberless uses. House-sinks, in- 




i'HE GREAT CALENDER MACHINE. 




FICUS ELANTICA, FROM THE 
EAST INDIES. 



CUTTING RUBBER INTO SLABS FOR THE 
WASHING MACHINES. 




MACHINE FOR WASHING INDIA-RUBBER. 




INDIA-RUBBER <4K1XDING MILL. 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



351 



stead of cast-iron, are now formed of rub- 
ber, without joint or seam; and these are 
far less fatal to the china washed in them 
than were the metal ones. Springs for 
doors, from this material, supplant aU 
others. These, for churches, are so ar- 
ranged that the door may be closed, or 
held open to a desired distance. For bed- 
springs, it has become, the most desirable, 
durable, and luxurious material. Carpets 
and mats for halls, stairways, and public 
rooms are formed of it, of infinite variety 
and usefulness. One of the manufactures 
of rubber goods which has taken the great- 
est extension in the decade 1870 to 1880 
is that of water-proof cloaks for ladies' 
wear. A light but firm cambric is coated 
with a very thin but complete coating of 
rubber, and is then made up into a cloak 
enveloping the whole person. These gos- 
samer cloaks weigh but from eight to ten 
ounces, some of them even less than this, 
and they can be folded and carried in a 
small satchel or case about eight inches in 
length and five in circumference, but they 
are perfectly water-proof. The mixture of 
lead in the compound was found to make 
it more compact and heavy, but the pecul- 
iar properties are apparently attained as 
well without the use of the lead. The combi- 
nation with sulphur has been effected by 
exposing the material to the action of sul- 
phurous fluids, as the sulphuret of carbon 
and the chloride of sulphur. An immer- 
sion of one or two minutes in a mixture 
composed of forty parts of sulphuret of 
carbon to one of chloride of sulphur, kept 
at the usual high heat, will produce the 
vulcanization. For the purpose of impart- 
ing that hardness which is manifest in 
combs, fancy boxes, canes, buttons, knife- 
handles, and all those forms in which it has 
supplanted bone, shell, and ivory, magnesia 
is introduced, and gives a lighter color to 
the articles in which it is compounded. 
In the manufacture, articles are buried in 
pulverized soapstone, to be vulcanized by 
the introduction of highly-heated steam. 
The effect upon the commerce of the coun- 
try is seen in the following table. The 
largest proportion of caoutchouc used in 
the world comes from South America. 

Rubber Shoos exported. Other rub- Total 

Years, imported. Pairs. Value, ber goods. Value. 

1856 $1,1-48,372 635.280 $427,986 $666,602 jU.093.53S 

1868 756,828 247,880 116,981 107,418 818,879 

1861,.... 1,287,069 33,603 160.088 193,601 868,779 

1880,.... 9,606,239 13,980 28,072 278,608 306,680 



There have been great vicissitudes in the 
manufacture of goods under Goodyear's 
patents. Numbers of companies have been 
formed in Connecticut, New York, New- 
ark, New Brunswick, Millstone, N. J., and 
elsewhere. The progress of the manu- 
facture has been very rapid. ' In 1850, the 
value of the rubber goods made in the 
United States was $3,024,335. In 1SG0, 
it amounted to $5,642,700, an increase of 
86.6 per cent. In 1870, the number of es- 
tablishments was 56; capital, $7,486,600; 
hands employed, 6,025; value of the pro- 
ducts, $14,566,374. The statistics of the 
manufacture in 1880 are not yet reported, 
but the advance has been enormous all 
along the line, and the annual product of 
the hard and soft vulcanite must exceed 
$30,000,000. The hard rubber, or vulcan- 
ite, is used for jewelry, buttons, dress orna- 
ments, pencils, canes, etc. 

Gutta percha is used extensively for sim- 
ilar purposes as the caoutchouc, and is pre- 
pai-ed in the same manner by Goodyear's 
process. It is a gum found in the trees of 
the Malay peninsula, and procured in the 
same manner as caoutchouc. European 
attention was first called to it in 1842, and 
it began to be imported in 1844. Its chem- 
ical composition is identical with that of 
India-rubber, except that it contains oxy- 
gen, which rubber does not. It has a num- 
ber of qualities that make it preferable for 
certain uses. It is a bad conductor, and is 
therefore very applicable as a covering for 
telegraph wires, and its peculiar acoustic 
properties make it valuable for speaking- 
tubes in public houses and large establish-, 
ments. The application of gutta percha to 
the coating of telegraph wires is claimed 
by Mr. Samuel J. Armstrong, of New York, 
who for that purpose modified the machin- 
ery for gutta-percha tubing. The first ma- 
chinery built for that purpose was in 1848, 
and the first wire so coated was laid across 
the Hudson river, at Fort Lee, in August, 
1849, for the Morse Telegraph Company. 
This machinery was furtively carried to 
England, and there used for the Atlantic 
Telegraph. The articles made of gutta 
percha alone, or mixed with other substan- 
ces, are of very great variety — ornameDts, 
vessels, articles of clothing, fancy articles, 
surgical articles, dentists' and numerous 
other articles. Vessels have also been 
made of it, and its uses are being daily 
multiplied. 



352 



SEWING MACHINES. 




SEWING MACHINES. 



The decade 1840-1850 was the most 
fruitful in useful and practical inventions 
for the benefit of humanity, of any ten 
years of the present century. To it belong 
those inventions which made the telegraph 
a reality; the daguerreotype and photo- 
graph; the vulcanization of Indian rubber 
and guttapercha; and though last, perhaps 
most valuable of all, the Sewing Machine. 
Unlike most labor-saving machines, this, 
though it has undoubtedly lightened to 
some extent the labors of the individual 
woman, has vastly increased the amount of 
labor, and the number of laborers in the 
aggregate. Through the multiplication of 
sewing machines, an amount of sewing is 
now accomplished every year which would 
have been impossible thirty- five years ago, 
if every daughter of Eve, of adult age, had 
worked with the needle from early morn to 
tbe evening twilight. And the demand 
for needle-work, since it can be done by 
machines, keeps steadily ahead of the sup- 
ply- 

We propose then, at the close of the first 
generation since the sewing machine became 
a practical addition to human labor, to 
review its history, without injustice to any 



of the inventors who have immortalized 
their names in connection with it, and to 
classify, as far as possible, the different 
machines which have been and are candi- 
dates for popular favor. 

The idea of sewing by machinery is more 
than a hundred years old, but the earliest 
efforts to give practical expression to this 
idea were unsuccessful. The first on record 
was a machine patented in England July 
24, 1755, by Charles F. Weisenthal; this 
had a needle with two points and an eye at 
m id -length. Its purpose was rather to make 
the tambour-stitch of the embroiderer, than 
to perform any ordinary sewing. 

The next sewing machine was that of 
Thomas Saint, of England, who obtained a 
patent July 19, 1790. This man seems to 
have understood, with remarkable clear- 
ness, the main essential features of the 
invention, for his machine had a horizontal 
cloth-plate, an over-hanging arm, at the end 
of which was a needle working vertically, 
and a "feed" working automatically be- 
tween the stitches. These features have 
been preserved in every successful machine 
ever made. The needle was notched at the 
lower end, to push the thread through the 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



353 



goods, which had been previously punc- 
tured by an awl. As the needle passed 
upwards, leaving a loop in the thread, a 
loop-check caught the loop and held it until 
the needle descended again, enchaining the 
thread of the new loop in the former one. 

In 1804, an Englishman, named Duncan, 
made a chain-stitch machine, having a num- 
ber of hooked needles, which passed 
through the cloth and were supplied with 
thread beneath the goods by a feeding 
needle, whereupon the needles receded, 
each drawing a loop through the loop pre- 
viously drawn by itself through the cloth. 

In 1818, Rev. John A. Dodge, of Monk- 
ton, Vt., invented, and, with the assistance 
of John Knowles, an ingenious mechanic, 
constructed a machine having the double- 
pointed needle and eye at mid-length. It 
made a stitch identical with the ordinary 
" back-stitch," and was furnished with an 
automatic device for " feeding " the work. 
Mr, Dodge never applied for a patent, nor 
attempted to manufacture any more ma- 
chines, because of the great pressure upon 
his time as a pastor, and further on account 
of the bitter opposition of journeymen tail- 
ors, who denounced the machine as an 
invasion of their rights. 

The first patent issued in America for a 
sewing machine was that of a man named 
Lye, in the year 1826. Lye's device could 
hardly have contained any useful or strik- 
ing features, for when the fire of 1836 
destroyed all the Patent Office Records, it 
consumed all that remained of this ma- 
chine. 

In the year 1830 Barthelemy Thimon- 
nier, a Parisian, invented a machine which 
operated much as Saint's did, except that 
the needle was crochetted, and, descending 
through the goods, pulled up a lower 
thread and formed a series of loops upon 
the upper side of the goods. Eighty of 
these mac 1 lines, made of wood, are said to 
have been used in 1830 in Paris, for mak- 
ing army clothing; but were destroyed by 
a mob on the plea that they were 
depriving journeyman tailors of their daily 
bread. Thimonnier escaped and made other 
machines, of metal ; but these, though pat- 
ented in France in August, 1848, and in 
the United States September 3, 1850, had 
toe m ny defects to become anything more 
than a i important step in the onward 
march oj! this great invention. The invent- 
or died in great poverty in 1857. 



The next approach to success prior to 
1846 was made by "Walter Hunt, of New 
York City, in the years 1832-3-4. His 
machine had a curved needle, with an eye 
near the needle-point, which was operated 
on the end of ik vibrating arm. A loop 
was formed beneath the cloth by the need- 
le-thread, through which a shuttle, reeling 
off another thread, was forced back and 
forth with each stitch, making an inter- 
locked stitch like that now made by the 
best machines. George A. Arrowsmith, a 
blacksmith, of Woodbridge, N. J., being 
of ai speculative turn, bought one-half of 
Walter Hunt's invention in 1834, and af- 
terwards acquired the remainder. Soon 
afterwards, Adoniram F. Hunt, a brother 
of Walter, was employed by Arrowsmith 
to construct some sewing machines upon 
the same principle, but differing somewhat 
in arrangement of details from the original. 
These machines were made and operated 
at a machine shop in Amos street. New 
York City. Arrowsmith neglected to ob- 
tain a patent upon the machine for reasons 
which, in the light of events now past, 
make singularly interesting reading. He 
assigned three reasons for not procuring a 
patent: (1) He had other business; (2) the 
expense of patenting; (3) the supposed dif- 
ficulty of introducing them into use, say- 
ing, it " would have cost two or three thous- 
and dollars to start the business." There 
appeared also a prejudice against any ma- 
chine which had a tendency to dispense 
»with female labor. A proposition made by 
Walter Hunt to his daughter to engage in 
the coi'set-making business with a sewing 
machine was declined, after consultation 
with her female friends, principally, if not 
altogether, as she afterwards testified, "on 
the ground that the introduction of such a 
machine into use would be injurious to the 
interests of hand-sewers. I found that the 
machine would at that time be very unpop- 
ular, and, therefore, refused to use it." 

About 1852 Walter Hunt bought back 
Arrowsmith's interest in his machine, and 
applied for a patent, but was refused on the 
ground that, although unquestionably the 
inventor, he had forfeited his rights, by his 
neglect and the sale of his invention. In 
1841 Newton and Archbold patented the 
eye-pointed needle in England, although it 
had been used certainly for eight and pos- 
sibly for twenty years in this country. 

The next patent issued in this country 



354 



SEWING MACHINES. 



for a sowing machine was granted Febru- 
ary 21, 1842, to J. J. Greenough, of Wash- 
ington City. This machine used a needle 
having two points and one eye, and made 
the " through-and-through," or shoemak- 
er's stitch. Whatever may have been its 
merits, it proved of no value to the public, 
as very few machines were ever built. A 
machine for making the " running " or 
" basting " stitch was patented March 4, 
1843, by B. W. Bean, of New York City; 
but we believe that no machines were ever 
built for sale. A patent was granted, De- 
cember 27, 1843, to Geo. R. Corlies, of 
Greenwich, N. Y., for a machine similar to 
Greenough's; but like his, there were few 
if any machines ever put upon the market. 
Except possibly one or two other ma- 
chines like Bean's, making the running 
stitch, the next sewing machine patent of 
any importance was that granted to Elias 
Howe, Jr., of Cambridge, Mass., in 1846. 
Howe was but an indifferent mechanic; his 
inventive genius was far inferior to that 
of Thimonnier or Walter Hunt, or to any of 
the hundreds of skilled workmen who have 
since done so much to make the sewing ma- 
chine perfect, but he possessed indomitable 
will, patience,and perseverance; and though 
at first the outlook was gloomy enough, yet 
in the end fortune favored him far beyond 
his deserts. His own story was that he 
first grappled with the idea of constructing 
a practical sewing machine in 1843, but 
for a year approached no nearer to his ideal, 
than at first; in 1844, he claimed to have, 
invented the eye-pointed needle,, and the 
interlocking shuttle, both of which had not 
only been invented but used in sewing ma- 
chines by Walter Hunt twelve years be- 
fore, and, as he afterwards admitted, he 
knew that they had been invented ; the eye- 
pointed needle had,moreover, been patented 
in England three years before. In 1845 
he had a machine which worked fitfully and 
intermittently, and for this in Sept., 1846, 
he obtained a patent. Dr. E. H. Knight, 
in the American Mechanical Dictionary, 
thus describes the machine: "It had a 
curved eye-pointed needle attached to the 
end of a vibrating lever and carrying 
the upper thread. The shuttle carrying 
the lower thread between the needle and 
the upper thread, was driven in its race 
by means of two strikes, carried on the 
ends of vibrating arms, worked by two 
cams. The cloth was suspended by pins 



from the edge of a thin steel rib called 
a baster-plate, which had holes engaged by 
the teeth of a small intermittingly moving 
pinion. This was the feed." His claim, 
granted in his patent, covered, broadly, the 
formation of a seam for uniting two pieces 
of cloth, by the combined action of an eye- 
pointed needle and shuttle, , or their equiva- 
lent, interlocking two threads. The whole 
machine was crude and imperfect, and until 
materially modified by able and more skill- 
ful meehanics it was never able to do 
good or continuous work. Among other 
difficulties, two seemed insuperable: the 
baster-plate did not answer any good pur- 
pose as a, feed, and the vertical suspension 
of the material was both awkward and ob- 
jectionable; the tension was not regulated, 
so that the machine would skip stitches, 
make large loops at some places, and draw 
the thread too tightly at others. 

Machinists who attempted to sell and 
introduce the machine found themselves 
unable to do so; the tailors and seam- 
stresses all opposed it, and the few who were 
willing to try it, were unable to make it 
work satisfactorily. They could only sell 
territorial rights for its manufacture, and 
this was really a fraud, as nobody could 
make the machines work. Indeed, look- 
ing at. the matter with the experience of 
thirty-six years, it seems wonderful that 
this worthless machine did not absolutely 
kill the production of anything like a sew- 
ing machine for the next fifty years. The 
good points about it, the eye-pointed needle, 
the shuttle and the interlocking of the two 
threads in what is known as the " lock- 
stitch," — were not of his invention but had 
been known and used previously, while 
everything he did invent failed to work, 
and has long since been abandoned. 
Among these things were the curved needle, 
the needle-arm, swinging like a pendulum 
in an arc of a circle, the clamp or baster-plate, 
and its vertical position, the feed motion, 
the two shuttle-drivers entirely distinct 
from each other, and the single acting 
treadle. It is a sufficient commentary on 
his own subsequent opinion of these inven- 
tions that when, ten or twelve years later, 
Mr. Howe entered upon the field with a 
machine of his own, not one of these pecu- 
liar inventions found a place in it. The 
broad clar.ns of his patent to the eye-point- 
ed-needle and the shuttle and lock-stitch, 
saved him from financial ruin, and inflicted 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



355 



upon the public a very heavy contribution 
for his support. 

For five years after receiving his patent, 
Mr. Howe's invention lay substantially dor- 
mant. It is doubtful whether a single ma- 
chine constructed by him, or by machinists 
who strictly followed his specifications in 
this patent, ever could be made to do any 
continuous, or satisfactory work. His 
brother, A. B. Howe, who built most of 
his machines, and who made some im- 
provements which enabled them to be used 
with moderate success, was in the habit of 
saying, years after, that Elias Howe never 
made a machine that would work. The 
two brothers went to Europe in 1847 or 
1848, and secured a patent in England in 
the name of another party; but after re- 
peated trials they were unable to make a 
satisfactory machine, and returned so poor, 
that Elias Howe was obliged to pawn his 
effects for his wife's homeward passage, 
and to work as an ordinary deck hand for 
his own. 

Meantime other and more skillful me- 
chanics were busy inventing sewing-ma- 
chines which might prove of more practi- 
cal value. The first patent for an improve- 
ment upon Howe's machine was issued to 
John Bradshaw, of Lowell, Mass., for a 
device to regulate the tension of the thread, 
and was dated Nov. 23, 1848. On the 6th 
of February, 1849, J. B. Johnson and 
Charles Morey, of Boston, Mass., obtained 
a patent for a machine, having a circular 
or continuous baster-plate, which was an 
improvement upon the straight baster plate 
of Howe ; but other and more valuable im- 
provements, for the same purpose, soon su- 
perceded this. May 8, 1849, John Batchel- 
der, of Boston, Mass., obtained a patent for 
an improvement to regulate the feeding of 
the cloth, automatically, by the machine. 
And about the same time a patent was also 
granted to J. S. Conant, of Draeut, Mass., 
for an improvement designed to accom- 
plish the same purpose, by a different ar- 
rangement. Both Morey and Johnson's 
and Batchelder's machines, and, we be- 
lieve, Conant's also, were single-thread ma- 
chines, making the loop or ehain-stitch, ami 
having new devices, both for feed and ten- 
sion. Batchelder's feed had a rotating-pin 
surface, moving about a horizontal axis, 
and carrying the material over a horizon- 
tal cloth-supporting surface. Johnson in- 
vented the needle-feed, which possessed 



considerable merit, and which was, with 
some modifications, revived fifteen or eigh- 
teen years later. On the 2d of October, 
1849, Blodgett and Lerow, of Boston, ob- 
tained a patent for a machine to make the 
shuttle-stitch by a method different from 
that of Howe, the shuttle describing a cir- 
cle instead of moving back and forth. The 
introduction of this machine, though it was 
clearly an infringement of Howe's patent, 
proved a decided advantage to him, as a 
considerable number of the machines were 
made and sold, and their operation, though 
far from perfect, did much toward con- 
vincing the public that sewing could be 
done by machinery. Blodgett was a tailor, 
and had attempted to sell Howe's ma- 
chines, and his knowledge of their defects 
led him to invent an improvement. On 
the 12th of Nov., 1850, Mr. Allen B. "Wil- 
son, since and now of the "Wheeler & Wil- 
son Manufacturing Company, patented a 
machine with two improvements; one a new 
device for feeding the cloth, termed the 
" two-motioned feed," (afterwards improved 
and patented again as "the four-motioned 
feed,") the other a shuttle, pointed at each 
end, which made a stitch at each moveim nt, 
while in Howe's machine the shuttle had 
to go and return at every stitch. This 
greatly expedited the sewing, and was a 
decided advance on Howe's machine, but 
it did not satisfy the inventor, and was 
eventually abandoned. 

Pursuing the strict chronological order 
of the issue of the patents, we come next to 
that of Mr. William 0. Grover, and his 
subsequent partner, Mr. Baker. These gen- 
tlemen patented Feb. 11, 1851, a sewing 
machine having two distinguishing fea- 
tures, viz., the double loop, or Grover & 
Baker stitch, and the method of producing 
it, which was by a circular under needle, 
as a substitute for the shuttle, which recip- 
rocated with a curved eye-pointed needle 
above. In the summer of 1851. Mr. Gro- 
ver, without any knowledge of Mr. AVil- 
son's invention of the " four-motioned 
feed," invented a feed device substantially 
similar to it, for which a patent was issued 
to Grover & Baker June 22, 1852. There 
was at first some difficulty between Mr. 
Wilson and Messrs Grover & Baker in re- 
gard to this feed, but it was compromised, 
and both companies, as well as many others, 
have since used this arrangement. 

In September, 1850, Mr. Isaac M. Singer, 



356 



SEWING MACHINES. 



an ingenious mechanic, then living in Bos- 
ton, but subsequently of New York, who 
was familiar with Blodgett & Lerow's ma- 
chine, made an agreement to invent an 
improved sewing machine, and to have it 
built for forty dollars, two of his friends, 
Messrs, Phelps and Zieber, who had assist- 
ed him, being equally interested with him 
in it. He built it in eleven days, using the 
eye-pointed needle and shuttle, but making 
his needle straight instead of curved, hav- 
ing a needle bar moving vertically, turning 
Howe's baster-plate over upon its side so 
as to make it horizontal instead of vertical; 
inventing a roughened feed-wheel extend 
ing through a slot in the top of the table, 
attaching his two shuttle carriers to the 
same bar, and causing the shuttle to move 
steadily and regularly in a horizontal 
groove, contriving a spring presser-foot, by 
the side of the needle, to hold the work 
down, an adjustable arm for holding the 
bobbin containing the needle thread (this 
was subsequently abandoned), and a double- 
acting treadle. Though the machine re- 
sembled Howe's in many respects, it con- 
tained many new features, and when its 
tension was regulated, worked well. It is 
somewhat remarkable that all these inven- 
tions of Mr. Singer, with one exception, 
are retained to this day in some of the 
Singer machines. Those machines are 
much better finished now, and work with 
but little noise or clatter; they have 
changed somewhat the modes of distribut- 
ing their motive force, but in all essential 
particulars the principles are substantially 
the same, as when Isaac M. Singer com- 
pleted his first machine in Boston. This 
machine was not patented till Aug. 12, 
1851 

On the same day, Aug. 12, 1851, Mr. 
Allen B. Wilson, who had abandoned his 
shuttle machine, and had been busily en- 
gaged for several months in perfecting a 
new idea, patented a new machine, having 
associated Mr. Nathaniel Wheeler with 
himself in the patent. This machine had 
no shuttle, bat a rotating or revolving 
hook, which carried within its concavity a 
double convex circular bobbin, and a con- 
cave ring which held it in place. This 
hook caught the loop from the descending 
eye-pointed needle, which was slightly 
curved, and passed it around the bobbin, 
which thus performed the function of the 
shuttle. 



These three companies — the Grover & 
Baker, the Singer, and the Wheeler & 
Wilson Sewing Machine Companies — were 
for twenty years and more known as the 
"three great companies," or after their 
arrangement with Mr. Howe, the "Great 
Sewing Machine Combination," which for 
more than twenty years exacted tolls from 
every manufacturer of sewing machines in 
the country. 

As we have already said, Howe's patent, 
like his machines, lay dormant for five or 
six years, and these three companies had 
gained a footing which, though it was the 
result of hard labor, and in defiance of 
opposition from tailors and seamstresses, 
and indeed from every class who used the 
needle in their work, and of scoffing unbe- 
lief from the hundreds and thousands, who 
were convinced beforehand that the whole 
thing would prove a failure, seemed likely 
eventually to give them ample reward for 
their toil. 

They were destined to be awakened, 
rather roughly, from this sweet dream of 
peace. Mr. Elias Howe, who had never 
made a machine which would work satis- 
factorily, notified them that he held patents 
which they had infringed, and that they 
must immediately cease manufacturing, 
until licensed by him, must pay $25,000 
each for their past violations of his patent, 
and agree to pay him a heavy royalty for 
every machine they should make in the 
future. At first all resisted this prepos- 
terous demand; but the patents had been 
well and carefully drawn, and though they 
claimed for Howe points to which he was 
not entitled, yet there was great difficulty 
at that time in proving their invalidity in 
a court of law, and meantime their busi- 
ness would be ruined. The next two or 
three years were prolific in law suits, but 
Grover & Baker, and Wheeler & Wilson, 
having compromised, Singer & Co., who 
had stood out longest, and were regarded 
as the chief offenders, came into the com- 
bination, which, from 1854 to 1877, largely 
controlled the entire sewing machine pro- 
duction in the United States. Howe had 
exacted from 1851 to 1853 the sum of $25 
for every sewing machine made by any 
manufacturer. In May, 1854, Singer & 
Co. paid him $15,000 royalty on the ma- 
chines they had already manufactured, and 
by the "Albany Agreement" the three 
companies agreed, until the expiration of 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



357 



his patent in 1860, to pay him $5 each for 
every machine they should make, except 
those which they exported, and to exact 
from all other manufacturers outside of the 
combination $15 royalty for each machine 
manufactured, this royalty including, how- 
ever, the patents held by the three com- 
panies, on the four-motioned feed, form of 
the needle, form of the shuttle, etc., etc. 
Of this $15, five was paid to Mr. Howe, 
and the remainder divided between the 
companies according to their patents. In 
1860 Howe's patent was renewed for seven 
years, but the royalty was reduced to $1 
each for the three companies, and to $7 for 
the licensees. The combination was kept 
up, on the other patents and on some new 
patents which Howe had taken out, until 
1877, when it expired, Howe and his heirs 
having received from it over two million 
dollars, and the three companies some five 
or six millions. 

Until 1854 there were no new ma- 
chine companies which possessed much 
vitality. In that year the Weed, which 
has been several times materially changed 
and remodelled, the Parham and the 
Finkle & Lyon, both now practically 
out of the market, were patented. In 1855 
the Florence, once a very popular ma- 
chine, but of late giving place to the 
"Crown," manufactured by the same com- 
pany, was the most important of the new 
machines. These were all shuttle ma- 
chines. From 1851 to 1860, Mr. Grover, 
Mr. Wilson, and Mr. Singer were very ac- 
tive in their efforts to perfect their ma- 
chines, going over with great care the en- 
tire range of devices and principles which 
were supposed to be applicable to machine 
sewing, and canvassing with great zeal 
the comparative merits of shuttles of all 
forms, rotating and revolving hooks, every 
variety of feeds, tensions, take-ups, and all 
sorts of attachments. If they did not dis 
cover in those years every form or device 
which could be applied to sewing ma- 
chines, it was not for want of diligence, 
research, or mechanical skill. Doubtless 
they did overlook some points which have 
been since discovered ; but of the number- 
less sewing machine improvements and at- 
tachments which have been offered for 
patents in the Patent Office within the past 
five years, it will be found that very many 
(and some of them patented) are the ideas 
of these skillful inventors presented under 
a new form. 



In 1867, a sewing machine involving a 
new principle, or at least a new application 
of it, was patented. The patent was 
granted to Mr. James E. A. Gibbs, of 
Millpoint, Va., for a machine with a rotat- 
ing hook, using a single thread, and mak- 
ing the twisted-loop stitch, a variety of the 
chain-stitch, not liable to the objections 
made to that stitch. This machine was 
subsequently much improved by the addi- 
tion of other devices, and particularly of 
the tension, and form of the hook, by Mr. 
James Willcox, of Philadelphia, and his 
son, Mr. Charles H. Willcox, both skill- 
ful mechanicians. It has become widely 
known as the Willcox & Gibbs Automatic 
Sewing Machine. 

The Empire (since consolidated with the 
Remington) a shuttle machine, the Slote or 
Elliptic, having a hook with elliptic mo- 
tion, which came under the Wheeler & 
Wilson patents, and was subsequently 
owned by them, but is now out of the 
market, and the two Howe Machines, (the 
Elias Howe and Amasa B. Howe) both 
shuttle machines, were all patented in or 
about 1858. We think neither of these 
are now manufactured to any considerable 
extent, though the " Elias Howe " at one 
time had a very large sale, especially for 
leather work. The American Button Hole 
and Sewing Machine Co., the Aetna (now 
we believe defunct), and the original Do- 
mestic, under Mack's patents, were all put 
upon the market between 1860 and 1864. 
These were shuttle machines. The Beck- 
with machines, now out of the market, 
one making the loop stitch, the other the 
double-loop, or Grover & Baker stitch, and 
both having a modification of the needle- 
feed, with a smooth plate and a vibrating 
needle-bar, were first patented in 1S65. 
They were hand machines, and had a con- 
siderable sale. When Howe's original 
patents,as extended, expired in 1S67. a large 
number of new machines were put upon 
the market. Among these were the Vic- 
tor, a successor, with considerable improve- 
ments, of the Finkle & Lyon, the Rem- 
ington, which soon absorbed the Empire, 
the Aetna, the Bartram & Fanton. the 
Bartlett Reversible (all we believe now 
extinct), and the Domestic, which, under 
its new owners, with important improve- 
ments, presently stepped into the front 
rank of new machines, as involving a com- 
bination of principles which, though not 



358 



SEWING MACHINES. 



new, had not previously been brought to- 
gether in one machine. About the same 
time, too, appeared the "Davis" machine, 
which, with some improvements, became 
somewhat later a leading machine and the 
type of an important class — the Secor, 
Blees, Whitney, and Braunsdorff's new 
Aetna — all now out of the market, were 
among the other machines of this period. 
This brings us to the Centennial year, and 
indeed to 1877, when the last patents of 
the great combination expired. Although 
it seemed at the Centennial Exposition as 
if the world was full of sewing machines, 
and the great companies were so strong 
that all further competition was useless, 
unless backed by a capital of at least a 
million dollars, yet from 1877 to the pres- 
ent time (1882) more than fifty sewing ma- 
chines have been patented, and of these at 
least forty are now actively engaged in 
manufacturing, and the sales of the new 
companies in 1880 were nearly 350,000 
machines. 

The greater part of these were shuttle 
machines, though two or three had some 
contrivance for producing a chain or 
double-loop stitch, and it was remarkable 
in how many cases old, forgotten, or re- 
jected devices, were invented anew. The 
greater part, however, had some new de- 
vice for producing, changing, or modifying 
the running gear, some using cams and 
rocking shafts, some eccentric levers, some 
the bevel gearing, some applying the force 
from above, and controlling the under ac- 
tion by force transmitted from the arm, 
while others controlled the action of the 
needle-bar, presser-foot, and feed from a 
shaft or eccentric under the plate. The 
form and action of the shuttle and shuttle- 
carrier was the subject of many patents; 
the shuttle race was straight, curved, or 
circular; the shuttle itself was round, flat, 
boat-shaped, or spherical; its action was 
straight-forward, curvilinear, oscillating, 
vibrating, or rotary; usually it went 
through the loop, but sometimes it fur- 
nished a loop, through which the needle 
passed. The feed was equally varied ; the 
four-motioned feed rising from below and 
forcing forward the material, no longer 
reigned undisputed; there were needle- 
feeds, and feeds without needles; the four- 
motioned feed was transferred to the upper 
works of the machine, and descended upon 
a smooth or roughened plate, along with 



the needle-bar and presser-foot, stepping 
forward with each stitch; there were 
double feeds, one ascending from below as 
an auxiliary to the upper feed, already de- 
scribed, and acting uniformly with it to 
clamp the material that it might not slip, 
others acting independently; and if there 
is any other possible variety of feed, it 
has certainly been invented and adopted 
by some of these machines. 

Another and very important feature claim- 
ed by these later machines, was their ability 
to manufacture larger articles of clothing or 
bedding, as manufacturing machines, from 
the greater height and length of the over- 
hanging arm. The necessity of this has 
been, we think, overestimated. With ma- 
chines making the lock stitch, there ought 
to be no difficulty in doing this work from 
the left side of the machine, as well as 
from the right, and thus avoiding the neces- 
sity of placing the work under the over- 
hanging arm at all. Most machines have 
now extension-leaves to their tables, and 
there is certainly room enough, outside the 
machine, for the largest piece of work. 
Some of the new machines have recog- 
nized this fact; others would have saved 
money if they had done so. This enlarge- 
ment of the overhanging arm necessitates 
the packing of all, or nearly all the run- 
ning gear in that arm, and unless great 
caution is observed in making the parts 
for transmitting the force to the under 
side of the bed plate, strong and simple, 
there will be two results to follow, both of 
which will be objectionable; the racking 
of the top-heavy machine by the treadle 
motion will soon displace some of the 
smaller parts, and the machine will not 
work well — perhaps not at all; and the 
same racking motion will cause it to skip 
stitches, and to derange the tension to such 
a degree as to spoil the work. 

Some of the new machines have made a 
specialty of the tension. We have auto- 
matic tensions, easily regulated and self- 
regulating tensions, besides some which 
are not so easily regulated. In every di- 
rection this preternatural activity is push- 
ing its way, endeavoring to find or make 
some new combination, which will enable 
these eager inventors to produce a machine 
which shall be in some, perhaps in many 
respects, an advance upon all those that 
have gone before it. In many cases the 
result will be a complete failure, in some a 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



!59 



moderate success, following in a path al- 
ready indicated; in a very few there will be 
developed an originality, either in the ap- 
plication of mechanical principles, not new, 
but not hitherto applied successfully to 
sewing machines, in some way which will 
be a positive advance; or a new combina- 
tion of principles heretofore applied, in 
such a way as to obtain better results with 
less labor. The sewing machine builder of 
the present clay, may not hope to stumble, 
by any accident or ignorant blundering, 
upon any such good fortune as was possi- 
ble, perhaps, thirty years ago; every step 
must be taken with a thorough mechanical 
knowledge of the result to which it leads, 
and there will be an absolute certainty, that 
oftentimes, when he supposes himself to 
be traversing fields hitherto untrodden, he 
will find the foot-prints of some previous 
inventor who has tested, and perhaps pat- 
ented, the very invention on which his 
heart is set, only to find that it would not 
answer his expectation, and has consequent- 
ly rejected or dropped it. 

"We have thus given a chronological his- 
tory of the introduction of sewing machines 
upon the American market; let us turn 
now to a more interesting phase of the sub- 
ject, — the gradual development of the 
sewing machine idea in the minds of in- 
ventors and the public, in these thirty-six 
years which have elapsed since Howe ob- 
tained his first patent. 

The first idea which took possession of 
the minds of Saint, of Dodge, Thimonnier, 
Hunt, and Howe, and to some extent, also 
of Grover, Singer, and Wilson, was to pro- 
duce a machine which would make stitches, 
and which when perfected, would enable 
the tailor or dressmaker to sew with some- 
what greater rapidity than could be done 
by hand, the long straight seams. That it 
would do anything more than this, or that 
it would do even this, more than passably 
well, was an assumption, which had not at 
that time entered any of their minds. 

Hunt and Howe were the first to make 
the lock-stitch, and to use the shuttle, and 
of the three eminent inventors who fol- 
lowed them — Grover, Singer, and Wilson; 
only Singer used the shuttle. There was 
a reason for this. In the first stage of the 
invention, there were three theories of 
machine-sewing which presented 'themselves 
to the minds of the inventors. Hunt. 
Howe, and Singer regarded sewing with 



two threads as a species of weaving, as it 
really is, and hence the shuttle naturally 
suggested itself to their minds as the thread- 
carrier. Saint, Thimonnier, and Wilson 
conceived the idea that machine-sewing 
was to be really a modification of the em- 
broidery process, and the first two simply 
adapted their machine to the making of 
the tambour or single loop stitch, while 
Wilson, a more accomplished mechanic than 
the others, while employing the hook to 
pull up the loop of thread presented by the 
eye-pointed needle, deemed it necessary to 
pass it around his disk-like bobbin, and 
thus substantially introduced a shuttle of 
circular form. Grover, more strongly im- 
pressed than the others, with the idea that 
machine-sewing was only a species of em- 
broidery, discarded all forms of shuttles, 
and formed his peculiar stitch, which was 
really an embroidery stitch, by means of a 
circular under-needle reciprocating with a 
curved eye-pointed needle above. 

But, however different their theories of 
the stitch, they were substantially agreed 
in many other points. They all used eye- 
pointed needles, but neither they nor Howe 
had invented these; their running gear dif- 
fered very little, and only in those points 
which their different action required; if 
one plan was preferable to anothei*. Singer's 
ideas seemed to deserve the greatest credit, 
since his beveled gearing has remained sub- 
stantially unchanged. In the matter of 
feeds, Wilson and Grover seem to have 
been more successful than Singer; the 
four-motioned feed, invented by them, hav- 
ing proved more satisfactory than Singer's 
wheel-feed. The tensions adopted by each 
differed very little, and all required fre- 
quent adjustment. Singer alone had at 
first a straight eye-pointed needle, all the 
others were curved. 

At first it was very difficult to induce 
anybody to use a sewing machine. Its 
supposed sphere of action was limited; it 
could sew straight seams of considerable 
length; though, if the tension was not just 
right, and sometimes, if it was. from some 
other cause, no good work could be done 
on it. When after long and patient ex- 
periments and slight modifications, it began 
to come into use, it was still, for the most 
part, the manufacturers who wanted it: 
and new manufactures sprang up, which 
would not have had an existence, but for the 
sewing machiue. The shirt manufactures 



360 



SEWING MACHINES. 



took a new departure, and though nearly 
one-half the work had still to be done by 
hand, yet the price of shirts was greatly 
reduced. Ready-made clothing was also 
made more largely. As yet, everything 
had to be basted, and generally all corners 
turned by hand, and there was more than 
ever for the hand- workers to do. In leather 
goods not requiring a waxed thread, the 
machine was winning a reputation, and the 
heavy machines of Singer, and later of 
Howe, Weed, and Wheeler & Wilson, were 
in demand for their production. 

About 1856 or 1857, the first consider- 
able effort was made to introduce the sewing 
machine into families. Lighter and easier 
running machines were devised for this 
purpose, and soon several new machines 
were put upon the market. The Wheeler 
& Wilson Family machine, though not with- 
out some defects, proved for many years 
the most popular machine for family use, 
and by many of those who had become 
accustomed to its use, even their New No. 
8, in many respects a much better machine, 
was received with many doubts of its su- 
periority over the old favorite. These 
doubts were dispelled in time, and both 
new and old continue to be very popular. 
The Singer Company had also completed 
a family machine, which proved a great 
favorite. The Grover & Baker Company, 
then the leading company in the business, 
produced a shuttle machine for family use, 
while the Weed and Florence were claim- 
ing their share of the rapidly increasing 
business. Several other shuttle machines 
were also invented about this time, which 
subsequently attained reputation as manu- 
facturing machines. 

One new competitor for the family trade 
deserves special notice, not so much for 
the large amount of its sales, for others have 
greatly surpassed it in this respect, as for 
the new principles it involved. Receiving 
its first patent in 1857, and others for sev- 
eral of the following years, the Willcox 
& Gibbs sewing machine has been almost 
the sole representative of the single-thread 
twisted-loop stitch. It has fought its bat- 
tles in behalf of this stitch, and the use of 
a single thread, with a gallantry and cour- 
age which has won the admiration even of 
its enemies; its addition of the automatic 
tension gave it a new prestige, and though 
it has never been exactly popular, in the 
sense of being the machine used by the 



poorer classes,it is well and favorably known 
and has many warm friends. For its light 
and noiseless running, its perfect tension, 
and its admirable finish, it has no equal 
among the numerous machines in the 
market. 

The expiration of Howe's first patent in 
1860, and the consequent reduction of the 
royalty under its extension to $7.00, was 
the signal for the introduction of several 
new shuttle machines upon the market, 
among them the two Howe machines, the 
Empire, American Button Hole, ^Etna, etc. 
These were generally upon the Singer 
model, with some variations, though some 
of them had substituted cam movements 
for the bevel wlieel gearing of the rotating 
horizontal and vertical shafts. At that 
time (1860) there had been a little more 
than 130,000 sew'mg machines sold under 
Howe's patent, of which about 55,000 were 
turned out by Wheeler & Wilson, 40,000 
by Singer & Co., and 35,000 by Grover & 
Baker. Only 2000 Howe machines had 
been made up to 1860, and these with mod- 
ifications, by A. B. Howe. Singer & Co., 
had led in the amount of sales from 1852 
to 1854 ; Grover & Baker from 1854 to 
1858; Wheeler & Wilson from 1858 to 
1868, and Singer gained and has kept the 
leadership from 1868 to the present time. 

The new sewing machines patented in 
1860, had hardly begun to appear in the 
market, when the civil war commenced. 
The necessity for furnishing complete out- 
fits, not only of uniforms, overcoats, caps, 
and shoes, but of underclothing, bedding, 
and hospital clothing, at once, for a half- 
million of men, soon to be increased to 
two millions, brought into immediate 
use every sewing machine which could be 
made to sew. In some of the eastern 
cities, where regiments were to be sent off 
in great haste, every lady who owned a 
sewing machine, sent it to a public hall, 
and following and using it herself, drove it 
night and day, Sundays and all, till the 
task was finished. Those were golden 
days for the sewing machines. They were 
manufactured in great numbers, set at 
work as soon as finished, and kept at work 
till the close of the war. It has been said, 
and we doubt not with truth, that the 
Union armies would have failed, if the ag- 
ricultural machines, reapers, mowers, har- 
vesters, horse-hoes, etc., had not been in- 
vented previously; that by the labors of the. 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



361 



women and children with these machines, 
the great harvests were gathered, and the 
supplies for the armies and people kept up. 
With equal truth, we might say that but for 
the sewing machines it would have been 
impossible to clothe these vast armies, and 
to supply the hospitals with needed cloth- 
ing and bedding; and at the same time to 
meet the home demand, reduced though 
it was, by anxiety that the soldiers should 
have the best. The Sanitary and Chris- 
tian Commissions and their auxiliaries, dis- 
bursed during the war seventy millions of 
dollars in money and supplies, and fully 
one-third of this was for underclothing and 
bedding for the hospitals and camps. 

The impulse thus given to the clothing, 
underclothing, cap, hat, and shoe trades, 
was not lost after the close of the war, but 
resulted in the manufacture on an immense 
scale of the underclothing for both sexes, 
of children s' clothing, women's dresses and 
suits, even those of the cheapest material, 
and the better as well as the cheaper qual- 
ities of men's clothing; shoes and boots, 
caps and hats, the latter classes made on 
machines of peculiar construction, invented 
specially for their production. 

There grew up also a great demand for 
the production of machines suited to the 
use of the milliner and dressmaker, — fine 
and delicate hemming, gathering, felling, 
tucking, binding, cording, plaiting, scollop- 
ing, braiding, ruffling, shirring, quilting, 
embroidering, making button holes, and 
trimming with the button-hole stitch. 
This was the era of attachments, not be- 
tween the fair maids who operated the 
machines, and their male admirers, but 
attachments of quite another sort, — de- 
vices which, when attached to the ma- 
chine, enabled the skillful operator to 
execute, with more or less perfection, all 
these kinds of work, which had previously 
been done only by hand. Here was an- 
other step forward ; and the machine was 
so far perfected that it was able, when 
skillfully operated, to do almost everything 
which the most skillful needle-woman 
could do by hand. As yet, they had not 
attained to the art of sewing over and over, 
though even that is now probably accom- 
plished, by an attachment recently patent- 
ed. These attachments were adapted to 
the use of all the machines. 

What remained to be invented ? Not 
much, thought the great sewing machine 



companies in 1867, when the Howe patents 
expired, and the Victor, Remington, Do- 
mestic, Home, Davis, Secor, Blees, New 
iEtna, and Beckwith came forward as ap- 
plicants for public patronage. All of 
these, except the last named, were shuttle 
machines, but some of them had developed 
new features of construction which made 
them formidable competitors for the honors 
which were waiting for the best machine. 
The Victor, Remington, Howe, Secor, 
Blees, and New ^tna were constructed 
much on the Singer model, an admirable 
one for many purposes, whose serviceable 
qualities have made it the leading machine 
in the country, in regard to the number 
sold ; but, even with the slight changes made 
in the machines which were copied from it, 
it was asserted that it did not run so 
light, or with so little positive effort or 
noise, as some of the others. The Willcox 
& Gibbs machine had long reigned with- 
out a competitor in this particular, but now 
two or three of the new machines entered 
the lists with it. Foremost of these were 
the Home, Domestic, and Davis. The 
Home (not the " New Home ") soon fell 
out of the race, but the Domestic and Davis 
have continued to this day. The Domestic 
combined in its construction three points 
not previously combined in one machine; 
the large and high arm, the rotary shaft in 
the arm, and the swinging shuttle below 
the bed plate. In all those machines 
which had adopted one or other of these 
devices, there had been a failure to secure 
the greatest advantages to be derived from 
them in consequence of the use of cams, 
bevel gearing, or other objectionable means 
of connecting them with the driving shaft 
and the other moving parts of the machine. 
The prime idea of Mr. Mack, the inventor 
of the " Domestic," was to secure all these 
advantages, with the minimum of disad- 
vantage. He adopted the swinging shut- 
tle-carrier and a rotary needle arm, thus 
giving the desired large space for work. 
He belted directly on to the needle arm, 
thus making it serve as a main or driving 
shaft for the combined systems. From 
eccentrics on this shaft, he gave motion to 
the shuttle and feed-moving devices by 
swing levers, thus operating the three sys- 
tems of needle, feed, and shuttle move- 
ments without a cam, gear, or other objec- 
tionable device. His other improvements 
and inventions consisted of specific de- 



362 



SEWING MACHINES. 



vices for carrying out the details of these 
and the other processes, such as tensions 
and take-ups, necessary for an efficient and 
popular machine. There is not so much 
originality of invention in this machine as 
in some of the earlier machines, but the 
admirable combination has resulted in pro- 
ducing a light-running, easily-driven ma- 
chine, for either family or manufacturing 
purposes, so simple as not to be liable 
readily to get out of order, and capable of 
very rapid motion without much vibration. 
So marked are these advantages, that the 
Domestic has become not only the pioneer 
but the type, which has been followed, in 
its general features, by a considerable num- 
ber of the new machines brought out since 
1876 or 1877. Among these, the most 
prominent are the White, New Home, 
Dauntless, St. John, and Royal St. John, 
Eldredge, Crown, Fairbanks, Household, 
Springfield, New Stewart, Morrison, Hart- 
ford, and Boston. 

The Davis sewing machine, originating 
in a town of moderate size, at a distance 
from the large cities, and not seeking the 
city trade at first, was longer in becoming 
generally known to the public than some 
of its competitors; but it possesses some 
new features which entitle it to special no- 
tice, and render it very popular. 

In the Davis machine, the shaft, pulley, 
and fly-wheel occupy the same position, 
relatively, to the other parts, as in the 
Singer machine, and the vertical motion of 
the needle bar is produced by the usual 
crank-pin moving in a heart shaped cam; 
but there the similarity to the Singer ends. 
The arrangement for operating the shuttle, 
the motion of the shuttle (a swinging mo- 
tion in a curved path), the shuttle-carrier, 
and the shuttle itself, are similar to those 
of the Domestic machine, as described 
above; but there is nothing under the bed- 
plate except the shuttle and the devices for 
operating it. The feed apparatus, which 
in principle resembles the four-motioned 
feed, is transferred from its usual position 
beneath the bed-plate to the head of the 
machine. It consists mainly of a vertical 
bar placed close to the presser-foot, whicli 
receives suitable vertical and horizontal 
motion from mechanism contained in the 
head of the machine. 

The presser-foot, instead of being con- 
tinuously urged downward upon the work, 
is lifted slightly at the instant that the for- 



ward motion takes place. The feeding is 
accomplished while the needle is in its 
lowest position, and the needle partakes of 
the forward motion of the feed- bar, pin- 
ning the two or more plies together, and 
causing both to advance equally. The 
goods rest upon a perfectly smooth sur- 
face, being held firmly by the presser-foot, 
until the feed has "stepped" forward. At 
this time the needle penetrates the fabric, 
the pressure is automatically transmitted to 
the feed (which comes down on the goods 
close behind the needle), and the presser- 
foot is raised. When the needle has reached 
its lowest point the full pressure has been 
transmitted to the feed, and it and the 
needle-bar are moved together the desired 
length of the stitch, both moving in unison 
at their highest and lowest points. 

In practice, this vertical feed works ad- 
mirably; the stitches are of uniform length, 
and there is no skipping; the two or More 
plies which are to be sewed together al- 
ways come out even, it being impossible 
for one to be stretched and the other fulled 
or gathered; it sews elastic goods well, 
making a smooth and flexible seam, with 
stitch alike on both sides, and it is self- 
adjusting, sewing any number of thick- 
nesses, and operating with equal facility 
on the thickest and the thinnest goods. 
But it does more than this : one of its 
peculiarities, the result of this transference 
of the feed to the upper surface of the 
goods, is that it requires no basting, and 
in hemming, no previous folding and turn- 
ing in; this feed also enables the operator 
to turn the work at any angle or curve 
while the machine is in motion, without 
changing the tension or length of stitch, 
and thus it can easily do in a given time 
more work than any underfeed machine 
which uses two threads. Its attachments 
are numerous, and so ingeniously con- 
trived, that there is nothing in the milli- 
ner's, dressmaker's, or tailor's trimmings 
which cannot be produced by them. 

We have been thus particular in describ- 
ing the action of this machine because we 
regard this vertical feed as a new depar- 
ture, the development of a new principle, 
and one which, in some descriptions of 
work, is an advance on all that have pre- 
ceded it. In plain sewing it may not be, 
and probably is not, superior to the Domes- 
tic, the Wheeler & Wilson, or the Singer, 
but in all those branches of work 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



363 



which task the highest skill of the needle- 
woman, it is an improvement upon 
them. It is emphatically a ladies' ma- 
chine, and well adapted for all the light- 
er kinds of manufacturing; and inasmuch 
as it can be operated equally as well from 
the left as from the right side of the needle- 
bar and feed, we can see no reason why it 
should not be well adapted to the heavy 
work of manufacturers. 

Among the new machines which have 
adopted this arrangement of an upper 
feed, with or without modifications, are : 
the Manning machine, of Philadelphia, the 
Post machine, the Rotary Shuttle Sewing 
Machine, of Foxboro', Mass., and perhaps 
some others. , The last-named machine has 
several new ideas which commend it to 
consideration. Besides its upper feed, 
which, though having a slightly notched 
termination, is substantially like that of 
the Davis, (and the contrivance of the same 
inventor,) it has also what is called an aux- 
iliary underfeed, with a smooth terminal 
surface, acts either with the upper feed, 
clamping the material between the two, or 
independently of it. The upper feed acts 
only when the needle is out of the material. 
It has also a rotary shuttle, with a round 
bobbin, which occupies a vertical position 
and makes a complete revolution with each 
stitch. This seems to be in some respects 
similar in its action to the rotary hook of 
the Wheeler & "Wilson machines, though 
the shuttle first catches and then passes 
through the loop. The machine is new 
upon the market, but has impressed the 
most eminent judges very favorably. 

Some of the new machines, like several 
of the old ones now out of the market, 
undertake to make the lock stitch, the 
twisted loop stitch, and the chain stitch. 
It is undoubtedly possible to do this, and 
it has been done, by the dextrous manage- 
ment of a skillful expert, even on so stanch 
and standard a machine as Wheeler & 
Wilson's No. 1 ; but the use of it is not so 
evident. Those who desire the lock stitch 
do not care for the other kinds, and those 
who prefer the twisted loop stitch, prefer 
to have it with all the adjuncts of the 
Willcox & Gibbs machine, which give it 
more than half its value. 

But while we are recounting whr-t the 
new machines are doing, or proposing to 
do, we must not forget that the older 
companies have not been laggards in the 



race of improvement. The Singer Com- 
pany have found time to perfect a modifi- 
cation of their manufacturing machine, 
intended to work more easily and noise- 
lessly, (their family machine remaining 
without change,) but so great has been 
the demand for their present machines, 
both in their great manufactory in Eliza- 
beth. N. J., and in their extensive works 
at Glasgow, Scotland, that they have not 
yet been able to manfacture any of the 
new machines. 

The Wheeler & Wilson Company have 
added some improvements to their No. 8, 
a family machine, with overlapping hook, 
differential disc, straight needle, and inde- 
pendent take-up, which, as the new No. 8 
is worthy of all the praise which can be 
bestowed upon it. They have also pro- 
duced a new manufacturing machine, No. 
10, with a long and high arm, and a 
rotary shaft, easy-running and not noisy, 
which, for its purpose, seems to be very 
nearly perfect. They have also two other 
machines for special manufacturing pur- 
poses, the No. 6 and the Cylinder Ma- 
chine, which are very well adapted to the 
work for which they are designed. Other 
specialties, such as button-hole making, 
sewing over and over, and shirring, have 
received their attention. The shirring 
machine is an ingenious little device, run 
by hand, and with two peculiarly-formed 
little needles, which shirrs silk, muslin, 
cambric, etc., in two parallel lines at any 
prescribed distance apart, with great 
rapidity. 

The Grover & Baker Company, which 
was long so popular, has now entirely 
withdrawn from business, having been 
merged in the Domestic S. M. Co. The 
Willcox & Gibbs Company, whose auto- 
matic tension has been the wonder and 
despair of the sew T ing machine men, have 
introduced two new adaptations of their 
machine, one for straw hat sewing, which 
has proved very popular, the other for the 
simultaneous sewing and trimming of 
seams of stockings, shirts, and drawers. 

The Weed machine, after varied ex- 
periences of light and shadow, have added 
to their always popular -'General Favor- 
ite" manufacturing machine, a family ma- 
chine, as we have already noticed, of the 
" Domestic " type, but with some improve- 
ments, in the way of light-running, stitch- 
regulating, tension, etc., which are likely 



304 



SEWING MACHINES. 



to give it a prominent position among the 
new machines, 'ihey have named it the 
" Hartford." 

The "Home" machine, which had at 
one time a high reputation, has given place 
to the "New Home," or Johnson, Clark & 
Co's machine, one of the Domestic type, 
and this, as well as the White, also a new 
machine, are rivalling their prototype in 
the extent of their sales. 

Most of the new machines, as well as 
many of the old ones, have adopted new 
details, which are real improvements. 
Among these are the self-setting needle, 
the loose wheel, automatic bobbin-winder, 
and extensive nickel plating. 

The whole number of machines pro- 
duced by the various sewing machine com- 
panies at their factories here and abroad, 
(some of them having very extensive man- 
ufactories in Europe), in the year 1880, 
cannot be ascertained with exactness ; but 
enough is known to make it certain that it 
ranged between one million and twelve hun- 
dred thousand machines, almost ten times as 
many as had been made in the fourteen 
years, 1846-1860, before the expiration of 
Howe's first patent. In this vast produc- 
tion the Singer Co. takes the lead, as it 
has done since 1868, and probably at its 
factories on both sides the Atlantic, turns 
out nearly one half of all the machines 
made; the Wheeler & Wilson produced 
about 100,000, the Domestic, New Home, 
and White followed with nearly 90,000 
each, and the other companies, to the 
number of nearly sixty in all, ranged from 
50,000 down to 1,500 each. By another 
year, or within three or five years, the fig- 
ures for the third, fourth, and fifth places 
may be changed, some of the newer aspi- 
rants for fame taking the lead. The 
grand total of production to the close of 
1880 considerably exceeds 10,000,000 ma- 
chines. It was about 5,800,000 at the 
close of 1875. 

There have also been sewing machines 
made for special kinds of work, which, 
though not adapted to the general purposes 
of sewing, are yet very important members 
of the sewing machine family. 

Among these, there are several classes 
especially deserving of notice. First, the 
Button- Hole Machines. At a very early 
period it was seen that in order to com- 
plete, by machinery, the work of manu- 
facturing clothing, it was necessary that 



there should be machines or attachments 
which could make button-holes; inasmuch 
as the use of the button and button-hole, 
had been declared by an eminent philoso- 
pher, the most complete test of civilization, 
the savage always using strings, instead of 
buttons and button-holes. The button- 
hole stitch did not present any serious 
difficulties to the men who had invented 
sewing machines, and before long there 
were several button-hole attachments placed 
on the market ; some of these worked very 
well, making a fairly-stitched button-hole, 
and even ornamenting, with the button- 
hole stitch (a pretty embroidery stitch), the 
edges of cloth gaiters and other articles of 
dress; others were less successful; the but- 
ton-hole stitches being too far apart. But 
there was one defect common to them all; 
while the best made very good stitches, 
none could make what was known as the 
eye of the button-hole, a round termination 
of the button-hole at the end where the 
button strained upon the button-hole. This 
was necessary in all woolen and leather 
goods for the more ready buttoning of the 
garment, and for the greater durability of 
the button-hole. It seems to be settled 
that button-holes with eyes can only be 
produced by a separate machine; that pecu- 
liarly-shaped cams and slides, which only 
come into action when needed, must guide 
the needle in the formation of this button- 
hole eye. Two machines have been invented 
which perform the work successfully, one 
of them the property of the Singer Co., 
and called by their name, though not in- 
vented by their mechanicians. This ma- 
chine, we believe, is not sold, but rented 
at a nominal sum to the manufacturers of 
clothing who pay a small royalty for every 
dozen button-holes made. It does its 
work admirably. The other is made by 
the American Button Hole and Sewing 
Machine Co., and also make a good button- 
hole, but we have no means of knowing 
what are their arrangements with the 
manufacturers. 

The stitching of the uppers of shoes and 
boots with silk or thread, has been well 
performed by several of the regular sewing 
machines. The manufacturing machines 
of Singer, Howe, Weed, Wheeler & Wil- 
son and some others, have been especially 
liked for this work. But sewing with 
waxed threads has been attempted, many 
times, by the most ingenious mechanician* 



INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES. 



365 



of our times; but until 1880, without suc- 
cess, except in the sole-sewing machine of 
McKay and Blake. Of that machine we 
will speak presently. In 1877, a company 
which had been experimenting for two 
years with the French waxed thread ma- 
chine of Hurter & Hautin, finally despair- 
ing of success with it, as, in practice, it 
seemed rather an oiled thread than a waxed 
thread machine, employed Mr. S. W. 
Ward well, Jr., an eminent inventor, to 
modify that machine, or invent one which 
should accomplish the work well. After 
three years of hard work, Mr. Ward well 
perfected a machine, which meets with gen- 
eral approbation, and is likely to prove a 
great boon to leather workers. It is in- 
tended for harness making, the sewing of 
the seams of light and heavy boots, leather 
hose and belting, single and double. The 
difficulties in the way have been, that the 
wax would adhere to and clog the needle. 
The upper thread in the eye-pointed needle 
would catch upon the loop from the shut- 
tle, or the shuttle thread would catch, and 
there would be constant delays, breaking of 
threads and needles, and imperfect work. 
Mr. Wardwell's contrivances warm the 
thread so as to keep the wax flexible by 
means of a steam or hot water chest and 
pipes in its whole course ; prevent the loop 
from touching the needle or shuttle, bring 
the two threads home firmly and closely, 
and penetrating the material with an awl 
from below, just in the track of the needle, 
secure the filling of this awl-hole perfectly 
by the thread, prevent any skipping of 
stitches or imperfect work, and do the work 
rapidly and elegantly. What the McKay 
Sole sewing machine was to the shoe manu- 
facture, this machine seems destined to be 
to all descriptions of leather work requir- 
ing waxed threads. The company retain 
the name of the Hautin Sewing Machine 
Co., and their factory is at Woonsocket, 

a l 



The McKay Sole Sewing Machine Co., 
whose patent expired in August, 1881, has 
been already described at some length 
under the head of " Leather Manufactures." 
It kept the waxed thread warm and 
flexible by means of an alcohol lamp in a 
horn which was a part of the machine and 
was thrust into the shoe or boot. The ma- 
chine revolutionized the shoe trade, and its 
owners received in royalties and rent during 
the existence of the patent more than $10,- 
000,000. 

Among other machines for special pur- 
poses, we may name the Cylinder machines 
for sewing seams on sleeves, trousers, boot- 
legs, leather buckets, hose, etc. ; the carpet- 
making machines, which have never come 
into very general use; the machines for 
making the patent ruffling, scam-sewing 
machines for knit underclothing, straw- 
sewing machines and book-sewing ma- 
chines (one of which, said to be more per- 
fect and rapid than any previous one, was 
invented in 1881); but lack of space forbids 
our going into details concerning them. 

If any apology is needed for the space 
already occupied, it may be found in the 
fact that the humble and imperfect ma- 
chine, which so nearly ruined its inventor, 
thirty -six years ago, and which has really 
had a practical existence of not more than 
thirty years, has, in that time, been intro- 
duced in every civilized land, and into the 
humblest and poorest homes, as well as the 
palaces of the rich; it has drawn from the 
public more than three hundred millions of 
dollars, while its influence and the extent 
of its sales is constantly increasing. It is, 
in all respects, an American invention; 
and when we remember what it has 
already accomplished for the benefit of hu- 
manity, and what are to be its beneficent 
results in the near future, we feel justified 
in regarding it as the most valuable boon 
which American inventive genius has yet 
bestowed upon the world. 



//• fA M w i n 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ii i ii 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 M 1 1 mural 

OVERSTRUNG SCALE FOR GRAND PIANOS, INVENTED BY 
STEINWAY & SONS. 



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tion of the strings, and sound-board ring-bridges ; the patent resonator ; the patent duplex scale, 
and the patented design of the iron frame with its ornaments and fastenings. 




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MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. 



Passing over the class of band instruments, 
the violin and its congeners, the flute, guitar 
and harp, all of which, though manufactured 
here, are substantially the same as European 
instruments, and none of them have been 
materially improved, we have only space to 
speak of the piano and the class of reed in- 
struments. The church organ might indeed 
challenge our attention, but this has only 
kept pace with the foreign instrument in its 
improvements. 

The piano has been improved in compass, 
tone and ability to imitate the musical sounds 
of the human voice, during the past eighty 
years, more than any other musical instru- 
ment; and most of these improvements have 
originated in the United States. The in- 
strument in its earliest history was a devel- 
opment of the old clavichordium, a German 
invention dating about 1500, and first de- 
scribed in 1511. It was a very imperfect 
affair for the next three hundred years, and 
the principal improvements made in it and 
connected with its change of name to piano- 
forte, were made in Germany in the 18th 
century by Christian Gottlieb Schroeder, a 
native of Saxony (1699-1784,) and Henry 
Pape of Wurtemberg, the ancestor of a long 
line of eminent pianists. The German in- 
struments were the best as late as the begin- 
ning of the present century, but they were 
poor and wiry in tone, and were tolerated 
rather than admired. Between 1790 and 
1810, several important improvements were 
made in the piano by Broadwood, Southwell, 
and Stodart, English manufacturers. These 
improvements were for the most part in the 
action, and in the compass of the instrument, 
which at first was only four or five octaves, 
but has been increased to seven, seven-and- 
a-half, or eight. 

The general principle of all piano-fortes is 
the same, but there are very great differences 
of detail in the actions of different makers. 



The making of pianos is divided into four 
departments: — 1st. The framing and sound 
board ; 2d. The stringing ; 3d. The keys 
and action ; 4th. The case, whether orna- 
mental or plain. The frame was originally 
of hard wood, but of late years is made of 
iron, very strong, of few parts and securely 
bolted or screwed together, or, as is the 
American plan, cast in one piece, to resist 
the severe tension of the strings. Some 
manufacturers isolate the frame, in bedding 
it in the case, by causing it to rest on rubber 
or other elastic supports. At suitable dis- 
tances along this frame, and usually arranged 
in a harp-like form, are pins or studs of metal 
projecting directly from the metallic frame. 
To these pins or studs the strings, of steel 
or brass wire, some of them wound with soft 
iron, others with copper or silver wire, are 
attached, each wire being bent about it ; the 
wires are of course of different lengths, and 
stretched across one or two elevated bridges 
or supports, to iucrease and divide their vi- 
bratory power. Beneath the strings is the 
sounding board, originally made of a single 
thin, carefully-prepared board, so held in 
place that the middle portion is left free to 
vibrate. Among the American improve- 
ments on the sounding board, one is that of 
making it double, so as to form a second 
chamber, the ends only being secured ; an- 
other manufacturer forms it of thin veneers 
of different woods, the grain running in dif- 
ferent ways, to secure a greater resonance 
and the vibratory force of each. 

The action of the piano consists of a series 
of small hammers so arranged that by the 
pressure of the finger upon the keys of the 
key-board, the hammer corresponding to the 
key is made to strike the string and cause it 
to vibrate with a certain, ascertained force. 
The tone thus produced would be too wiry 
and metallic if not softened by the interpo- 
sition of leathers, cloth, felt, or other sub- 



MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. 



369 



stance, which mellows and sweetens it. The 
case maybe more or less ornamental, accord- 
ing to the desire of the purchaser, but it has 
nothing to do with the musical qualities of 
the instrument. As will be readily per- 
ceived, there is a wide field for modifications 
of detail, and these have been abundantly 
tried. Till about twenty-five years since, a 
considerable number of English, French, and 
German pianos were annually imported, but 
now American pianos not only supply our 
own market, but the two International Ex- 
hibitions of 1862 and 1867 fully demon- 
strated their superiority, in many particulars, 
to those of the best European manufacturers. 
We can only briefly review the progress 
of this manufacture in the United States. 
Early in the present century, attempts were 
made to manufacture pianos here by Odjorn, 
by J. Thurston, and by Stodart, a son of the 
piano-maker of that name in London. But 
it was reserved for an American-born citizen, 
by his assiduous labors and inventive genius, 
to make the piano-forte a source of delight 
to hundreds of thousands of his countrymen. 
In 1823, Jonas Checkering, a young me- 
chanic from New Hampshire, commenced 
their manufacture in Boston, and possessing 
mechanical ingenuity as well as musical skill, 
he soon began to improve the instrument. 
He made the entire frame of iron, in order 
to enable it to resist the better the immense 
strain of the tense strings, and at the same 
time to increase the resonance and purity of 
its tones. He also devised the " circular 
scale," with the " arch-wrest planks," or 
"tuning blocks;" both these improvements 
were speedily adopted by other manufac- 
turers in Europe and America. His other 
improvements, which have been numerous, 
have given his instruments the highest repu- 
tation. Other manufacturers have invented 
valuable modifications and additions to the 
instrument, but to Mr. Chickering must be 
accorded the honor of having given that im- 
pulse to the business and maintained that 
position which makes American pianos to- 
day the best in the world. Among the im- 
provements introduced by other piano-mak- 
ers, have been the JEolian attachment of 
Obed Coleman ; the adoption by several 
manufacturers of the over-strung bass in 
square pianos ; the bedding or insulation of 
the iron frame by Mr. F. C. Lighte; the use 
of soft elastic washers to soften the tone, by 
the same manufacturer ; the double sound- 
board of Mr. S. B. Driggs, intended to in- 



crease the volume and sweetness of the tones 
of the instrument; the bell-metal bridge of 
Messrs. George Steck & . Co., and their 
method of constructing their boudoir or up- 
right piano ; the patent combination sound- 
ing-board of Messrs. Raven & Bacon, and the 
cycloid form of the piano of Messrs. Linde- 
mann & Sons, having the same purpose. 
Messrs. Steinway & Sons have applied the 
patent Agraffe arrangement directly to the 
full iron frame, and have also obviated the 
difficulties which had been experienced in 
the construction of the upright piano, by 
their patent resonator, and double iron frame. 
Their instruments took the highest premium 
over the competing pianos of the best manu- 
facturers of Europe, at the International Ex- 
hibition in London, in 1862. Both their 
instruments and Chickering's have a very 
high reputation in Europe, and in the Paris 
Exposition of ] 867, both received the highest 
premium. The Steck, Knabe, Weber, Deck- 
er, Stodart, Bradbury, and Hallet, Davis & 
Co. pianos, as well as some others, are also 
excellent instruments, and some of them are 
thought to surpass the great manufacturers 
in their square and boudoir pianos. The 
Chickerings have made over 55,000 pianos, 
a larger number than any other manufac- 
turers. The entire production of these in- 
struments is probably not far from 50,000 
per annum. 



EEED INSTRUMENTS. 

These are all the inventions of the present 
century. The first use of metallic reeds (vi- 
brating tongues of metal,) for musical pur- 
poses, in Europe or America, was the Eolo- 
dicon of Eschenberg, of Bohemia, invented 
about 1810. This was followed, in 1821, 
by the accordeon, which, whether of small 
or large size, was little more that a musi- 
cal toy. The rocking melodeon, as at first 
constructed, was only an amplification of this, 
and as in the English and French melodeona, 
the air was forced outward through the 
reeds, in order to produce musical sounds. 
The reeds, moved by this forced current, 
frequently caught, or did not vibrate prompt- 
ly, especially the highest and lowest notes. 
About the year 1S40, some of the rocking or 
lap melodeons, constructed by several manu- 
facturers on an improved plan, gained consid- 
erable reputation. The reeds of these were 
fastened to, and vibrated in. a small square 



370 



MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. 



metallic pipe, which was inserted through the 
top of the wind-chest, with the points of the 
reeds downward^ the rear ends of the keys 
resting on the open ends of the metallic pipes, 
and thus forming the valves. About 1840, 
another improvement was adopted in the lap 
mclodeons, which gave them a better charac- 
ter of tone, and contributed to tl^eir intro- 
duction as accompaniments to church music. 
The reeds were riveted upon a piece of brass 
swedged or bent so as to form three sides of 
a square, the edges of which were then in- 
serted in grooves made for them upon the up- 
per side of the wind-chest, directly over the 
valve mortice ; and, in order to bring the point 
of the reed to vibrate oh the inside, the reeds 
were made to pass through their sockets to 
the under side, and thus naturally took 
the form of a double curve, somewhat re- 
sembling the letter S. This curving the 
reeds improved the tone, and on this ac- 
count was adopted by most of the American 
manufacturers, though liable to the objec- 
tion of retarding the promptness of the re- 
sponse of the reeds. 

In 1846, Mr. Jeremiah Carhart secured a 
patent for a certain construction of bellows, 
with other combinations, to operate the 
reeds by suction or drawing in, instead of 
forcing out the air, since known as " the 
exhaust plan." This invention gave to 
these instruments an improved quality of 
tone, greater durability, more simplicity of 
construction, increased promptness of utter- 
ance, uniformity of tones, and an equal 
distribution of power through the entire 
scale. The melodeons made on this plan 
by Carhart, and subsequently by Prince & 
Co., were at first small, of only one size, 
having but four octaves of reeds, and ex- 
tremely plain in style. After two or three 
years, they were increased in size, extended 
to 4i and 5 octaves, and had two sets of 
reeds. This was about the utmost compass 
possible for the melodeon. Another improve- 
ment, made about 1849, was the change of 
form of the bellows, the exhauster being placed 
on the upper side of the reed-board, instead 
of underneath the bellows ; this enabled the 
performer to operate the bellows more easily. 
The tones of the instrument still lacked soft- 
ness and sweetness. This difficulty was reme- 
died, in 1S49, by a discovery made by Mr. 
Emmons Hamlin, now of Mason & Hamlin, but 
then with Prince & Co. He found that, by 
slightly twisting each of the already curved 



reeds, this harshness was overcome, and the 
tones rendered soft and musical. 

In 1855, the firm of Mason & Hamlin, 
formed the previous year, offered to the pub- 
lic their " Organ Harmonium" an instrument 
having 4 sets of reeds and two manuals of 
keys. The reeds extended from ccc in the 
"bourdon" to c"" f in alt, or seven octaves. 
Two blow-pedals were also attached to it, 
which enabled the performer to produce ef- 
fects not hitherto attained by any reed instru- 
ment in this country. In 1861, after numerous 
experiments, Messrs. Mason & Hamlin suc- 
ceeded in perfecting their " School Harmo- 
nium," simplifying the construction, but re- 
taining all the good features of the larger in- 
strument. In this instrument, the bellows 
was first placed vertically. This and the other 
improvements were soon after adapted to 
the organ harmonium, which thenceforward 
became capable of receiving a more elegant 
form, and, in 1862, was brought out in its 
present shape, as the "Cabinet Organ." 
Its history since that time has been one of 
constant improvement, by which its compass, 
variety and sweetness of tone have been en- 
hanced, while its rapidity of action enables 
it to render secular music with fine effect, 
and to become a formidable rival of the 
piano. Of these improvements, the chief 
are, the Double Bellows; the improved 
Self-adjusting Heed Valves; the Automatic 
Bellows Swell, an addition of great practi- 
cal value ; the Sounding and Tube Boards, 
which increase the resonance of its tones ; 
the Noiseless Safety Valves, regulating the 
pressure and escape of the wind; and the 
Improved Combination Register, which facili- 
tates the drawing and closing of the stops. 

The resonant chamber is another valua- 
ble addition to these instruments, and by 
minor improvements they have been with 
the last fifteen years (to 1881) constantly 
increasing in the public favor till the pres- 
est production for home and foreign con- 
sumption is not less than 50,000 organs per 
annum. The great competition in the man- 
ufacture has reduced the prices, though 
not the excellence of the instruments. 
The Mason & Hamlin Co. still main- 
tain the excellence of their instru- 
ments; but Estey & Co., Peloubet, the Sil- 
ver Tongue, S. D. & H. TV. Smith, the 
Burdett Organ Co., D. F. Beatty, the Shon- 
inger Co., and others all make good and 
desirable organs. 




THE "CENTENNIAL " ORGAN. Built by E. & G. G. Hook & Hastings, Boston, Mass. 
38 feet wide; 40 feet high; 4 Manuals, 32-feet Pedals. 



MILLS. 



373 



MILLS. 

The universal dependence of the human 
family upon bread as food, has no doubt 
caused that article to be aptly designated 
as the "staff of life." It has been made 
of many substances, but in the American 
colonies, from the earliest times, Indian 
corn, wheat, and rye have been the leading 
if not the only materials. The laborers of 
Europe have only since comparatively re- 
cent dates used grain commonly for bread. 
The peasants of the south of France for 
long ages used only chestnuts and similar 
fruits for the purpose. In Germany, rye 
forms the native ''black bread" made of 
the grain ground but unbolted. The Scotch 
use oat-meal and barley for bread. The 
English use wheat commonly, as is the case 
now mostly in America. Here, however, the 
.vai'iety and abundance of animal and other 
food is so great that wheaten bread enters 
less into the daily diet of the masses than 
would otherwise be the case. Whatever 
the grain used, however, milling is the first 
necessity, and the number and capacity of 
the mills must always be proportioned to 
the numbers of the people. We find, 
therefore, in the returns of the manufac- 
turing industry of the Union for 1850, 
published by order of Congress, that of 
the whole value produced, 81,019,106,616, 
by far the largest item was the products of 
flour and grist mills. This amounted to 
$136,056,736, or rather more than 13 per 
cent. Next to this industry, the highest 
production was of cottons, the most gen- 
eral material for clothing, and that prod- 
uct reached $65,501,687. The largest mill 
interest was in the state of New York, 
where the product was $33,037,021. The 
census of 1840 gave the number of flour 
mills in the Union for that year, and if we 
compare the population and crop of wheat 
as reported, with the number of flour mills, 
the results are as follows: — 



Population. 

1840 17,069,453 

1850 23,191,877 

1860 31,443,322 

1870 88,558,871 

1880 50,152,866 



Wheat Raised. No. of Flour 

Bueh. Mills. 

84,823,272 4.364 

100,485,944 11,891 

173,104.024 13,868 

287,745,686 22,573 
480,849,700 



In order to get the quantity of wheat 
floured, it is necessary to deduct from this 
production the quantity reserved for seed 
and for other purposes, and what is ex- 
ported as grain. 



Prom the earliest settlement of the coun- 
try, flour has been an important article of 
export, and New York wheat early gained 
a reputation as well abroad as at home. 
During the wars of Napoleon, the valley of 
the Hudson furnished large supplies of flour, 
and milling was a very profitable business. 
Water-power was generally used. Mills 
concentrated where this was to be had ad- 
vantageously in the neighborhood of good 
supplies of wheat. The mills of Rochester, 
New York, where the famous Genesee 
wheat was floured, were a grand example 
of well-applied water power. The Balti- 
more and Richmond city mills acquired 
great reputation, andof late years St. Louis, 
Chicago, and Milwaukee have become fa- 
mous for the excellent quality of their 
flour, and their flouring mills are of great 
extent and perfection. The mills at Louis- 
ville are also on a grand scale. But the 
largest and most complete flouring mills in 
the world, are those in Minneapolis, Min- 
nesota. There are 26 of these, covering a 
flooring space equal to 24 acres, having 
359 pair of stones in actual use, and ship- 
ping in 1880 an average of 7,000 barrels 
of flour a day, or 2,150,269 barrels a year, 
aside from the large amount reserved for 
home consumption. These mills all use 
the "New Process," by which, by means 
of what is known as the middlings purifier, 
the gluten and phosphates of the wheat 
are preserved in the flour; the quality and 
healthfulness of the product is improved; 
eight per cent, more flour is obtained from 
a bushel of wheat, and the spring wheat, 
to which this process is particularly adapt- 
ed, yields flour of the best quality. 

The process of grinding the grain so as 
to make the best flour, is one of consider- 
able difficulty, and the grinding apparatus 
differs in different mills, according to the 
greater or less proportion of gluten con- 
tained in the wheat, the character of flour 
to be produced, the amount of power at 
command, and the rapidity with which it 
is desired effect the grinding. The mill 
stones which are most generally used are 
known as French burr-stones, and are 
silicious stones of peculiar quality of which 
the best are from La Ferte Sous Jouarre, 
in the Paris basin — though very good mill 
stones of a different quality are found at 
Andernache, on the Rhine. Burr-stones 
are found also near Savannah, Ga., m Ar- 
kansas, and at other points in this country. 



374 



MILLS. 



but they are thought to be inferior to the 
French. For some years it was believed 
that the larger the size of the millstones 
the better the flour which could be pro- 
duced from them, and they were procured 
from four to six feet in diameter and 
weighing from 14 to 16 cwt. These were 
enormously expensive, and were generally 
built up of fragments cemented together. 
The surfaces were generally level but 
grooved, the direction and course of the 
grooves being mathematically determined. 
This grooving is common to millstones of 
all sizes. It was found that where the 
wheat contained a large percentage of 
gluten the millstones became easily clogged, 
and required a great expenditure of power 
to move them even slowly, while if rapid 
movement was attempted, the millstone 
would fly in pieces, to the destruction of 
life and property. The stones required 
also constant adjustment. At first the 
upper stone was the one which moved, 
while the lower was fixed; but it was found 
better to have the upper fixed and the 
lower move; then the lower was made 
conical, or at least the frustrum of a cone. 
Finally it was discovered that smaller mill- 
stones did their work much more perfectly, 
with far less danger and with less expen- 
diture of power and money. Stones not 
exceeding twenty inches in diameter and 
weighing not over 170 pounds, yield the 
best product and require only four or five 
horsepower to drive them. The Pesth 
Walz Muhl, the finest flouring mill on the 
continent of Europe, dispenses with mill- 
stones altogether and grinds or crushes the 
wheat between grooved steel rollers (the 
hai'dest steel being used), the grooves being 
parallel to the axis of the rollers, and the 



set of rollers being three pairs in number, 
placed at some distance apart, and six or 
seven sets being required to complete the 
process. We are not aware that this 
method of grinding has been introduced 
here at least on a large scale. 

The products of the grinding (the wheat 
having been subjected to the cleaning pro- 
cess in the smut and decorticating ma- 
chines), are groats or grits, the coarser por- 
tion of the gluten, flour of different grades 
from the very finest to middlings and bran. 
The loss is about 3 per cent in the best 
mills, and consists of silica, dirt, the awns 
of vegetable hairs, at the prow or smaller 
end of the grain, &c. The bran or scales 
which are mostly composed of the cortical 
portion of the grain should not exceed 18 
per cent., and the other 79 per cent, should 
consist in the proportions of 45 and 34 per 
cent, of extra flour and common or me- 
dium flour. The groats or grits pass 
through the grinding process a second time 
and are mingled with the best flour, or in 
some instances are packed by themselves 
as wheaten grits. They constitute the 
most nutritive portion of the wheat. The 
extra white A 1 . pastry flour is really the 
least nutritious portion of the grain, being 
composed almost entirely of the starch and 
its associated albuminoids. 



Year. 


Flour Mills. 


Capital Invested. 


Production. 


1850 
1860 
1870 
1880 


11,891 
13,868 
22,573 


$54,415,581 

84,585,004 

151,565,376 


$136,056,736 
248,580,365 
444,985,143 



The following table shows the produc- 
tion, in quantity and value, of wheat by 
decades, and the quantity and value of ex- 
ports of wheat and flour for the same 
periods: 



Decades. 



1830-1840 
1840-1850 
1850-1860 
1860-1870 
1870-1880 



Wheat Produc- Wheat Production Wheat Export. 
tion. Bushels. Values. Dollars. ! Bushels. 



395,783,638 

926.596,080 

1,367,954,340 

1,831,236,833 

3,602,277,118 



454,151,1,' 4 
1,019,256,688 
1,400,858,781 
2,610,247,593 
3,345,641,456 



2,456.9^6 

13,131.506 

55, 255,528 

220,115.271 

667,935,801 



Flour Export. 
Barrels. 



9,334,896 
18,559,525 
28,927,786 
31,212,518 
39,665,327 



Wheat and Flour Wheat and Flour 

Reduced to Export Values. 
Wheat, Bushel-. Dollars. 



49,131,466 
105,929,131 
199,894,458 
376,177,861 
866,262,436 



59,134,033 

116,1 1 1 .:!. 775 

255.170,346 

521,426,460 

1,080,673.035 



The statistics of production and value of 
the first three decades are estimates, but 
represent very nearly the actual produc- 
tion. The export statistics are from the 
Treasury reports. 

But wheat flour and wheat are not and 
never have been the only breadstuffs ex- 



ported, as by a reference to the chapters 
on agriculture, it will be seen that they are 
not even the most important of our cereal 
products. But we are speaking here of 
flouring mills and their products, and so 
must confine ourselves to these. "We ex- 
ported in the last decade, 1870-1880, over 



MILLS. 



375 



3,500,000 barrels of Indian meal, worth 
about $12,300,000. We also exported 
537,000,000 bushels of Indian corn, most 
of which would be ground on the other 
side of the Ocean. The corn represents a 
production of 12,268,210.440 bushels— of 
a value of $5,061,354,552. The barrels of 
meal exported represent a production of 
about 28,000,000 barrels, worth not far 
from $98,000,000. We also exported 
about 122,000 barrels of rye flour, worth 
about $707,000. This would indicate the 
production of at least 1,000,000 barrels of 
rye flour and meal during the decade, worth 
about $6,100,000. 



There are also other food products from 
the cereals, of which probably corn starch, 
maizena, farina, oat meal, wheaten grits, 
rolled, cracked and pearl wheat, and pearl 
barley, in their order, are the principal. 
We have no means of ascertaining the 
quantity of these produced, but the value 
of our exports of them in the last decade 
was about $9,100,000, and this would in- 
dicate the value of the entire products as 
not less than $75,000,000. The manufac- 
ture of buckwheat flour has also attained 
considerable magnitude. 



FUMITURE. 



CHAPTER I. 

The use of furniture is one of the marks 
of a high civilization, and when the articles 
of need or luxury which come under that 
name, have assumed forms of artistic 
beauty, which commend themselves to a 
cultivated and refined taste, alike in their 
conception and execution, the highest con- 
dition of physical culture may be said to 
have been attained. The savage tribes of 
our own and other countries had but little 
use for anything in the way of furniture. 
The tent — usually of skins — the hut or 
booth, of logs, bark, or oftener of branches 
of trees, — or the cave or excavation in the 
hillside — constituted their dwelling. If 
they were nomadic, it was the tent or tepee 
with its poles and covering of skins, which 
was their resting-place, and this when 
taken down was conveyed from one point 
to another on the backs of Indian ponies, 
donkeys, or mules, or among the Northern 
tribes on the dog sledges — or in default of 
these on the shoulders of the squaws. 
The furniture of the tepee was very slight. 
There were no seats, for the Indian 
squatted on the ground; there were no 
beds, for he lay on the skins of wild 
beasts, or the boughs of the fragrant pine; 
there were no wash-bowls or basins, for he 
never washed; a gourd or a leaf cup an- 
swered for drinking purposes when he did 
not bow down and lap the water from the 
brook; and this was only necessaiy when 
he could not obtain the potent fire-water. 
His meat, his principal food, whether the 
flesh of the buffalo, the antelope, the 
horse, the Rocky Mountain sheep — the 
deer or elk, was never cooked as we cook 
it, but either eaten raw or slightly 
scorched by being held to the fire on t'he 
point of a sharp stick. "When he deigned to 
eat vegetables, the corn, or yams, or arti- 
chokes were roasted in the ashes. His 
garments were few, and made of skins, 
either dressed in their rude way, or with 



the hair or fur on, and these were worn for a 
lifetime. The Indians who dwelt in towns, 
Pueblos, as they are called at the West, 
had in their rude huts of clay or adobe, 
some furniture. There were seats, made 
either of logs or adobe. There were some 
attempts at bedsteads, — terraces or ben- 
ches, covered with skins, and they were 
adepts in some forms of pottery, drinking 
vessels, water jars, and the like. They 
spun and wove from the numerous textiles 
around them, and the wool of their sheep, 
some garments of rather tasteful forms, 
and produced from the gold and silver 
which abounded in the hills, ornaments for 
the wrists, ankles, neck, breasts, ears, lips, 
and nose, which generally bore some re- 
semblance to animals with whose forms 
they were familiar. These articles of fur- 
niture or display, however, cost them dear 
as they were, by the greed of the Spanish 
adventurers taken from them, and they 
themselves reduced to a cruel slavery in 
working the mines, from which the precious 
metals had come. In the settlement of the 
United States our ancestors, most of whom 
were in comfortable circumstances for that 
period, brought w T ith them considerable 
quantities of furniture, or, as it was then 
called, household stuffs, to furnish the 
cabins which formed their first homes. 
In subsequent years when passengers were 
not so numerous, the vessels were largely 
freighted with furniture, many articles of 
which have since become historic. How 
many chests of drawers, chairs, tables, bed- 
steads, and mirrors came over in the May- 
flower, we shall never know, but the 
numbers of those articles which are traced 
back to that famous little vessel, and which 
are still in existence, would furnish an 
ample cargo for the largest of the White 
Star steamers. 

But as the newly arrived immigrants 
pushed westward through the trackless 
forests to the Connecticut river and be- 
yond in New England, to the Shenandoah 



FURNITURE. 



377 



valley in Virginia, to Beaverwyck, and the 
Mohawk valley in New York, or to similar 
distances in the other colonies, they found 
great difficulty in taking much furniture 
with them, and gradually reduced their 
imperative necessities almost to the savage 
standard. They reared rude but moder- 
ately comfortable cabins, for church and 
home, of the logs of the interminable for- 
ests; and benches and tables were made 
from split logs. The pine straw and the 
balsam and hemlock boughs made fragrant 
if not luxurious beds, and sometimes bunks 
or rough bedsteads were hewn out with 
the axe and heaped up with the boughs 
and covered with the skins of cattle or wild 
beasts. The iron pot was a necessity, and 
that was never missing, but gourds, co- 
coanut shells, and wooden bowls scooped 
out with axe or adze, answered for bowls 
and cups. Rude mortars for pounding the 
corn were made from stumps of trees, an 
overhanging limb being spliced with a 
solid block of wood to form a pounder. 
When saw mills and grist mills were es- 
tablished, and carpenters, joiners, and cab- 
inent makers began to ply their respective 
trades, these rough appliances were re- 
placed by those of more convenient con- 
struction, though, not till the eighteenth 
century, of much artistic beauty. 

Even up to the time of the revolution, 
away from the larger towns, it was only 
in the habitations of the very wealthy who 
were able to import such furniture as 
they needed, that anything of elegance in 
the way of furniture was to be found. 
The farmers and the country people gen- 
erally were content to sit on blocks, or on 
the rough and cumbrous settle by the great 
kitchen fire. The great table with almost 
timber enough for a house in it had slab 
benches without backs around it; wooden 
trenchers supplied the place of plates, 
wooden spoons, or sometimes those of 
horn, were substitutes for silver, and the 
steel or iron knife and fork were highly 
prized because they had come from over 
the water. A wooden bottle contained the 
cider, beer, or sweetened water, or some- 
times the pure spring water which was 
drawn off in gourds as wanted. The plat- 
ters as well as the trenchers were of wood. 
In the best room, kept dark and strewed 
with rushes, there were some splint-bot- 
tomed chairs, a small and generally very 
imperfect looking glass, perhaps a chest of 
20 



drawers from over sea, samplers of impos- 
sible colors, and designs which reminded 
one of the Gobelins tapestry by contrast, 
and if any of the family were musically 
inclined, a lute, or possibly a fiddle — the 
spinette, the ancestor of the modern piano, 
though at a distant remove, was to be 
found only in the houses of the very rich. 
The broad fire-place was garnished with 
branches of asparagus, and, if the family 
were aesthetically inclined, a few conch 
shells were arranged on the mantel-piece. 
Only the rich could afford the luxury of a 
clock, and very few even of these, were the 
proud owners of a watch. The noon mark 
and the position of the sun in the heavens 
were the indicators of time. 

With the creation and revival of manu- 
factures which followed the close of the 
revolutionary war, the manufacture of fur- 
niture became at first a small, but after 
the years of abject poverty and misery 
which followed the war, were past, a very 
considerable industry. The furniture pro- 
duced by the early cabinet-makers was not 
always very graceful or artistic, but it had 
the merit at least of being solid and sub- 
stantial. The bedsteads, bureaus, tables, 
and chairs of that period seemed to have 
been made for, and by, some of the sons of 
Anak, or the giants of Bashan. We re- 
member well a bedstead of mahogany 
made for one of the wealthy families of a 
New England town, not far from 1790, it 
was said, and which, when finally sold 
under the hammer, was found to weigh 
over a ton. 

With increasing population and a wide 
diffusion of wealth, came better grades of 
furniture, still not artistic, but of a plain 
and substantial character; the heavy arti- 
cles of furniture were replaced by those 
less ponderous; the splint-bottomed chairs 
gave place to seats of rushes skillfully 
woven and painted; to these succeeded the 
more pliable cane or rattan; and in the 
towns, a few ventured upon upholstered 
seats. The sofa and later the piano were 
introduced into houses of the better class. 
The tall four poster bedstead, except in the 
best guest chamber, gave place to the 
lighter and lower post bedstead without 
hangings. Clocks — Yankee clocks — were 
found in most houses, and crockery — 
and rarely China — replaced the wooden 
trenchers and platters, and silver table and 
teaspoons, the wooden spoons of the earlier 



37S 



FURNITURE. 



times. The progress of furniture produc- 
tion was rapid, though it did not increase 
beyond the demand of the incoming popu- 
lation. In an evil day, veneers made their 
appearance, and very soon all of the ordinary 
grades of house furniture were made on 
bases of pine, white wood, or other cheap 
and soft woods, and veneered to represent 
the costliest mahogany, or even rosewood. 
As time drew on, great factories were es- 
tablished in wooded districts, away from 
the cities, the frame work made, and 
eventually the larger veneers applied, and 
then the furniture shipped to the larger 
towns and cities to be finished up there 
and sold to dealers in all quarters North, 
South, East, and West, and even to for- 
eign states, at apparently low prices, as ele- 
gant furniture of the latest and best de- 
signs. Another device was to enamel and 
paint the furniture made entirely of these 
cheap woods, so as to give it a very pretty 
appearance. Of course, these cheap wares 
made entirely of pine, paint, putty, and 
veneer did not last. It was never intended 
that they should; and the market was all 
the more brisk because furniture had to be 
renewed so often. With the increase of 
labor saving machinery and tools for per- 
forming the most delicate work, this trashy 
furniture has increased and is still increas- 
ing its production, and its decorations are 
often to the careless observer very attract- 
ive. Inlaying and the use of lacker, papier 
mache, and enamels, are resorted to, to 
make the merest trash appear valuable and 
salable. 

But disgust with this worthless furni- 
ture has led to the production of articles 
of a much higher quality, and some of 
them of artistic designs and of great 
beauty. This better class of furniture is 
made of solid woods, except in upholstered 
goods, and even in those all the exposed 
portions are solid; most of it is hand- 
wrought, and though availing themselves 
of the best tools, there is no slighting of 
any part of the work. If carved, the 
carving is done by a skillful carver, and 
the furniture, though generally following, 



rather slavishly, the prevalent European 
styles, such as the Eastlake, and the less 
attractive and practical rococo and Louis 
XIV styles, is really honest and well made. 

With the introduction of the furniture 
designer, an artist, whose business it is to 
make designs for the furniture and be- 
longings of our more stately residences, in 
harmony with the dwellings themselves 
and their surroundings, there has come a 
further advance in the production of fur- 
niture which is thoroughly artistic and for 
the most part of original and American 
designs. These designs apply not only to 
the movable furniture, but to the decora- 
tion of the walls, the wall papers, if these 
are used, the carpets, and even the china 
and the decorations of the dining-room, 
the silver, and the framing and setting of 
the pictures, etc., etc. 

There is, of course, a great deal of false 
taste, and often an entire lack of taste, 
among those who have suddenly become 
rich, and this leads to great and ludicrous 
incongruities in furnishing their costly 
residences; but where they can be per- 
suaded to give up the furnishing and deco- 
ration, to a thoroughly honest and compe- 
tent designer, there are not usually many 
serious blunders. 

The manufacture of furniture has rap- 
idly increased within the past 25 years. 
In 1860 the census reported an annual 
production for the year 1859, of not more 
than 30 millions of dollars in all branches; 
the census of 1870 reported about 103 
millions of dollars in all branches of the 
business. The statistics of the census of 
1880 are not yet ready for publication, but 
enough is known to make it certain that 
they will exceed 200 millions. 

Of course, much the larger part of this 
immense sum belongs to the cheaper styles; 
which take with the million; but there has 
been nevertheless a very great advance 
within the last decade in the manufac- 
ture of good and artistic furniture, and the 
demand for it is increasing with equal 
rapidity. 




MODERN STYLES OF FURNITl'RE. 




KITCHEN OP 1770. 




KITCHEN IN 1870. 




1776. EVENING DRESS. 1180. 



1780. 



1785. 




NG DRESS. 1795. EVENING DRESS. 1797. 



1800. 



1805. 




1805. 



1812. 



1812. 



1812. 





1815. 



1818. 



1820. 



1825. 




1828. 



WINTER DRESS. 1833. 



1833. 



1833. 




1833. 



1840. 



1844. 



1850. 




FASHIONS FROM 1850 TO 1860. 




PLAIN DRESS OF VARIOUS PERIODS. EXTREME FASHIONS OF 1868-9. 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 

The mineral wealth of the American 
colonies does not appear to have been an 
object of much interest to the early settlers. 
Congregated near the coast, they were little 
likely to become acquainted with many of 
the mineral localities, most of which are in 
the interior, in regions long occupied by the 
Indian tribes. The settlers, moreover, prob- 
ably possessed little knowledge of mining, 
and certainly lacked capital which they could 
appropriate in this direction. Some discov- 
eries, however, were made by them very 
soon after their settlement, the earliest of 
which were on the James river, in Virginia. 
Beverly, in his " History of the Present 
State of Virginia," published in London in 
17 05, makes mention of iron works which 
were commenced on Falling Creek, and of 
glass-houses which were about to be con- 
structed at Jamestown just previous to the 
great massacre by the Indians, in 1622. 
This undertaking at Falling Creek is referred 
to by other historians, as by Stith, in his 
"History of Virginia" (1753), p. 279. A 
Captain Nathaniel Butler, it appears, present- 
ed to the king, in 1623, a very disparaging- 
account of the condition of the colony, men- 
tioning, among other matters, that "the Iron 
Works were utterly wasted, and the People 
dead; the Glass Furnaces at a stand, and in 
small Hopes of proceeding." The commit- 
tee of the company, in their reply to this, 
affirm that "great Sums had been expended, 
and infinite Care and Diligence bestowed by 
the Officers and Company for setting forward 
various Commodities and Manufactures ; as 
Iron Works," etc., etc. Salmon, in his 
'• Modern History" (1746), vol. iii, pp. 439 
and 468, refers to the statement of Bever- 
ly, mentioning that "an iron work was set 
up on Falling Creek, in James River, where 
they found the iron ore good, and had near 
brought that work to perfection. The iron 
proved reasonal >1 v good ; but before they got 
into the body of the mine, the people were 



cut off in that fatal massacre (of March, 
1622), and the project has never been set on 
foot since, until of late ; but it has not had 
its full trial." This author also refers to the 
representations of the Board of Trade to 
the House of Commons, in 1732, as contain- 
ing notices of the iron works in operation in 
New England. From various reports of the 
governor of Massachusetts Bay and other 
officials of this colony, there appear to have 
been, in 1731, as many as six furnaces and 
nineteen forges for making iron in New Eng- 
land, as also a slitting mill and nail factory 
connected with it. 

The first blast furnace in the colonies ap- 
pears to have been built in 1702, by Lambert 
Despard, at the outlet of Mattakeeset pond, 
in llymouth County, Massachusetts, and a 
number more were afterward set in operation 
to work the bog ores of that district. Their 
operations are described in the " Collections 
of the Massachusetts Historical Society" for 
1804, by James Thacher, M. D., who was 
himself engaged in the manufacture. In 
Rhode Island and Providenee Plantations, 
the same kinds of ore were found and work- 
ed at about the same period. Alexander 
gives the year 1715 as the epoch of blast 
furnaces in Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsyl- 
vania. These enterprises were regarded 
with great disfavor in the mother country. 
In 1719 an act was brought forward in the 
House of Lords, forbidding the erection of 
rolling or slitting mills in the American col- 
onies, and in 1750 this was made a law. 

In Connecticut, Governor Winthrop was 
much interested in investigating the charac- 
ter of the minerals about Iladdam and Mid- 
dletown. In 1651 he obtained a license giv- 
ing him almost unlimited privileges for 
working any mines of "lead, copper, or tin, 
or any minerals; as antimony, vitriol, black 
lead, alum, salt, salt springs, or any other 



the like, 



to enjoy forever said 



mines, with the lands, woods, timber, and 
water within two or three miles of said 
And in 1661, another special grant 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



381 






was made to him of any mines he might 
discover in the neighborhood of Middletown. 
. It does not appear, however, that he derived 
any special advantage from these privileges, 
although he used to make frequent excur- 
sions to the different localities of minerals, 
especially to the Governor's Ring, a moun- 
tain in the north-west corner of East Had- 
dam, and spend three weeks at a time there 
with his servant, engaged, as told by Gover- 
nor Trumbull to President Styles, and record- 
ed in his diary, in " roasting ores, assaying 
metals, and casting gold rings." John Win- 
throp, F.R.S., grandson of Governor Win- 
throp, was evidently well acquainted with 
many localities of different ores in Connecti- 
cut, and sent to the Royal Society a consid- 
erable collection of specimens he had made. 
It is supposed that among them Hatchett 
found the mineral columbite, and detected 
the new metal which he named columbium. 
At Middletown, an argentiferous lead mine 
was worked, it is supposed, at this period, by 
the Winthrops, and the men employed were 
evidently skilful miners. When the mine 
was reopened in 1852, shafts were found 
well timbered and in good preservation, that 
bad been sunk to the depth of 120 feet, and, 
with the other workings, amounted in all to 
1,501) feet of excavation. The oldest Ameri- 
can charter for a mining company was grant- 
ed in 1709, for working the copper ores at 
Simsbury, Connecticut. Operations were 
carried on here for a number of years, the 
ore raised being shipped to England, and a 
similar mining enterprise was undertaken in 
1719, at Belleville, in New Jersey, about six 
miles from Jersey City. The products of 
the so-called Schuyler mine at this place 
amounted, before the year 1731, to 1,386 
tons of ore, all of which were shipped to 
England. At this period (1732) the Gap 
mine, in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, 
was first opened and worked for copper, and 
about the middle of the century various 
other copper mines were opened in New 
Jersey ; also, the lead mine at Southamp- 
ton, Mass., and the cobalt mine at Chatham, 
Conn. In 1734 a lead mine was success- 
fully worked in Wythe county, in south- 
western Virginia, and this is still productive. 
It is probable that, by reason of the higher 
value of copper at that period, and the lower 
price paid for labor than at present, some of 
the copper mines may have proved profit- 
able to work, though it is certain this has 
not been the case with them of late years. 



The existence of copper in the region about 
Lake Superior was known, from the reports 
of the Jesuit missionaries, in 1660, and one 
or two unsuccessful attempts were made to 
work it during the last century by parties of 
Englishmen. The lead mines of the upper 
Mississippi, discovered by Le Sueur in his ex- 
ploring voyage up the river in 1700 and 
1701, were first worked by Dubuque, a 
French miner, in 1788, upon the tract of 
land now occupied by the city in Iowa bear- 
ing his name. 

Such, in general, was the extent to which 
this branch of industry had been carried up 
to the close of the last century. The only 
coal mines worked were some on the James 
river, twelve miles above Richmond, and the 
capacity of these for adding to the wealth 
of the country was not by any means appre- 
ciated. The gold mines were entirely un- 
known, and the dependence of the country 
upon Great Britain for the supply of iron 
had so checked the development of this 
branch of manufacture, that comparatively 
nothing was known of our own resources in 
the mines of this metal. The most impor- 
tant establishments for its manufacture were 
small blast furnaces, working bog ores, and 
the bloomaries of New York and New Jer- 
sey, making bar iron direct from the rich 
magnetic ores. 

The progress of the United States in these 
branches will be traced in the succeeding 
chapters, one of which will be devoted to^ 
each of the principal metals. 



CHAPTER I. 



IRON. 



The early history of the iron manufacture 
in the American colonies has been noticed 
in the introductory remarks which precede 
this chapter. Since the year 1750 the re- 
strictions imposed upon the business by the 
mother country had limited the operations to 
the production of pig iron and castings, and 
a few blast furnaces were employed in New 
England and the middle Atlantic states. A 
considerable portion of the pig iron was ex- 
ported to Great Britain, where it was admit- 
ted free of duty, and articles of wrought 
iron and steel were returned from that coun- 
try. In 1771 the shipment of pig iron from 
the colonies amounted to 7,525 tons. By 
the sudden cessation of commercial relations 



382 



on the breaking out of the war, the country 
was thrown upon its own resources, but was 
illy prepared to meet the new and extraor- 
dinary demands for iron. The skill, experi- 
ence, and capital for this business were all 
alike 'wanting, and even the casting of can- 
non was an undertaking that few of the fur- 
nace masters were prepared to venture upon. 
The bog ores found in Plymouth county, 
Mass., together with supplies from New Jer- 
sey, sustained ten furnaces ; and in Bridge- 
water, cannon were successfully cast and bored 
by Hon. Hugh Orr, for the supply of the 
army. They were also made at Westville, 
Conn., by Mr. Elijah Backus, who welded 
together bars of iron for the purpose. The 
Continental Congress, also, was forced to 
establish and carry on works for furnishing 
iron and steel, and in the northern part of 
New Jersey, the highlands of New York, and 
the valley of the Housatonic in Connecticut, 
they found abundance of rich ores, and forests 
of the best wood for the charcoal required 
in the manufacture. At their armory at Car- 
lisle, Pa., the first trials of anthracite for manu- 
facturing purposes were made in 1775. But 
the condition of the country was little favor- 
able for the development of this branch of 
industry, and after the war, without capital, 
..a currency, or facilities of transportation, the 
iron business long continued of little more 
than local importance. The chief supplies 
were again furnished from the iron works of 
Great Britain, the establishment of which 
had in great part been owing to the restric- 
tions placed upon the development of our 
own resources; and while that country con- 
tinued to protect their own interest by pro- 
hibitory duties that for a long period exclu- 
ded all foreign competition, the iron inter- 
est of the United States languished under a 
policy that fostered rather the carrying trade 
between the two countries than the building 
up of highly important manufactories, and 
the establishment around them of perma- 
nent agricultural settlements through the 
home market they should secure. Hence it 
was that the manufacture in Great Britain 
was rapidly accelerated, improved by new 
inventions, strengthened by accumulated 
capital, and sustained by the use of mineral 
coal for fuel, almost a century before we had 
learned in the discouraging condition of the 
art, that this cheap fuel, mines of which 
were worked near Richmond in Virginia, 
before 1790, could be advantageously cm- 
ployed in the manufacture. The natural ad- 



vantages possessed by Great Britain power- 
fully co-operated with her wise legislation ; 
and as her rich deposits of iron ore and coal 
were developed in close juxtaposition, and 
in localities not far removed from the coast, 
the iron interest became so firmly established 
that no nation accessible to her ships could 
successfully engage in the samepursuit, until, 
by following the example set by Great Britain, 
its own mines and resources might be in like 
manner developed. Thus encouraged and 
supported, the iron interest of Great Britain 
has prospered at the expense of that of all 
other nations, till her annual production 
amounts to more than one-half of the seven 
millions or eight millions of tons produced 
throughout the world ; and the products of 
her mines and furnaces have, until quite re- 
cently, been better known, even in. the ex- 
treme western states, where the cost of 
" Scotch pig iron " has been more than 
doubled by the transportation, than has that 
of the rich ores of those very states. A nd 
thus it is the annual production of the Uni- 
ted States only reached 2,000,000 tons 
in 1869, notwithstanding the abundance 
and richness of her mines, both of iron ores 
and of coal, and the immense demands of 
iron for her own consumption. So great are 
the advantages she possesses in the quality 
of these essential materials in the production 
of iron, that according to the statement of 
an able writer upon this subject, who is him- 
self largely engaged in the manufacture, less 
than half the quantity of raw materials is 
required in this country to the ton of iron, 
that is required in Great Britain, " thus 
economizing labor to an enormous extent. 
In point of fact, the materials for making a 
ton of iron can be laid down in the United 
States at the furnace with less expenditure 
of human labor than in any part of the 
known world, with the possible exception of 
Scotland." ("On the Statistics and Geog- 
raphy of the Production of Iron," by Abram 
S. Hewitt, N. Y., 1856, p. 20). The tables 
presented by this writer, of the annual pro- 
duction, show striking vicissitudes in the 
trade, which is to be accounted for chiefly 
by the fluctuations in prices in the English 
market depressing or encouraging our own 
manufacture, and by the frequent changes in 
our tariff. 

"In 1810 the production of iron, en- 
tirely charcoal, was 54,000 tons. In 1820, 
in consequence of the commercial ruin which 
swept over the country just before, the busi- 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



383 



ness was in a state of comparative ruin, 
and not over 20,000 tons were produced. 



Ykar. Product. 

1828, 130,000 tons. 

1830, 165,000 " 

1832 200,000 " 

1840, 347,000 " 

1842 215,000 " 

1845, 486,000 " 

1847, 800,000 " 

1852 564,000 " 

1855, 754,178 " 

1856, 874423 " 

1857, 798,157 " 



Yeah. Product. 

1859, 840,427 tons. 

I860, 913,774 " 

1862, 787,662 " 

1863, 947,604 " 

1864 1,135,497 " 

1866, 1,860,948 " 

1867, 1,461,626 " 

1869, 1,916,641 " 

1870, 3 494,650 " 

1878, 4,132,937 " 

1880, 6,134,269 " 



There was a protective duty on iron from 
1825 to 1837, but none from 1837 to 1843. 
From 1843 to 1848 there was protection, 
but none from 1848 to 1863. The high 
protective duty was modified in 18G6, and 
since that time the protection has been more 
and more moderate as the premium on gold 
declined. The tariff of 1870 reduced the 
duty from nine to seven dollars per ton on 
pig iron, and from eight to six dollars per 
ton on scrap iron, but the amount of capi- 
tal put in the business was so large, and 
the facilities for manufacture were so great, 
that it has gone on increasing, notwith- 
standing the reduction in the tariff, till we 
are in a position to supply the greater part 
of our demand. The capital invested in 
tl.e manufacture of iron and steel in this 
country, in 1870, was $121,772,074, a very 
great advance on the previous decade. In 
1880, the capital invested was $230,971,- 
884, an increase in the decade of $109,- 
199,810, or 89.68 percent. 

Until the year 1840, charcoal had been 
the only fuel used in the manufacture of 
iron; and while it produced a metal far 
superior in quality to that made with coke, 
the great demands of the trade were for 
cheap irons, and the market was chiefly 
supplied with these from Great Britain. 
The introduction of anthracite for smelting 
iron ores, in 1840, marked a new era in 
the manufacture, though its influence was 
not sensibly felt for several years. 

MATERIALS EMPLOYED IN THE MANUFACTURE 

Before attempting to exhibit the re- 
sources of the United States for making 
iron, and the methods of conducting the 
manufacture, it is well to give some ac- 
count of the materials employed, and ex- 
plain the conditions upon which this manu- 
facture depends. Three elements are es- 
sential in the great branch of the business 
— that of producing pig iron, viz., 'ores, 
fuel to reduce them, and a suitable flux to 
a : d the process by melting with and remov- 
ing the earthy impurities of the ore in a 



freely-flowing glassy cinder. The flux is 
usually limestone, and by a wise provision, 
evidently in view of the uses to which this 
would be applied, limestone is almost uni- 
versally found conveniently near to iron 
ores; so also are stores of fuel commensu- 
rate with the abundance of the ores. 

The principal ores are hematites, mag- 
netic, and specular ores, the red oxides of 
the secondary rocks, and the carbonates. 
Probably more than three-quarters of the 
iron made in the United States is from the 
first three varieties named, and a much 
larger proportion of the English iron is 
from the last — from the magnetic and 
specular ores none. Hematites, wherever 
known, are favorite ores. They are met 
with in great irregular-shaped deposits (ap- 
parently derived from other forms in which 
the iron was distributed), intermixed with 
ochres, clays, and sands, sometimes in scat- 
tered lumps and blocks, and sometimes in 
massive ledges; they also occur in beds 
interstratified among the mica slates. 
Although the deposits are regarded as of 
limited capacity, they are often worked to 
the depth of more than 100 feet; in one 
instance, in Berks county, Penn., to 165 
feet. Mines of hematite have proved the 
most valuable mines in the United States. 
At Salisbury, in Connecticut, they have 
been worked almost uninterruptedly for 
more than 100 years, supplying the means 
for supporting an active industry in the 
country around, and enriching generation 
after generation of proprietors. The great 
group of mines at Chestnut Hill, in Colum- 
bia county, Penn., and others in Berks 
and Lehigh counties in the same state are 
of similar character, as are many of the de- 
posits in the western states, some of them 
not yet worked to any considerable extent. 
In Colorado, Utah, Montana. Oregon, and 
Washington Territory there are extensive 
deposits of hematite ores, as well as of 
magnetic and specular ores. 

The ore is a hydrated peroxide of iron, 
consisting of from 72 to 85 per cent, of per- 
oxide of iron (which corresponds to about 
50 to 60 per cent, of iron), and from 10 to 
14 per cent, of water. Silica and alumina, 
phosphoric acid, and peroxide of manganese 
are one or m< >re present in very small quant i 
ties; but the impurities are rarely such as to 
interfere with the production of very excel- 
lent iron, either for foundry or forge pur- 
poses — that is. for castings or bar iron. It is 



384 



easily and cheaply mined, and works easily 
in the blast furnace. On account of its de- 
ficiency in silica it is necessary to use a lime- 
stone containing this ingredient, that the 
elements of a glassy cinder may he provided, 
which is the first requisite in smelting iron ; 
or the same end may be more advantageously 
attained by adding a portion of magnetic 
ore, which is almost always mixed with 
silica in the form of quartz ; and these two 
ores are consequently very generally worked 
together — the hematites making two-thirds 
or three-quarters of the charge, and the mag- 
netic ores the remainder. 

Magnetic ore is the richest possible com- 
bination of iron, the proportion of which 
cannot exceed 72.4 per cent., combined with 
37.6 per cent of oxygen. It is a heavy, 
black ore, compact or in coarse crystalline 
grains, and commonly mixed with quartz 
and other minerals. It affects the magnetic 
needle, and pieces of it often support small 
bits of iron, as nails. Such ore is the load- 
stone. It is obtained of various qualities ; 
some sorts work with great difficulty in the 
blast furnace, and others are more easily 
managed and make excellent iron for any 
use ; but all do better mixed with hematite. 
The magnetic ores have been largely em- 
ployed in the ancient processes of making 
malleable iron direct from the ore in the 
open forge, the Catalan forge, etc., and at 
the present time they are so used in the 
bloomary fires. They are found in inex- 
haustible beds of all dimensions lying among 
the micaceous slates and gneiss rocks. These 
beds are sometimes so extensive that they 
appear to make up the greater part of the 
mountains in which they lie, and in common 
language the mountains are said to be all 
ore. 

Specular ore, or specular iron, is so named 
from the shining, mirror-like plates in which 
it is often found. The common ore is some- 
times red, steel gray, or iron black, and all 
these varieties are distinguished by the 
bright red color of the powder of the ore, 
which is that of peroxide of iron. Mag- 
netic ore gives a black powder, which is that 
of a less oxidized combination. The specu- 
lar ore thus contains less iron and more oxy- 
gen than the magnetic ;th" proportions of its 
ingredients are 70 parts in 100 of iron, and 
30 of oxygen. Though the difference seems 
slight, the qualities of the two ores are quite 
distinct. The peroxide makes iron fast, but 
some sorts of it produce an inferior quality 



of iron to that from the hematite and mag- 
netic ores, and better adapted for castings 
than for converting into malleable iron. The 
pure, rich ores, however, are many of them 
unsurpassed. It is found in beds of all di- 
mensions, and though in the eastern part of 
the United States they prove of limited ex- 
tent, those of Missouri and Lake Superior 
are inexhaustible. Magnetic and specular 
ores are associated together in the same dis- 
trict, and sometimes are accompanied by 
hematite beds ; and it is also the case, that 
iron districts are characterized by the preva- 
lence of one kind only of these ores, to the 
exclusion of the others. 

The red oxides of the secondary rocks 
consist, for the most part, of the red fossil- 
iferous and oolitic ores that accompany the 
so-called Clinton group of calcareous shales, 
sandstones, and argillaceous limestones of 
the upper silurian along their lines of out- 
crop in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and east- 
ern Tennessee, and from Oneida county, N. 
Y., westward past Niagara Falls, and through 
Canada even to Wisconsin. The ore is found 
in one or two bands, rarely more than one or 
two feet thick, and the sandstone strata with 
which they are associated are sometimes so 
ferruginous as to be themselves workable 
ores. The true ores arc sometimes entirely 
made up of the forms of fossil marine shells, 
the original material of which has been 
gradually replaced by peroxide of iron. The 
oolitic variety is composed of fine globular 
particles, united together like the roe of a 
fish. The ore is also found in compact 
forms, and in Wisconsin it is in the condi- 
tion of fine sand or seed. Its composition 
is very variable, and its per-centage of iron 
ranges from 40 to 60. By reason of the 
carbonate of lime diffused through some of 
the varieties, these work in the blast furnace 
very freely, and serve extremely well to mix 
with the silicious ores. 

Of the varieties of carbonate of iron, the 
only ones of practical importance in the 
United States are the silicious and argilla- 
ceous carbonates of the coal formation, and 
the similar ores of purer character found 
among the tertiary clays on the western 
shores of Chesapeake Bay. The former va- 
rieties are the chief dependence of the iron 
furnaces of Great Britain, where they abun- 
dantly occur in layers among the shales of 
the coal formation, interstratificd with the 
beds of coal — the shafts that are sunk for 
the exploration of one also penetrating beds 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



385 



of the other. The layers of ore are in flat- ' 
tened blocks, balls, and kidney-shaped lumps, 
which are picked out from the shales as the 
beds of these are excavated. The ore is 
lean, affording from 30 to 40 per cent, of 
iron ; but it is of easy reduction, and makes, 
when properly treated, iron of fair quality. 
In Pennsylvania, Ohio, western Virginia, 
Kentucky, and Tennessee, the ores occur 
with the same associations as in England ; 
but the supply is, for the most part, very pre- 
carious, and many furnaces that have de- 
pended upon them are now kept in opera- 
tion only by drawing a considerable portion 
of their supplies from the mines of Lake 
Superior, more than one thousand miles off. 
Among the horizontally stratified rocks west 
of the Alleghanies, the same bands of ore 
are traced over extensive districts, and are 
even recognized in several of the different 
states named. One of the most important 
of these bands is the buhrstone ore, so call- 
ed from a cellular, flinty accompaniment 
which usually underlies it, the whole con- 
tained in a bed of peculiar fossiliferous lime- 
stone. So much carbonate of lime is some- 
times present in the ore, that it requires no 
other flux in the blast furnace. Its percent- 
age of iron is from 25 to 35. Along the line 
of outcrop of some of the carbonates are 
found deposits of hematite ores, the result 
of superficial changes in the former, due to 
atmospheric agencies long continued. In 
southern Ohio, at Hanging Rock particularly, 
numerous furnaces have been supported by 
these ores, and have furnished much of the 
best iron produced at the west. 

The carbonates of the tertiary are found 
in blocks and lumps among the clays along 
the shores of the Chesapeake at Baltimore, 
and its vicinity. The ores are of excellent 
character, work easily in the furnace, make a 
kind of iron highly esteemed — particularly 
for the manufacture of nails — and are so 
abundant that they have long sustained a 
considerable number of furnaces. They lie 
near the surface, and are collected by exca- 
vating the clay beds and sorting out the 
balls of ore. The excavations have been 
carried <>ut in some places on the shore be- 
low the level of tide, the water being kept 
back by coffer dams and steam pumps. 

Bog ores, with which the earliest furnaces 
in the country were supplied, are now little 
Used. They are rarely found in quantities 
sufficient for running the large furnaces of 
the present day, and, moreover, make but an 



inferior, brittle quality of cast iron. They 
are chiefly found near the coast, and being 
easily dug, and also reduced to metal with 
great facility, they proved very convenient 
for temporary use before the great bodies of 
ore in the interior were reached. Some fur- 
naces are still running on these ores in the 
south-west part of New Jersey, and at Snow- 
hill, on the eastern shore of Maryland, and 
the iron they make is used to advantage in 
mixing at the great stove foundries in Albany 
and Troy with other varieties of cast iron. 
It increases the fluidity of these, and pro- 
duces with them a mixture that will flow 
into and take the forms of the minutest 
markings of the mould. 

Charcoal has been the only fuel employed 
in the manufacture of iron until anthracite 
was applied to this purpose, about the year 
1840, and still later — in the United State- — 
coke and bituminous coal. So long as wood 
continued abundant in the iron districts, it 
was preferred to the mineral fuel, as in the 
early experience of the use of the latter the 
quality of the iron it produced was inferior 
to that made from the same ores with char- 
coal, and even at the present time, most of 
the highest-priced irons are made with char- 
coal. The hard woods make the best coal, 
and after these, the yellow pine. Hemlock 
and chestnut are largely used, because of 
their abundance and cheapness. The char- 
coal furnaces are of small size compared 
with those using the denser mineral coal, 
and their capacity rarely exceeds a produc- 
tion of ten or twelve tons of pig iron in 
twenty-four hours. In 1840 they seldom 
made more than four tons a day ; the differ- 
ence is owing to larger furnaces, the use of 
hot blast, and much more efficient blowing 
machinery. The consumption of charcoal 
to the ton of iron is one hundred bushels of 
hard-wood coal at a minimum, and from this 
running up to one hundred and fifty bushels 
or more, according to the quality of the coal 
and the skill of the manager. The economy 
of the business depends, in great part, upon 
the convenience of the supplies of fuel and 
of ores, of each of which rather more than 
two tons weight are consumed to every ton 
of pig iron. As the woods are cut oft* in 
the vicinity of the furnaces, the supplies are 
gradually drawn from greater distances, till 
at last they are sometimes hauled from ten 
to fourteen miles. The furnaces near Balti- 
more have been supplied with pine wood dis- 
charged from vessels at the coaling kilns 



386 



IRON. 



close by the furnaces. Transportation of 
the fuel in such cases is a matter of second- 
ary importance. 

The mineral coals are a more certain de- 
pendence in this manufacture, and are cheap- 
ly conveyed from the mines on the great 
lines of transportation, so that furnaces may 
be placed anywhere upon these lines, with 
reference more especially to proximity of 
ores. Thus they can be grouped togeth- 
er in greater numbers than is practicable 
with charcoal furnaces. Their establishment, 
however, involves the outlay of much capital, 
for the anthracite furnaces are all built upon 
a large scale, with a capacity of producing 
from twenty to sixty tons of pig iron a day. 
This requires machinery of great power to 
furnish the immense quantities of air, 
amounting in the large stacks to fifteen tons 
or more every hour, and propel it through 
the dense column, of fifty to sixty feet in 
height, of heavy materials thatfill the furnace. 
The air actually exceeds in weight all the 
other materials introduced into the furnace, 
and its efficiency in promoting combustion 
and generating intensity of heat is greatly 
increased by the concentration to which it 
is subjected when blown in under a pressure 
of six or eight pounds to the square inch. 
It is rendered still more efficient by being 
heated to temperature sufficient to melt lead 
before it is introduced into the furnace ; and 
this demands the construction of heating 
ovens, through which the blast is forced from 
the blowing cylinders in a series of iron 
pipes, arranged so as to absorb as much as 
possible of the waste heat from the combust- 
ible gases that issue from the top of the 
stack, and are led through these ovens before 
they are finally allowed to escape. The 
weight of anthracite consumed is not far 
from double that of the iron made, and the 
ores usually exceed in weight the fuel. The 
flux is a small and cheap item, its weight 
ranging from one-eighth to one-third that of 
the oris. 

The location of furnaces with reference to 
the market for the iron is a consideration of 
no small importance, for the advantages of 
cheap material may be overbalanced by the 
difference of a few dollars in the cost of 
placing in market a product of so little value 
to the ix>n weight as pig iron. 

The following statement gave the cost of 
the different items which went to make up 
the total expense of production at the locali- 
ties named in 1859. The advance in the 



value of ores, cost of transportation, labor, 
and coal, have increased these items about 
75 per cent, since 1863. 

At different points on the Iludson river, 
anthracite furnaces are in operation, which 
are supplied with hematites from Columbia 
and Dutchess counties, N. Y., and from the 
neighboring counties in Massachusetts, at 
prices varying from $2.25 to $3.00 per ton ; 
averaging about $2.50. They also use mag- 
netic ores from Lake Champlain, and some 
from the Highlands below West Point, the 
latter costing $2.50, and the former $3.50 to 
$4.50 per ton ; the average being about 
$3.50. The quantities of these ores pur- 
chased for the ton of iron produced are 
about two tons of hematite and one of mag- 
netic ore, making the cost for the ores $6.75. 
Two tons of anthracite cost usually $9, and 
the flux for fuel about 35 cents. Actual con- 
tract prices for labor and superintendence 
have been $4 per ton. Thus the total ex- 
pense for the ton of pig iron is about $20.10 ; 
or, allowing for repairs and interest on 
capital, full $21. 

In the Lehigh valley, in Pennsylvania, 
are numerous furnaces, which are supplied 
with anthracite at the low rate of $3 per ton, 
or $6 to the ton of iron. The ores are mixed 
magnetic and hematites, averaging in the 
proportions used about $3 per ton, or, at the 
rate consumed of 2k tons, $7.50 to the ton 
of iron. Allowing the same amount — $4.35 
— for other items, as at the Hudson river 
furnaces, the total cost is $17.85; or, with 
interest and repairs, nearly $19 per ton. The 
difference is in great part made up to the 
furnaces on the Hudson by their convenience 
to the great markets of New York, Troy, and 
Albany. 

The charcoal iron made near Baltimore 
shows a higher cost of production than either 
of the above, and it is also subject to greater 
expenses of transportation to market, which 
is chiefly at the rolling mills and nail fac- 
tories of Massachusetts. Its superior quality 
causes a demand for the product and 
sustains the business. For this iron per ton 
2k tons of ore are consumed, costing $3.62& 
per ton, or $9.06 ; fuel, 3k cords at $2.50, 
$8.75 ; flux, oyster shells, 30 cts. ; labor (in- 
cluding $1.50 for charring) $2.75 ; other ex- 
penses, $2 ; total, $22.86." 

At many localities in the interior of 
Pennsylvania and Ohio, iron is made at less 
cost, but their advantages are often counter- 
balanced by additional expenses incurred in 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



387 



delivering the metal, and obtaining the pro- 
ceeds of its' sale. Increased facilities of 
transportation, however, are rapidly remov- 
ing these distinctions. At Danville, on the 
Susquehanna river, Columbia county, Penn- 
sylvania, the cost of production has been re- 
duced to an unusually low amount, by reason 
of large supplies of ore close at hand, the 
cheapness of anthracite, and the very large 
scale of the operations. Pig iron, as shown 
by the books of the company, has been made 
for $11 per ton. Its quality, however, was 
inferior, so that, with the expenses of trans- 
portation added, it could not be placed in 
the eastern markets to compete with other 
irons. Pig iron is produced more cheaply 
on the Ohio river and some of its tributaries 
than elsewhere, but there are no furnaces in 
the United States which can make a good 
article much less than $27 per ton. 

DISTRIBUTION OF THE ORES. 

The magnetic and specular ores of the 
United States are found in the belt of 
metainorphic rocks — the gneiss, quartz rock, 
mica and talcose slates,and limestones — which 
ranges along to the east of the Alleghanies, 
and spreads over the principal part of the 
New England states. It is only, however, 
in certain districts, that this belt is produc- 
tive in iron ores. The hematites belong to 
the same group, and the important districts 
of the three ores may be noticed in the or- 
der in which they are met from Canada to 
Alabama. Similar ores are also abundant 
in Missouri, and to the south of Lake 
Superior. 

New England States. — In New Hamp- 
shire magnetic and specular ores are found 
in large quantities in a high granitic hill 
called the Baldface Mountain, in the town 
of Bartlett. The locality is not conveniently 
accessible, and its remoteness from coal 
mines will probably long keep the ore, rich 
and abundant as it is, of no practical value. 
At Piermont, on the western border of the 
state, specular ore, very rich and pure, is 
also abundant, but not worked. At Fran- 
conia a small furnace, erected in 1811, was 
run many years upon magnetic ores, obtain- 
ed from a bed of moderate size, and which 
in 1824 had been worked to the depth of 
200 feet. In 1830 the iron establishments 
of this place were still objects of considerable 
interest, though from the accounts of them 
published in the American Journal of Science 
of that year, it appears that the annual pro- 



duction of the blast furnace for the preceding 
nine years had averaged only about "216 
tons of east iron in hollow ware, stoves, 
machinery, and pig iron" — a less quantity 
than is now produced in a week by some of 
the anthracite furnaces. One forge making 
bar iron direct from the ore produced forty 
tons annually, and another 100 tons, con- 
suming 550 bushels of charcoal to the ton. 
The cost of this, fortunately, was only from 
$3.75 to $4.00 per hundred bushels. A 
portion of the product was transported to 
Boston, the freight alone costing $25 per ton. 

In Vermont these ores are found in the 
metainorphic slates of the Green Mountains, 
and are worked to some extent for mixing 
with the hematite ores, which are more 
abundant, being found in many of the towns 
through the central portion of the state, from 
Canada to Massachusetts. In 1850 the 
number of blast furnaces was ten, but their 
production probably did not reach 4,000 
tons per annum, and has since dwindled 
away to a much less amount. At the same 
time there were seven furnaces in Berkshire, 
Mass., near the hematite beds that are found 
in the towns along the western line of the 
state. These had a working capacity of 
about 12,000 tons of pig iron annually, and 
this being made from excellent ores, with 
charcoal for fuel, its reputation was high and 
the prices remunerative ; but as charcoal in- 
creased in price, and the cheaper anthracite- 
made iron improved in quality, the business 
became unprofitable ; so that the extensive 
hematite beds are now chiefly valuable for 
furnishing ores to the furnaces upon the 
Hudson river, where anthracite is deliv- 
ered from the boats that have come through 
the Delaware and Hudson canal, and magnetic 
ores are brought by similar cheap conveyance 
from the mines on the west side of Lake 
( lhamplain. Through Connecticut, down the 
Housatonic valley, very extensive beds of 
hematite have supplied the sixteen furnaces 
which were in operation ten years ago. The 
great Salisbury bed has already been named. 
In the first half of the present century it 
produced from 250,000 to 300,000 tons" of 
the very best ore ; the iron from which, when 
made with cold blast, readily brought from 
$6 to $10 per ton more than the ordi- 
nary kinds Of pig iron. The Kent ore bed was 
of similar character, though not so extensive. 

New York. — Across the New York state 
line, a number of other very extensive de- 
posits of hematite supported seven blast fur- 



388 



IRON. 



naces in Columbia and Dutchess counties, 
and now furnish supplies to those along the 
Hudson river. In Putnam county, magnetic 
ores succeed the hematites, and arc devel- 
oped in considerable beds in Putnam Val- 
ley, east from Cold Spring, where they were 
worked for the supply of forges during the 
last century. These beds can again furnish 
large quantities of rich ore. On the other 
side of the river, very productive mines of 
magnetic ore have been worked near Fort 
Montgomery, six miles west from the river. 
At the Greenwood furnace, back from West 
Point, was produced the strongest cast iron 
ever tested, which, according to the report 
of the officers of the ordnance department, 
made to Congress in 1856, after being re- 
melted several times to increase its density, 
exhibited a tenacity of 45,970 lbs. to the 
square inch. The beds at Monroe, near the 
New Jersey line, are of vast extent ; but a 
small portion of the enormous quantities of 
ore in sight, however, makes the best iron. 
Mining was commenced here in 1750, and a 
furnace was built in 1751, but operations 
have never been carried on upon a scale 
commensurate with the abundance of the 
ores. In the northern counties of New 
York, near Lake Champlain, are numerous 
mines of .rich magnetic ores. Some of the 
most extensive bloomary establishments in 
the United States are supported by them in 
Clinton county, and many smaller forges are 
scattered along the course of the Ausablc 
river, where water power near some of the 
ore beds presents a favorable site. Bar iron 
is made at these establishments direct from 
the ores ; and at Keeseville nail factories are 
in operation, converting a portion of the 
iron into nails. In Essex county there are 
also many very productive mines of the same 
kind of ore, and Port Henry and its vicinity 
has furnished large quantities, not only to 
the blast furnaces that were formerly in 
operation here, but to those on the Hudson, 
and to puddling furnaces in different parts 
of the country, particularly about Boston. 
In the interior of Essex county, forty miles 
back from the lake, are the extensive mines 
of the Adirondac. The ores are rich as 
well as inexhaustible, but the remoteness of 
the locality, and the difficulty attending the 
working of them, owing to their contamina- 
tion with titanium, detract greatly from their 
importance. On the other side of the Adi- 
rondac mountains, in St. Lawrence county, 
near Lake Ontario, are found large beds of 



specular ores, which have been worked to 
some extent in several blast furnaces. They 
occur along the line of junction of the gran- 
ite and the Potsdam sandstone. The iron 
they make is inferior — suitable only for cast- 
ings. The only other ores of any importance 
in the state are the fossiliferous ores of the 
Clinton group, which are worked near Oneida 
Lake, and at several points along a narrow 
belt of country near the south shore of Lake 
Ontario. They have sustained five blast 
furnaces in this region, and are transported 
in large, quantities by canal to the anthra- 
cite furnaces at Scranton, in Pennsylvania, 
the boats returning with mineral coal for the 
furnaces near Oneida Lake. 

New Jersey. — From Orange county, in 
New York, the range of gneiss and horn- 
blende rocks, which contain the magnetic 
and specular ores, passes into New Jersey, 
and spreads over a large part of Passaic and 
Morris, and the eastern parts of Sussex and 
Warren counties. The beds of magnetic ore 
are very large and numerous, and have been 
worked to great extent, especially about 
Ringwood, Dover, Rockaway, Boonton, and 
other towns, both in blast furnaces and in 
bloomaries. At Andover, in Sussex county, 
a great body of specular ores furnished for a 
number of years the chief supplies for the 
furnaces of the Trenton Iron Company, situ- 
ated at Philipsburg, opposite the mouth of 
the Lehigh. On the range of this ore, a few 
miles to the north-east, are extensive deposits 
of Frankliniteiron ore accompanying the zinc 
ore of this region. This unusual variety 
of ore consists of peroxide of iron about 
66 per cent., oxide of zinc 17, and oxide of 
manganese 16. It is smelted at the works 
of the New Jersey Zinc Company at New- 
ark, producing annually about 2,000 tons of 
pig iron. The metal is remarkable for its 
large crystalline faces and hardness, and is 
particularly adapted for the manufacture of 
steel, as well as for producing bar iron of 
great strength. 

As the forests, which formerly supplied 
abundant fuel for the iron works of this re- 
gion, disappeared before the increasing de- 
mands, attention was directed to the inex- 
haustible sources of anthracite up the Lehigh 
valley in Pennsylvania, with which this iron 
region was connected by the Morris canal 
and the Lehigh canal ; and almost the first 
successful application of this fuel to the 
smelting of iron ores upon a large scale was 
made at Stanhope, by Mr. Edwin Post. A new 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



389 



era in the iron manufacture was thus intro- 
duced, and an immense increase in the pro- 
duction soon followed, as the charcoal fur- 
naces gave place to larger ones constructed 
for anthracite. The Lehigh valley, lying on 
the range of the iron ores toward the south- 
west, also produced large quantities of ore, 
which, however, was almost exclusively 
hematite. Hence, an interchange of ores 
has been largely carried on for furnishing 
the best mixtures to the furnaces of the two 
portions of this iron district ; and the oper- 
ations of the two must necessarily be consid- 
ered together. The annual production, in- 
cluding that of the bloomaries of New Jer- 
sey, has reached, within a few years, about 
244,000 tons of iron. But in a prosperous 
condition of the iron business this can be 
largely increased without greatly adding to 
the works already established, while the ca- 
pacity of the iron mines and supplies of fuel 
are unlimited. The proximity of this dis- 
trict to the great cities, New York and Phil- 
adelphia, adds greatly to its importance. 

Pennsylvania. — Although about one- 
half of all the iron manufactured in the 
United States is the product of the mines of 
Pennsylvania, and of the ores carried into 
the state, the comparative importance of her 
mines has been greatly overrated, and their 
large development is rather owing to the 
abundant supplies of mineral coal conveni- 
ently at hand for working the ores, and, as 
remarked by Mr. Lesley ("Iron Manufac- 
turer's Guide," p. 433), "to the energetic, 
persevering German use for a century of 
years of what ores do exist, than to any ex- 
traordinary wealth of iron of which she can 
boast. Her reputation for iron is certainly 
not derived from any actual pre-eminence of 
mineral over her sister states. New York, 
New Jersey, Virginia, and North Carolina, 
are far more liberally endowed by nature in 
this respect than she. The immense mag- 
netic deposits of New York and New Jersey 
almost disappear just after entering her lim- 
its. The brown hematite beds of her great 
valley will not seem extraordinary to one 
who has become familiar with those of New 
York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Virginia, and 
Tennessee. Her fossil ores are lean and un- 
certain compared with those of the south ; 
and the carbonate and hematized carbonate 
outcrops in and under her coal measures 
will hardly bear comparison with those of 
the grander outspread of the same forma- 
tions in Ohio, Kentucky, and western Vir- 



ginia." The principal sources of iron in the 
state are, first, the hematites of Lehigh and 
Berks counties — the range continuing pro- 
ductive through Lancaster, also on the other 
side of the intervening district of the new 
red sandstone formation. The ores are 
found in large beds in the limestone valley, 
between the South and the Kittatinny 
mountains ; those nearest the Lehigh supply 
the furnaces on that river, already amounting 
to twenty-three in operation and four more in 
course of construction, and those nearer the 
Schuylkill supply the furnaces along this 
river. The largest bed is the Moselem, in 
Berks county, six miles west-south-west from 
Kutztown. It has been very extensively 
worked, partly in open excavation and partly 
by underground mining, the workings reach- 
ing to the depth of 1 65 feet. Over 250,000 
tons a year of ore have been produced at 
a cost of from $1.30 to $1.50 per ton. 

Magnetic ores are found upon the Lehigh, 
or South Mountain, the margin on the south 
of the fertile limestone valley which contains, - 
the hematite beds. These, however, though 
large, are insufficient, the dependence of the 
great iron furnaces of the Lehigh for 
these ores being in part on the extensive 
mines of New Jersey; while the only sup- 
plies of magnetic ores to the furnaces of the 
Schuylkill and the Susquehanna are from the 
great Cornwall mines, four miles south of Leb- 
anon. An immense body of magnetic iron 
ore, associated with copper ores, has been 
worked for a long time at this place, at the 
junction of the lower silurian limestones 
and the red sandstone formation. The bed 
lies between dikes of trap, and exhibits pe- 
culiarities that distinguish it from the other 
bodies of iron ore on this range. The War- 
wick, or Jones' mine, in the south corner of 
Berks county, resembles it in some particu- 
lars. Its geological position is in the upper 
slaty layers of the Potsdam sandstone, near 
the meeting of this formation with the new 
red sandstone. Trap dikes penetrate the 
ore and the slates, and the best ore is found 
at both mines near the trap. Not far from 
York. Pa , an ore known as the Codorus Iron 
Ore has been raised for some years, but was 
regarded as almost worthless, but recent ex- 
periments have led to the discovery that it 
contains the exact ingredients necessary to 
make it the best of flu xes for reducing the 
other ores of that region to steel of excellent 
quality without any intermediate process. 
Along the Maryland line, on both Bides of the 



390 



IRON. 



Susquehanna, chrome iron has been found in 
considerable abundance in the serpentine 
rocks, and lias been largely and very profita- 
bly mined for home consumption and for ex- 
portation. It furnishes the different chrome 
pigment", and their preparation has been 
carried on chiefly at Baltimore. 

A portion of the hematites which supply 
the furnaces on the Schuylkill, occur along a 
narrow limestone belt of about a mile in 
width, that crosses the Schuylkill at Spring 
Mill, and extends north-east into Montgomery 
county, and south-west into Chester county. 
Their production has been very large, and 
that of the furnaces of the Schuylkill valley 
dependent upon these and the other mines 
of this region has been rated at 100,000 
tons of iron annually. 

The great Chestnut hill hematite ore bed, 
three and a half miles north-east of Columbia, 
Lancaster county, covers about twelve acres 
of surface, and has been worked in numer- 
ous great open excavations to about 100 feet 
in depth, the ore prevailing throughout 
among the clays and sands from top to bot- 
tom. " The floor of the mine is hard, white 
Potsdam sandstone, or the gray slaty layers 
over it. The walls show horizontal wavy 
layers of blue, yellow, and white laminated, 
unctuous clays, from forty to sixty feet deep, 
containing ore, and under these an irregular 
layer of hard concretionary, cellular, fibrous, 
brown hematite from 
ten to thirty feet 
thick down to the 
sandstone." (" Iron 
Manufacturer's 
Guide, p. 562.") In 
the accompanying 
wood-cut, the dark- 
ly shaded portions 
represent the hema- 
tites, while the light- 
er portions above are 
chiefly clays. Pro- 
fessor Rogers sup- 
poses that the ore 
has leached down 
from the upper slaty 
beds through which 
it was originally dif- 
fused, and has col- 
lected upon the im- 
pervious sandstone, 
which in this vicinity is the 
bearing stratum for the wells. 

The repeated occurrence of the lower 



silurian limestones and sandstones along the 
valleys of central Pennsylvania, from the 
Susquehanna to the base of the Alleghany 
mountain, is accompanied through these val- 
leys with numerous beds of hematite ; and 
to the supplies of ore they have furnished 
for great numbers of furnaces, is added the 
fossiliferous ore of the Clinton group, the out- 
crop of which is along the slopes of the ridges 
and around their ends. Many furnaces have 
depended upon this source of supply alone. 
As stated by Lesley, there were, in 1857, 
14 anthracite furnaces that used no other, 
and 11 anthracite furnaces which mixed it 
either with magnetic ore or hematite, or with 
both. Montour's ridge, at Danville, Colum- 
bia county, referred to on page 24, is one of 
the most remarkable localities of this ore. 
Professor Rogers estimated, in 1847, that 
there were 20 furnaces then dependent upon 
the mines of this place, and producing*innually 
an average of 3,000 tons of iron each, with 
a consumption of 9,000 tons of ore, or a 
total annual consumption of 180,000 tons. 
At this rate, he calculated that the availa- 
ble ore would be exhausted in 20 years. 

Between the Clinton group and the coal 
measures are successive formations of lime- 
stones, sandstones, shales, etc., which form a 
portion of the geological column of many thou- 
sand feet in thickness; and among these strata, 
ores like the carbonates of the coal measures 




CHESTNUT HILL MINE. 



first water 



are occasionally developed, and these are 
recognized and worked at many localities 
along the outcrop of the formations to 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



391 



which they belong. Along the summit of 
the Alleghany mountain the base of the 
coal measures is reached, which thence 
spread over the western portion of the 
state, nearly to its northern line. The ores 
which belong to this formation are chiefly 
contained among its lower members, and 
found in the outcrop of these around the 
margin of the basin. At some localities 
they have been obtained in considerable 
abundance, and many furnaces have run 
upon them alone, but they are an uncertain 
dependence. The four counties, Lehigh, 
Lebanon, Berks, and Blair raised, in 1880, 
1,014,805 tons of iron ore, and Fayette, 
York, and Lancaster, 190,636 tons more, 
making an aggregate for seven counties of 
1,205,441 tons, or more than one-seventh 
of the whole product of the year in the 
United States. 

Maryland. — The metamorphic belt 
crosses this state back of Baltimore, and is 
productive in chromic iron and copper ores, 
rather than in magnetic and specular ores. 
Some of the former, highly titaniferous, 
have been worked near the northern line 
of the state, on the west side of the Susque- 
hanna; and at Sykesville, on the Potomac, 
a furnace has been supplied with specular 
ores from its vicinity. Several hematite 
beds within twenty miles of Baltimore have 
supplied considerable quantities of ore for 
mixture with the tertiary carbonates, upon 
which the iron production of the state 
chiefly depends. Beds of these occur near 
the bay from Havre de Grace to the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. In the western part of 
the state large furnaces were built at Mount 
Savage and Lonacoming to work the ores 
of the coal formation; but the supply has 
proved insufficient to siistain them. In 
1880, the blast furnaces and bloomaries of 
the state produced nearly 111,000 tons of 
iron. 

Southern States. — South of Maryland 
the same iron belt continues through Vir- 
ginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia; and al- 
though it is often as productive in immense 
beds of the three varieties of ore — the 
magnetic, specular, and hematite — as in 
the other states along its range, these re- 
sources add comparatively little to the ma- 
terial wealth of the states to which they 
belong. Through Virginia, east and west 
of the Blue Ridge, hematite ores abound 
in the limestone valleys, and magnetic ores 
are often in convenient proximity to them. 



Many small furnaces have worked them at 
different times, but their product was 
always small. Three belts of magnetic ore, 
associated with specular iron and hema- 
tites, are traced across the midland coun- 
ties of North Carolina, and have furnished 
supplies for furnaces and forges in a num- 
ber of counties — as Lincoln, Cleveland, 
Rutherford, Stokes, Surry, Yadkin, Ca- 
tawba; and Chatham, Wake, and Orange 
counties upon the eastern belt. The belt 
of ore from Lincoln county passes into 
South Carolina, and through York, Union, 
and Spartanburg districts. It crosses the 
Broad river at the Cherokee ford, and 
though the whole belt is only half a mile 
wide, it presents numerous localities of the 
three kinds of ore, and of limestone also in 
close proximity, and finely situated for 
working. Several other localities are no- 
ticed in the "State Geological Report," by 
M. Tuomey, who remarks, on page 278, 
that "if iron is not manufactured in the 
state as successfully as elsewhere, it is cer- 
tainly not due to any deficiency in natural 
advantages." In northern Georgia the 
ferruginous belt is productive in immense 
bodies of hematite, associated with mag- 
netic and specular ores, in the Allatoona 
hills, near the Etowah river, m Cherokee 
and Cass counties. This, which appears to 
be one of the great iron districts of the 
United States, is bountifully provided with 
all the materials required in the manufac- 
ture, and traversed by a railroad which 
connects it with the bituminous coal mines 
of eastern Tennessee. In Alabama, hema- 
tites and specular ores accompany the belt 
of silurian rocks to its southern termina- 
tion, and are worked in a few bloomary 
fires and two or three blast furnaces. The 
fossiliferous ore of the Clinton group is 
also worked in this state. The production 
of the furnaces and bloomaries of Virginia. 
West Virginia, North Carolina, and ( 
gia and Alabama in iron and steel, in 1880, 
amounts to 302,000 tons, or more than 
$11,000,000. 

Tennessee in 1840 ranked as the third 
iron-producing state in the Union. The 
counties ranging along her eastern border 
produced hematite ores, continuing the 
range of the silurian belt of the great val- 
ley of Virginia; those bordering the Clinch 
river produced the fossil ore of the Clinton 
group, there known as the dyestone ore; 
and western Tennessee presented a very 



392 



IRON. 



interesting and important district of hema- 
tites belonging to the subcarboniferous 
limestone in the region lying east of the 
Tennessee and south of the Cumberland 
river.* The furnaces of this district, which 
have numbered forty-two in all, were the 
greater part of them in Dickson, Montgom- 
ery, and Stewart counties. They were all 
supplied with charcoal for fuel, at a cost of 
$4 per hundred bushels. In 1854 the pro- 
duct of pig iron was 37,918 tons; but it 
gradually declined to 27,050 tons in 1857; 
and in August, 1858, only fifteen furnaces 
were in operation. It was confidently ex- 
pected that after the close of the war, with 
her excellent ores and her extensive for- 
ests and coal beds, she would again lead 
the southwestern states in the production 
of both charcoal and coke iron, but for 
some reason she has failed to do so, and in 
1880 stood tenth in the list of iron-produc- 
ing states, making but 104,465 tons of iron 
and steel. 

Kentucky. — The western part of this 
state contains, in the counties of Calloway, 
Trigg, Lyon, Caldwell, Livingston, and 
Crittenden, an important district of hema- 
tite ores — the continuation northward of 
that of Tennesse. In 1857 ten charcoal 
furnaces produced 15,600 tons of iron. 
Eastern Kentucky, however, has a much 
more productive district in the counties of 
Carter and Greenup, which is an extension 
south of the Ohio of the Hanging Rock 
iron district of Ohio. The ores are car- 
bonates and hematite outcrops of carbon- 
ates, belonging to the coal measures and 
the subcarboniferous limestone. They are 
in great abundance; a section of 740 feet 
of strata terminating below with the lime- 
stone named, presenting no less than four- 
teen distinct beds of ore, from three inches 
to four feet each, and yielding from 25 to 
60 per cent, of iron. One bed of 32 per 
cent, iron contains also 11 per cent, bitu- 
men — a composition like that of the Scotch 
"black band" ore. Others contain so 
much lime that the ores are valuable for 



*"It iri remarkable that most of these deposits are of 
what is called pot ore, that is, hollow balls of ore, which. 
when broken open, look like broken caldrons. One of 
them, preserved by Mr. Lewis, is eight feet across the 
rim! Another is six feet across. The majority are 
crossed within by purple diaphragms or partition* of ore, 
and the interstitial spares are filled with yellow- ochre. 
Some, like the great eight-foot pot, are found to be full of 
water The inside surface is manimillary, irregular, 
Bometimee botryoidal or knobby, but the outside is pretty 
smooth and regular. All these pots were undoubtedly 
once balls of carbonates of lime and iron segregated in the 
original deposit." 



fluxing as well as for producing iron. The 
furnaces use charcoal and coke. Their 
production places this region among the 
first in importance in the United States, 
yet Kentucky, in 1880, produced but 64,- 
809 tons of iron. 

Ohio. — The ores of this state, like those 
of Kentucky, belong almost exclusively to 
the coal measures and the limestone forma- 
tions beneath. In both states some of the 
fossiliferous ore also is found, but is com- 
paratively unimportant. The productive 
beds are near the base of the coal forma- 
tion, ranging from the Hanging Rock dis- 
trict of Scioto and Lawrence counties 
northeast, through Jackson, Hocking, Ath- 
ens, Perry, Muskingum, Tuscarawas, Ma- 
honing, and Trumbull counties, to the line 
of Mercer county in Pennsylvania. The 
uncertain character of the ores, both as to 
supply and quality, is strikingly shown by 
the fact that many of the furnaces of the 
more northern counties depend for a con- 
siderable portion — one-fourth or more — of 
the ores they use upon the rich varieties 
from Lake Superior and Lake Champlain. 
Although the long transportation makes 
these ores cost nearly three times as much 
per ton as these of the coal formation, some 
furnaces find it more profitable, to use the 
former, even in the proportion of three- 
fourths, on account of the much better iron 
produced, the greater number of tons per 
day, and the less consumption of fuel to 
the ton. The fuel employed was formerly 
charcoal in most of the furnaces, but bitu- 
minous coal is now generally used. Ohio 
produced in 1880, 930,141 tons of iron and 
steel. 

Indiana and Illinois contain no impor- 
tant bodies of iron ore. The coal meas- 
ures, which cover large portions of these 
states, are productive in some small quan- 
tities of the carbonates, but the block coal 
of Indiana, and the somewhat similar coal 
of Illinois, are so excellent for smelting 
purposes that iron ores are brought from 
Missouri and Lake Superior to be smelted 
there. Indiana produced in 1880,96,117 
tons, and Illinois 417,967 tons of iron and 
steel. 

Michigan. — The iron region of this state 
is in the upper peninsula, between Green 
Bay and Lake Superior. Magnetic and 
specular ores are found throughout a large 
portion of this wild territory, in beds more 
extensive than are seen in any other part 



MIXING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATE3. 



393 



of the United States — perhaps than are 
anywhere known. The district approaches 
within twelve miles of the coast of Lake 
Superior, from which it is more conven- 
iently reached than from the south side of 
the peninsula. The ores are found in 9. 
belt of crystalline slates, of six to ten miles 
in width, that extends west from the lake 
shore, and is bounded north and south by 
a granitic district. They are developed in 
connection with great dikes and ridges of 
trap, which range east and west, and dip 
with the slates at a high angle towards the 
north. The ores also have the same direc- 
tion and dip. Localities of them are of 
frequent occurrence for eighteen miles in a 
westerly direction from the point of their 
neai'est approach to Lake Superior. A sec- 
ond range of the beds is found along the 
southern margin of the slate district; and 
about thirty miles back from the lake, 
where the slates extend south into Wiscon- 
sin, similar developments of ore accompany 
them to the Menomonee river and toward 
Green Bay. The quality of the ore found 
at different places varies according to the 
amount of quartz, jasper, hornblende, or 
feldspar that may be mixed with it: but 
enormous bodies are nearly pure ore, 
yielding from 68 to 70 per cent, of iron, 
and free from a trace even of manganese, 
sulphur, phosphorus, or titanium. A sin- 
gle ridge, traced for about six miles, rising 
to a maximum height of fifty feet above 
its base, and spreading out to a width of 
one thousand feet, has been found to con- 
sist of great longitudinal bands of ore, 
much of which is of this perfectly pure 
character. A nother ridge presents precip- 
itous walls fifty feet high, composed in part 
of pure specular ore, fine grained, of im- 
perfect slaty structure, and interspersed 
with minute crystals of magnetic oxide; 
and in part of these minute crystals alone. 
Another body of one thousand feet in 
width, and more than a mile long, forms a 
hill one hundred and eighty feet high, 
which is made up of alternate bands of 
pure, fine-grained steel-gray peroxide of 
iron, and deep red jaspery ore — the layers 
generally less than a fourth of an inch in 
thickness, and curiously contorted. Their 
appearance is very beautiful in the almost 
veit'cal walls. On one of the head branches 
of the Escanaba is a cascade of thirty-sev- 
en feet in height, the ledge over which the 
water falls being a bed of peroxide of iron, 
21 



intermixed with silicious matter. For 
the supply of the few furnaces and 
bloomary establishments already in opera- 
tion in this district, and for the larger de 
mands of distant localities, the ores are 
collected from open quarries, and from 
the loose masses lying around. A railroad 
affords the means of transporting them to 
Marquette, on the lake shore, whence they 
are shipped by vessels down the lake. The 
business already amounts to more than 
100,000 tons per annum, and is increasing 
very rapidly. "With the Bay de Noquet 
and Marquette railroad completed there 
now is a southern terminus of this road on 
Green Bay, and an outlet being opened in 
this direction, the production of iron ores 
will no doubt eventually exceed that of 
any other region in the country. Large 
quantities will be reduced with charcoal in 
blast furnaces and bloomaries in the region 
itself. Michigan produced in 1880, 
1,834,712 tons of iron ore, the greater pait 
of which was exported, but she made also 
142,716 tons of iron and steel. 

Wisconsin. — Magnetic and specular ore 
in bodies, somewhat resembling those of ' 
the region jutt described, are found in the 
extreme northern part of Wisconsin, upon 
what is known as the Penokie range, dis- 
tant about twenty-five miles from Cheg- 
womigon Bay, Lake Supeiior. Bad river 
and Montreal river drain this district. 
The ores, though remote, are likely to be 
of considerable practical importance. Other 
immense bodies of these ores, estimated to 
contain many millions of tons, are found 
on Black river, which empties into the-- 
Mississippi below St. Croix river, on the 
line of the Land Grant Branch railroad. 
Furnaces have been built to work these 
mines. In the eastern part of Wisconsin 
the oolitic ore of the Clinton group is met 
with in Dodge and Washington counties, 
and again at Depere, seven miles southeast 
of Green Bay. In the town of Hubbard, 
Dodge county, forty miles west from Lake 
Michigan, is the largest deposit of this ore 
ever discovered. It spreads in a layer ten 
feet thick over 500 acres, and is estimated 
to contain 27,000,000 tons. It is in grains, 
like sand, of glistening red color, staining 
the hands. Each grain has a minute nu- 
cleus of silex, around which the oxide of 
iron collected. The percentage of metal is 
about fifty. Wisconsin, in 1880, raised 
41,440 tons of iron ore, but she made, 



394 



IRON. 



probably from Lake Superior ores in part, 
178,935 tons of iron and steel. 

Missouri. — This state must be classed 
among the first in the abundance of its iron 
ores, though up to this time comparatively 
little has been done in the development 
of its mines. The ores are hematites, mag- 
netic, and specular, and all occur in the iso- 
lated district of silurian rocks — formations 
which almost everywhere else in the west- 
ern middle states are concealed beneath 
the more recent formations. This region 
yields more than two-thirds of the ore, and 
almost the whole of the iron and steel pro- 
duced in the state. In the counties along 
the St. Louis, Iron Mountain, and Great 
Northern railway, Prof. Swallow, the state 
geologist, reports no less than ninety local- 
ities of hematite. These are in Iron, St. 
Francis, Jefferson, Franklin, Crawford, 
Phelps, Pulaski, Marion, Greene and other 
counties. The first attempts to smelt iron 
in Missouri, and probably in any state west 
of Ohio, were made in Washington county 
in 1823 or 1824, and with the hematites of 
the locality were mixed magnetic ores from 
the Iron mountain. In Franklin county 
there is but one furnace, though on both 
sides of the Maramsc are beds of hematite 
pipe ore, which cover hundreds of acres. 
The Iron mountain district is about sixty 
miles back from the Mississippi river (the 
nearest point on which is St. Genevieve), 
and extends from the Iron mountain, in 
Iron county, to the southwestern part of 
St. Franyois county. It includes three im- 
portant localities of specular ore: the Iron 
mountain, Pilot Knob, and Shepherd moun- 
tain. The first is a hill of gentle slopes, 
228 feet high above its base, and covering 
about 500 acres — a spur of the porphyritic 
and syenitic range on the east side of Belle- 
vue valley. In its original state, as seen 
by the writer in 1841, it presented no ap- 
pearance of rock in place, its surface was 
covered with a forest of oak, the trees thriv- 
ing in a soil wholly composed of fragments 
of peroxide of iron, comminuted and 
■coarse mixed together. Loose lumps of 
the ore were scattered around on every 
side but the north, and upon the top were 
loose blocks of many tons weight each. 
Mining operations, commenced in 1845, de- 
veloped only loose ore closely packed with 
a little red clay. An Artesian well was 
afterwards sunk to the depth of 152 feet. 



It passed through the following strata in | Louis by a railroad. 



succession: iron ore and clay, 16 feet; 
sandstone, 34 feet; magnesian limestone, 74 
inches; gray sandstone, 7-J inches; "hard 
blue rock," 37 feet; "pure iron ore," 5 
feet; porphyritic rock, 7 feet; iron ore 
50 feet to the bottom. The ore appears 
to be interstratified with the silicious 
rocks with which it is associated in a simi- 
lar manner to its occurrence at the 
other localities. In quality the ore is a 
very pure peroxide ; it melts easily in the 
furnace, making a strong forge pig, well 
adapted for bar iron and steel. Two char- 
coal furnaces have been in operation for a 
number of years, and up to the close of 
1880 had produced a million tons of iron. 
The flux is obtained from the magnesian 
limestone, which spreads over the adjoin- 
ing valley in horizontal strata. 

Pilot Knob is a conical hill of 580 feet 
height above its base, situated six miles 
south of the Iron mountain. Its sides are 
steep, and present bold ledges of hard, 
slaty, silicious rock, which lie inclined at 
an angle 20° to 3t)° toward the southwest. 
Near the top the strata are more or less 
charged with the red peroxide of iron, and 
loose blocks of great size are seen scattered 
around, some of them pure ore, and some 
ore and rock mixed. At the height of 44 
feet above the base, where the horizontal 
section of the mountain is equal to an area 
of fifty-three acres, a bed of ore is exposed 
to view on the north side, which extends 
273 feet along its line of outci'op, and is 
from nineteen to twenty-four feet in thick- 
ness. Other similar beds are said to 
occur lower down the hill; and higher 
up others are met with to the very sum- 
mit. The peak of the mountain is a 
craggy knob of gray rocks of ore, rising 
sixty feet in height, and forming so con- 
spicuous an object as to have suggested the 
name by which the hill is called. The ore 
is generally of more slaty structure thin 
that of the Iron mountain. The quantity 
of very pure ore conveniently at hand is 
inexhaustible. The production of iron will 
be limited more for want of abundance of 
fuel than of ore. Charcoal, though now 
obtained in abundance, may fail or become 
too high, and bituminous coal is already 
brought from the coal mines of Missouri 
and Illinois, while the ores are also carried 
to the river to meet there the fuel. Both 
localities are already connected with St. 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



395 



Shepherd mountain, about a mile distant 
from the Pilot Knob towards the south- 
west, is composed of porphyritic rocks, 
which are penetrated with veins or dikes 
of both magnetic and specular ores. These 
run in various directions, and the ores they 
afford are of great purity. They are mined 
to work together with those of the Pilot 
Knob. The mountain covers about 800 
acres, and rises to the height of 660 feet 
above its base. Other localities of these 
ores are also known, and the occurrence of 
specular ore is reported by the state geolo- 
gists in several other counties, as Phelps, 
Crawford, Pulaski, La Clede, etc. There 
are now 22 blast furnaces, bloomaries, etc., 
in Missouri, and they produced, in 1880, 
115,558 tons of pig and rolled iron, and 
10,200 tons of steel. The state produced 
the same year 386.197 tons of iron in ore. 

In many parts of the United States and 
its territories iron is known to exist in 
great quantities. In Nebraska and Wyo- 
ming territory, near the line of the Union 
Pacific Railroad, large beds of iron ore of 
good quality are found, in proximity to 
extensive coal deposits, and these will be 
utilized for making rails of iron or steel for 
that great thoroughfare. In Kansas. Col- 
orado, and New Mexico, are beds of spec- 
ular and other ores in great profusion. 
Ores are mined and iron is made in Oregon, 
California, Utah, Wyoming, and Nebraska, 
not yet in large quantities but increasing 
with each year, and the iron is of the very 
best quality. West Virginia now ranks 
14th in the amount of ore, and 7th in the 
quantity of iron and steel produced. 

IRON MANUFACTURE. 

Iron is known in the arts chiefly in three 
forms — cast Iron, steel, and wrought iron. 
The first is a combination of metallic iron, 
with from 11 to 5 or 5i per cent, oi carbon; 
the second is metallic iron combined with 
■^ to 1^ per cent, of carbon; and the third 
is m?tallic iron, free as may be from for- 
eign substances. These differences of 
composition are accompanied with remark- 
able differences in the qualities of the 
metal, by which its usefulness is greatly 
multiplied. The three sorts arc producible 
as desired directly from the ores, and they 
are also convertible one into the other; 
so that the methods of manufacture 
are numerous, and new processes are 
continually introduced. The production 



of wrought iron direct from the rich natural 
oxides, was until modern times the only 
method of obtaining the metal. Cast iron 
was unknown until the 15th century. Rude 
nations early learned the simple method of 
separating the oxygen from the ores by heat- 
ing them in the midst of burning charcoal ; 
the effect of which is to cause the oxygen to 
unite with the carbon in the form of carbonic 
acid or carbonic oxide gas, and escape, leav- 
ing the iron free, and in a condition to be 
hammered at once into bars. The heat they 
could command in their small fires was in- 
sufficient to effect the combination of the 
iron, too, with the carbon, and produce the 
fusible compound known as cast iron. In 
modern times the great branch of the busi- 
ness is the production of pig metal or cast 
iron in blast furnaces ; and this is afterward 
remelted and cast in moulds into the forms 
required, or it is converted into wrought iron 
to serve some of the innumerable uses of 
this kind of iron, or to be changed again into 
steel. In this order the principal branches 
of the manufacture will be noticed. 

The production of pig metal in blast fur- 
naces is the most economical mode of separa- 
ting iron from its ores, especially if these are 
not extremely rich. The process requiring 
little labor, except in charging the furnaces, 
and this being done in great part by labor- 
saving machines, it can be earned on upon 
an immense scale with the employment of 
few persons, and most of those ordinary la- 
borers. The business, moreover, has been 
greatly simplified and its scale enlarged by 
the substitution of mineral coal for charcoal — 
the latter fuel, indeed, could never have been 
supplied to meet the modern demands of the 
manufacture. 

Blastfurnaces are heavy structures of stone 
work, usually in pyramidal form, built upon 
a base of 30 to 45 feet square, and from 30 
to 60 feet in height. The outer walls, con- 
structed with immense solidity and firmly 
bound together, inclose a central cavity, 
which extends from top to bottom and is 
lined with large fire brick of the most refrac- 
tory character, and specially adapted in their 
shapes to the required contour of the interior. 
The form of this cavity is circular in its hori- 
zontal section, and from the top goes on en- 
laro-in(T to the lower portion, where it begins 
to draw in by the walls changing their slope 
toward the centre. This tonus what are 
called the boshes of the furnace — the part 
which supports the great weight of the ores 



396 



IRON. 



and fuel that fill the interior. For ores that 
melt easily and fast they are made steeper 
than for those which are slowly reduced. 
The boshes open below into the hearth — the 
central contracted space which the French 
name the crucible of the furnace. The 
walls of this are constructed of the most re- 
fractory stones of large size, carefully selected 
for their power to resist the action of fire, 
and seasoned by exposure for a year or more 
after being taken from the quarry. Being 
the first portion to give out, the stack is built 
so that they can be replaced when necessary. 
The hearth is reached on each side of the 
stack by an arch, extending in from the out- 
side. On three sides the blast is introduced 
by iron pipes that pass through the hearth- 
stones, and terminate in a hollow tuyere, 
which i-< kept from melting by a current of 
wa er brought by a lead or block-tin pipe, 
and made to flow continually through and 
around its hollow shell. The fourth side is 
the front or working-arch of the furnace, at the 
bottom of which access is had to the melted 
materials as they collect in the receptacle pro- 
vided for them at the base of the hearth or 
crucible. This arch opens out into the cast- 
ing-house, upon the floor of which are the 
beds in the sand for moulding the pigs into 
which the iron is to be cast. Upon the top 
of the stack around the central cavity are 
constructed, in first-class furnaces, large flues, 
which open into this cavity for the purpose 
of taking off a portion of the heated gaseous 
mixtures, that they may be conveyed under 
the boilers, to be there more effectually con- 
sumed, and furnish the heat for raising steam 
for the engines. A portion of the gases is 
also led into a large heating-oven, usually 
built on the top of the stack, in which the 
blast (distributed through a series of cast iron 
pipes) is heated by the combustion. These 
pipes are then concentrated into one main, 
which passes down the stack and delivers the 
heated air to the tuyeres, thus returning to 
the furnace a large portion of the heat 
which would otherwise escape at the top, and 
adding powerfully to the efficiency of the 
blast by its high temperature. The boilers, 
also conveniently arranged on the top of the 
furnace, especially when two furnaces are 
constructed near together, are heated by the 
escape gases without extra expense of fuel, 
and they furnish steam to the engines, which 
are usually placed below them. On account 
of the enormous volume of air, and the 
great pressure at which it is blown into the 



furnace, the engines are of the most power- 
ful kind, and the blowing cylinders are of 
great dimensions and strength. Some of 
the large anthracite furnaces employ cylin- 
ders 7£ feet diameter, and 9 feet stroke. One 
of these running at the rate of 9 revolutions 
per minute, and its piston acting in both di- 
rections, should propel every minute 7,128 
cubic feet of air (less the loss by leakage) 
into the furnace — a much greater weight than 
that of all the other materials introduced. 
It is, moreover, driven in at a pressure (pro- 
duced by the contracted aperture of the 
nozzle of the tuyeres in relation to the great 
volume of air) of 7 or 8 lbs. upon the square 
inch. Two such cylinders answer for a pair 
of the largest furnaces, and should be driven 
by separate engines, so that in case of acci- 
dent the available power may be extended to 
either or both furnaces. It is apparent that 
the engines, too, should be of the largest class 
and most perfect construction ; for the blast 
is designed to be continued with only tem- 
porary interruptions that rarely exceed an 
hour at a time, so long as the hearth may 
remain in running order — a period, it may be, 
of 18 months, or even 4 or 5 years. Fur- 
naces were formerly built against a high bank, 
upon the top of which the stock of ore and 
coal was accumulated, and thence carried 
across a bridge, to be delivered into the 
tunnel-head or mouth of the furnace. The 
more common arrangement at present is to 
construct, a little to one side, an elevator, 
provided with two platforms of sufficient 
size to receive several barrows. The moving 
power is the weight of a body of water let 
into a reservoir under the platform when it 
is at the top. This being allowed to descend 
with the empty barrows, draws up the other 
platform with its load, and the water is dis- 
charged by a self-regulating valve at the 
bottom. The supply of water is furnished 
to a tank in the top either by pumps con- 
nected with the steam engine or by the head 
of its source. 

The furnaces of the United States, though 
not congregated together in such large num- 
bers as at some of the great establishments 
in England and Scotland, are unsurpassed in 
the perfection oftheir construction, apparatus, 
and capacity ; and none of large size are prob- 
ably worked in any part of Europe with such 
economy of materials. The Siemen's n gen- 
erating furnace is adopted in those more 
recently built, wherever an intense heat ia 
required for the reduction of the ores. 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



40] 



WROUGHT IRON. 

It has been, in the .past, a just ground of 
complaint against the producers of wroug .it 
iron and steel, that they could not reduce 
either directly from the ore — but must go 
through the long and tedious processes of first 
making pig or cast iron, then eliminating the 
carbon from the cast iron by a still more 
tedious process to produce the wrought iron, 
and then restore a part of the carbon to make 
steel. It was said with truth that the half 
civilized Hindoo tribes and even the barbar- 
ous Fans of West Africa, made their native 
wrought iron (the wootz of India) directly 
from the ore of an excellent quality, and by 
a much simpler process than was adopted 
either in Europe or the United States. 

There has been, until within the past fif- 
teen or eighteen years, a spirit strongly ad- 
verse to progress or improvement among 
iron producers. By their rude and wasteful 
processes and their adherence to traditional 
methods and tests, they succeeded in making 
a fair though not very uniform quality of 
wrought iron, at a pretty high cost, but they 
deprecated any change even if it were for 
the better. The philosophy and chemistry 
of iron-making were not well understood, 
and the time and way of its " coming to na- 
ture " a term which conveys the idea of a 
mystery, was a secret which could only be 
learned, it was thought, by some supernatural 
inspiration or some extraordinary skill, only 
to be acquired by long experience and care- 
ful observation. 

The Bessemer process, invented and put 
in practice about 1852, first disturbed this 
popular idea ; but in its earlier history this pro- 
cess was not entirely free from guess-work and 
the coming- to-nature theory by some sudden 
and unexplicable change ; subsequent discov- 
eries and experiments removed this mystery 
entirely, and there is not, to-day, in practical 
chemistry and metallurgy a more thoroughly- 
defined science than that of making iron 
The iron master, who is fully educated foi 
his business, having before him an accurat 
analysis of his ores, and knowing, as ho can 
if he will, that they are constant in their 
composition, proceeds with the utmost cer- 
tainty to add other ores, or to permeate the 
molten ore with atmospheric air, or to force 
additional oxygen through it by means of 
nitrate of soda, nitrate of potassa, peroxide 
of iron, or other oxygen-yielding compound, 
or introduces a. definite quantity of man- 



ganese, powdered charcoal, or spiegeleisen, 
or in some cases silica, to act as flux and 
remove the sulphur, phosphorus, or other im- 
purity, and to destroy the excess of carhon. 
lie knows, too, just what heat is requisite, 
and how long it must be continued to pro- 
duce a certain result every time. Here is 
no guess-work, no " rule of thumb," no un- 
certainty. If he requires the best steel for 
rails, he can furnish it of precisely standard 
quality every time ; if he is pi*oducing steel 
for the finest cutlery he can produce that; if 
he desires a wrought iron which shall be so 
tough and flexible that it can be bent double 
cold without any symptoms of flaw or crack, 
he knows just what percentage of the differ- 
ent ores, what eliminating processes, and 
what amount and duration of heat is neces* 
sary to produce it. 

Now, as in the past, there are different 
grades and qualities of cast iron, wrought 
iron, and steel, intended for different pur- 
poses, made from different ores, and possess- 
ing different degrees of tenacity, hardness, 
and ductility ; but the iron-maker who can- 
not produce from a given ore', or ores, that 
description of iron which he desires, without 
failure, does not understand his business. 

Cast iron contains, according to the pur- 
pose for which it is intended, from five to 
six and a half per cent of pure carbon, 
either chemically or mechanically combined, 
and except the combination of iron wdth hy- 
drogen, which is its normal condition, it is 
not the better for any admixture of other 
metals or elements, though for some purposes 
a small percentage of manganese, tungsten, 
or even a little silicon, are not disadvantage- 
ous. As a matter of practical fact, however, 
both sulphur and phosphorus are usually 
present, though in good samples in very 
small amount. By sufficient care they can 
be almost entirely elimin; n d, and are so in 
the I est steel and wrought iron. 

Gteel, according to the purpose tO'which 
> is to be applied, contains, in chemical com- 
nination it is believed, from six-tenths to one 
and six-tenths per cent, of carbon, and should 
have no other ingredient. Wrought iron, 
apart from its ordinary combination with 
hydrogen, should be entirely free from sul- 
phur, phosphorus, or silicon, and though for 
some purposes, a little manganese, tungsten, 
and a very small percentage of carbon may 
not prove disadvantageous, yet practically a 
pure iron is preferable to any alloy. Yet it 
is seldom actually free from impurities. 



402 



IRON. 



What is usually denominated pure iron, melti 
with great difficulty and only at a very much 
greater heat than either steel or cast i/on. 
In actual practice it is never melted, but when 
the mass attains a pasty or semi-glutinous 
condition, it is by one process or another, 
either hammered, pressed, or squeezed till 
the impurities are forced out of it. Abso- 
lutely pure iron, i. e. iron free from hydrogen 
as well as other impurities, is one of the 
rarest metals in the world, and was isolated 
completely for the fir.-t time in 1860. It is 
a white metal very ductile, and tenacious and 
so soft as to be easily cut with a knife. The 
Bessemer process for eliminating the car- 
bon both for producing wrought iron and 
steel, as now conducted, is as follows : A 
quantity of pig iron of some grade whose 
percentage of carbon is known, is melted in 
one or more reverberating furnaces, accord- 
ing to the size of the converting vessel to be 
used, which varies in capacity from five to 
twelve tons. When the metal becomes fluid, 
it is run into the converting vessel, to which 
is applied a strong blast of air, which com- 
bines with the carbon at an intense white 
heat. This is continued for about eight or 
ten minutes, until the whole of the carbon is 
consumed, when the blast is stopped. It is 
now wrought iron, requiring only to be 
squeezed or hammered to force out whatever 
impurities there may be in it. If, as is gen- 
erally the case, it is deemed desirable to 
make it into the Bessemer steel or homoge- 
neous steel or iron, as it is called on the con- 
tinent, a quantity of metal, usually a pure 
pig iron, with a known quantity of carbon, 
is melted and run into the converting vessel 
to furnish carbon in the exact proportion to 
make the quality of steel desired, and this 
combining with the refined iron gives to the 
mass all the properties and characteristics of 
steel. This process, though practically a 
very rapid one, is liable to the objection 
which held agiiinst the old processes, that 
tl>jre is a time in the process of eliminating 
the carbon from the pig iron when the mass 
of iron has just enough carbon to form good 
steel ; and that by this process that point is 
passed and the whole of the carbon expelled, 
the mass reduced to the condition of wrought 
iron, and then brought up to the condition 
of steel by the addition of a percentage of 
cast iron. This elimination and restoration 
of the carbon involves waste of time, of heat, 
' and of iron ; and hence efforts have been 



made to convert pig iron and iron ore into 
steel by a single process. 

Most of the methods proposed and abiding 
the test of actual manufacture are intended 
for the reduction of pig iron or ore to steel, 
and so come more properly under the head 
of steel ; but a few of them are equally ap- 
plicable to the production of wrought iron. 

Among these were the ingenious sugges- 
tions of a New York chemist, Prof. A. K. 
Eaton, at first applied to the malleable cast 
iron to partially decarbonize it. He pro- 
posed the use of the native carbonate of zinc 
as a flux to furnish the oxygen to consume 
the excess of carbon. The objection to this 
process was two-fold — that the zinc com- 
bined in a small proportion with the iron, — 
and that the process was too expensive to be 
successful. He afterward proposed to sub- 
stitute crude soda-ash for the zinc — a sug- 
gestion in the right direction ; for the sodium 
will combine with the sulphur and phospho- 
rus, and thus help to remove the impurities 
from the iron ; but the crude soda ash is too 
uncertain in its composition, too full of im- 
purities, and does not yield its oxygen with 
sufficient readiness to be practically the best 
flux for this purpose. 

The process of Messrs. Whelpley & Storer 
seems one of the best of the numerous Ameri- 
can processes. The oxide of carbon, i. e. 
coal gas, half or imperfectly burned, is the 
grand agent for making iron and steel from 
all the German and English furnaces, but 
the great difficulty has been to apply the 
powerful agent in such a way as to reduce 
directly from the ore without going through 
the pig iron manufacture, the wrought or 
bar iron, or steel, and free it from the impu- 
rities which exist more or less in all ores as 
well as in much of the pig iron. Messrs. 
Whelpley & Storer effect this by means of a 
machine of their own invention, which is 
really nothing less than the chemist's blow 
pipe on a grand scale. The oxide of carbon 
is generated at the moment of using it upon 
the mass of ore, by the injection of a column 
of hot air carrying an excessively fine dust 
of coal or charcoal. The ore spread out 
upon the floor of a common reverberating 
furnace receives the red hot blast, while it 
is rapidly stirred by the workman, and pure 
iron in minute grains is produced in any 
desired quantity, from 100 to 2,000 pounds 
or more at a heat. If the mass is balled up, 
squeezed, and passed through roller it w 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



403 



bar iron of superior quality. If the time of 
the process is extended one hour, or even 
less, the iron absorbs carbon from the blast 
and becomes a light sponge of steel, which 
melts in the crucible or steel puddling fur- 
nace, and is cast into ingots of sound and pure 
metal. If continued still longer larger quan- 
tities of carbon are absorbed and the mass is 
converted into cast iron. The steel and cast 
iron as well as the bar iron are of superior 
quality, and remarkable tenacity and strength. 
Steel is made in this process in e ght hours 
from crude ore to finished bar ; and bar iron 
in little more than half that time. It is re- 
quisite to the success of the process that the 
carbon should l>e pulverized to an impalpa- 
ble powder of the last degree of fineness, that 
thus infinitely subdivided and blown upon 
the mass it may carry condensed upon its 
surface nearly oxygen enough to consume 
it, and thus produce extreme rapidity, in- 
tensity, and thoroughness of combustion. 
This pulverization is effected, for the first 
time, by an ingenious machine invented by 
Messrs. Whelpley & Storer. What Messrs. 
Whelpley & Storer accomplish by their great 
blow-pipe and minute pulverization of car- 
bon, Mr. C. W. Siemens effects in an en- 
tirely different way by his regenerating fur- 
nace ; an apparatus requiring, in the first 
place, a somewhat more extensive and costly 
structure, but in the end accomplishing the 
same result of producing a rapid and intense 
heat and an atmosphere of oxide of carbon 
with a comparatively small expenditure of 
fuel. The necessity that the furnace linings 
should be almost absolutely indestructible by 
the intense heat generated makes the first 
cost of a regenerating furnace very heavy. 

There are three distinct principles em- 
bodied in the Siemens' furnace, viz : the 
application of gaseous fuel; the regeneration 
of heat by means of piles of bricks alternately 
passed over by the waste gases and by the 
atmospheric air entering the furnace before 
their combustion ; and the chemical action of 
these gases in combining with the impurities 
of the ore or the pig iron, and in modifying 
the quantity of carbon in combination with 
the iron, for the production of steel. 

The gas producer is a brick chamber of 
convenient size, say six feet wide by twelve 
long, with its front wall inclined at an angle 
of 45° to 60°, according to the nature of the 
fuel used. The inclined plane is solid about 
half way down, and below this it is con- 
structed as a grate with horizontal bars. It 



is what is called a base-burner, the openings 
for introducing the coal being on the top or 
roof of this chamber, and the air which en- 
ters through the grate effects the combustion 
of the coal at the lowest points of the cham- 
ber. The products of this combustion rise 
and are decomposed by the superposed strata 
of coal above them ; they are, moreover, 
mixed with a quantity of steam which is 
drawn in through the grate from a constant 
supply of water maintained underneath the 
latter. The steam in contact with the in- 
candescent coal also decomposes and produ- 
ces hydrogen and carbonic oxide gas, which 
are mixed with the gases produced by the 
coal direct. The whole volume of these 
gases is then conducted to the furnace itself 
by means of wrought iron pipes. The gases 
enter one of the regenerators. The regen- 
erators are chambers packed with fire-bricks, 
which are built up in walls, with interstices 
and air-spaces between them (cob-house fash- 
ion as we should say) allowing of a free pas- 
sage of gas around each brick. Each regen- 
erator consists of two adjoining chambeis of 
this kind, with air-passajres parallel to each 
other, one passage destined for the gaseous 
fuel, and the other for the supply of atmos- 
pheric air required for combustion. Each 
furnace has two such regenerators, and a 
set of valves is provided in the main passa- 
ges or flues, which permit of diiecting the 
gases from the producer to the bottom of 
either of the two regenerators. The gases 
after passing one regenerator arrive at the 
furnace, where they are mixed with the air 
drawn in at the same time, and produce a 
flame of great heat and intensity within the 
body of the furnace itself. They then pass, 
after combustion, into the second regenerator 
which forms a set of down flues for the waste 
gases, and ultimately leads them off into a 
common chimney. On their way from the 
furnace to the chimney the heated products 
of combustion raise the temperature of the 
fire-bricks, over which they pass, to a very 
high degree, and the gases are so much 
cooled that, at the base of the chimney, they 
do not produce a temperature of much more 
than 800° Fahrenheit. After a certain time 
the fire-bricks close to the furnace obtain a 
temperature almost equal to that of the fur- 
nace itself, and a gradually diminishing tem- 
perature exists in the bricks of the regenera- 
tor proportionate to their distance fiom the 
furnace. At this moment the attendant, by 
reversing the different valves of the furnace, 



404 



IRON. 



opens the heated regenerator for the entrance 
of the gaseous fuel and atmospheric air, at 
the same time connecting the other regen- 
erator with the chimney for taking off the 
products of combustion The entire current 
of gases through the furnace is thus reversed. 
The cold air from the atmosphere, and the 
comparatively cold prases from the producer, 
in passing over bricks of gradually increas- 
ing temperature as they approach the furnace 
become intensely heated, and when they are 
mixed in the furnace itself, enter into com- 
bustion uiuler the most favorable circumstan- 
ces for the production of an intense heat, often 
rising to 4000° Fahrenheit in the furnace. 
By changing the relative proportion of air 
and gas admitted through the flues, the na- 
ture of the flame may be altered at will. A 
surplus of oxygen from the introduction of 
more than half the volume of atmospheric 
air will produce an oxidizing flame, suited to 
the production of very pure bar iron. By 
the admission of a surplus of gas, on the con- 
trary, the flame can be made of a reductive 
character and used accordingly for deoxida- 
tion. 

Berard's process for making steel by gas, 
directly from pig iron, or ore, requires the 
Siemens furnace, which he constructs with 
the bottom formed into two parts each hol- 
lowed out like a dish, with a bridge between 
them, upon which the pigs introduced into 
the furnace receive a preliminary heating. 
The flame is maintained with a surplus of 
oxygen, and a quantity of pig iron is melted 
in one of the chambers or dishes. The oxi- 
dizing action of the flame decarbonizes and 
refines the pig iron, and after a certain time 
a second quantity of pigs is thrown into 
the second dish and melted there. The flame 
is now reversed in its direction ; the oxidiz- 
ing flame is made to enter at the side where 
the fresh pig is placed. In passing over this, 
and oxidizing the carbon, silicon, and other 
impurities in the iron, the flame loses its sur- 
plus oxygen, and becomes of a neutral, or at 
least only slightly oxidizing character. In 
this state it passes over the other bath of 
molten iron, now partly refined, and it con- 
tinues to act upon the impurities without at- 
tacking the iron itself. At a certain moment 
this portion of iron is completely converted 
into steel, and that part of the furnace is then 
tapped, so as to make room for a fresh charge 
of pigs in that place. After that, the current 
of gases is again reversed, the second bath 
now entering into the position previously 



taken by the first, and so the process is car- 
ried on continuously with two portions of 
iron — one freshly introduced and acted upon 
by the oxidizing flame, the other partly con- 
verted into steel and exposed to the neutral 
fiame passing away from the first. M. Be- 
lard states that by protracting his process, 
and by adding sjiiegeleisen he can remove 
sulphur and phosphorus from the iron, and 
make steel from inferior pigs. 

The Messrs. Martin of Sireuil, France, 
have, with a Siemens furnace, succeeded in 
melting with pig iron, old iron rails, wrought 
iron scrap, puddled steel, &c, in the propor- 
tion of two-thirds old rails to one-third pig 
iron, and have made from the compound an 
excellent and low-priced steel for rails. 

Mr. Siemens himself patented, in 1868, 
and has 'since that time worked, a process for 
making natural or " raw " steel directly from 
the ore by means of a modification of his 
furnace. This can only be done successfully 
it is said by the use of the purest and best 
ores. Of other processes we may mention 
that of Mr. James Henderson, an eminent 
founder, of Brooklyn, N. Y., who, using the 
Bessemer process, has improved it by charg- 
ing the blast furnace with a mixture of iron 
and manganese ores, or any of the manga- 
niferous iron ores, thus incorporating the 
indispensable manganese, and causing it to 
exert its beneficial influence in purifying and 
reflning the iron, at the beginning, instead 
of the end of the pneumatic process. 

Mr. John Heaton of Nottingham, England, 
has been successful in oxidizing and remov- 
ing the carbon and other impurities with 
great rapidity by the use of nitrate of soda 
with the molten metal in the following way : 
The " converter " consists of a large wrought 
iron pot, lined with fire clay ; into the bot- 
tom of this a suitable quantity (about 6 per 
cent, usually of the weight of the pig iron or 
ore), of crude nitrate of soda combined with 
silicious sand, is introduced, and the whole 
covered with a cast-iron perforated plate. 
The molten pig is then poured in and in 
about two minutes the reaction commences ; 
at first, brown nitrous fumes are evolved, 
and after a lapse of five or six minutes, a 
violent deflagration occurs attended with a 
loud roaring noise, and a burst from the top 
of the chimney of brilliant yellow flame, 
which, in about a minute and a half subsides 
as rapidly as it commenced. When all has 
become tranquil the converter is detached 
from the chimney and its contents emptied 







TICKETING MACHINE. 





No. 1 HAND BOLT-CUTTER. 




INDEX MILLING MACHINE. 



No. 3 SCREW MACHINE. 



The Pratt & Whitney Company, Hartford, Conn. 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITLD STATES. 



405 



upon the iron pavement of the foundry. The 
steel thus produced is pronounced by eminent 
metallurgists of excellent quality and prac- 
tically free from impurities (the sodium com- 
bining with the sulphur and phosphorus), 
and it was satisfactorily demonstrated that 
uniformity of quality was attainable. The 
pro ess is much more rapid than any other, 
but Mr. Bessemer asserts that the addition of 
the nitrate of soda makes the cost of a ton of 
steel about five dollars more than by bis 
method. Mr. Ilargreaves lias patented a 
modification of this process, combining the 
nitrate of soda with hematite ore to form a 
paste, and claims that he thus obtains addi- 
tional supply of oxygen. He states that he 
can make refined iron for puddling by the 
use of about 3 per cent, of nitrate of soda 
and six per cent, of hematite ; steel by eight 
to ten per cent, of nitrate of soda and an 
equal weight of binoxide of manganese, and 
the best quality of wrought iron. 

Mr F. Kohn, an English steel manufac- 
turer, had, in 1868, made use of the Siemens 
regenerating furnace by a new process, melt- 
ing a given quantity of the best and finest 
wrought iron in a bath of molten cast iion, 
carried to the highest heat of that furnace 
and thus making a pure steel at one heat 
without puddling or cementation. By his 
process old railroad iron, scrap iron, and .-crap 
steel, can be converted at once into steel of 
the best quality for rails. 

A Mr. Wilson, of Stockton-on-Tees, Eng- 
land, has patented a modification of the Sie- 
mens furnace which attains the same object 
with a still greater saving of fuel, by forcing 
air into the flue-bridge by a steam-jet, and 
causing it to pass into a conduit at the back 
of the furnace, and thence into the flame- 
bridge and up into a chamber from which, in 
a red-hot condition, it passes into and on to 
the incandescent fuel. By this improvement 
there is no necessity of grate-bars to the fur- 
nace, most of the fettling is saved, the steam 
from the heated water is at once decomposed 
and adds its quota to the intensity of the heat 
which burns up all the smoke and nearly all 
the cinder and slag. The saving in fuel is 
said to he about one-third over the Siemens 
furnace, and the heat is all applied directly 
to the removal of impurities and slag from 
the ores and cast iron. 

The Shoenberger Junta Works, at Pitts- 
burgh, Pa., have patented a method of mak- 
ing refined iron and steel by a new process 
which is both simple and ingenious, melting 



| in a blast furnace a quantity of crude cast 
iron of whatever quality they may have, they 
run it into a large kettle of a capacity of five 
tons and thence from it in a stream about a 
foot wide into a circular revolving trough, 
twelve inches wide and ten inches deep and 
let fall upon the molten metal from a hopper. 
pulverized iron ore, Lake Superior, Cham- 
plain, or Iron mountain, in sufficient quantity 
to cover the melted metal as fast as it is 
poured in. When the trough is full, and 
before the iron cools, it is broken up into 
slabs of suitable size for a heating furnace, 
when it is only necessary to heat it as blooms 
are heated, and put it through the machinery 
to produce the best quality of horse-shoe bars, 
or by a slight variation of the process, ex- 
cellent steel. 

Mr. David Stewart of Kittanning, Pa., has 
patented a method of freeing cast iron from 
its carbon, sulphur, phosphorus, &c, by pour- 
ing the melted metal at full heat from a 
height of perhaps thirty feet in a thin stream 
or shower upon the ground in such a way as 
that it shall receive the action of atmospheric 
air over its entire surface, or if preferred, 
through a cylinder thirty feet or more in 
height, and open at both ends, into which air 
is constantly forced. He claims to have 
tested this process very thorough^ and to be 
capable of making pure iron or steel by it 
without puddling and without retaining any 
cinder or impurities. Messrs. J. R. Bradley 
and M. D. Brown of Chicago, 111., patented 
in 1868 eight recipes of ingredients to be 
added to melted scrap or malleable iron 
which they claimed would produce in each 
case the precise kind of steel wanted, and of 
the best quality. A Mr. J. Edwin Sherman, 
formerly a blacksmiih of Bucksport, Me, but 
more recently a Government clerk at Wa?h- 
ington, D. C, is said to have hit upon a 
method of converting iron into steel of great 
simplicity and cheapness, and, in the autumn 
of 1870, went by invitation to England to lay 
his process before the lords of the Admiralty. 

Among the most remarkable discoveries 
of the present day. in relation to the manu- 
facture of iron, we must count those by which 
iron ores, hitherto regarded as worthless, have 
proved either by new processes or by mix- 
ture with other ores, or with cast iron, the 
best of all factors for producing the purest 
wrought iron and steel. Thus far there are 
two of these instances worthy of special no- 
tice. In the township of North Codorus, 
York Co., Pa., there are extensive beds of a 



406 



IRON. 



peculiar micaceous iron ore ; some of which 
were opened in 1854 or 1855, and attempts 
were made to make iron from them, but the 
ore contained but 41.5 percent, of magnetic 
iron, and its reduction, owing to its peculiar 
combination, was attended with much labor 
and no profit ; the ore beds were therefore 
abandoned. In 18G8, it was discovered by 
accident that this unpromising ore, mixed 
with cast or pig iron of ordinary quality in 
the proportion of one to five or six in a re- 
verberating furnace, produced by the ordin- 
ary puddling process, a pure steel of admira- 
ble quality and remarkably uniform in char- 
acter. Having tested this by a very great 
number of experiments the discoverers pur- 
chased the Codorus ore beds, and put up a 
puddling furnace and rolling mill at York to 
carry on the business of making steel for 
railway rails, and other purposes. The an- 
alysis of the Codorus ore, as made by the 
eminent practical chemist, Otto Worth, of 
Pittsburg, is as follows : 

Silica, 37.35 Potash, 1.87 

Alumina, 3.21 Magnetic Iron, 41.57 

Manganese, 4.45 Peroxide of Iron, 10.46 

Lime, .74 Water and Loss, .35 

100.00 
Further experiments, conducted under the 
eye of the veteran iron master, J. N. Wins- 
low, satisfied the owners of the ore that they 
could safely dispense with the puddling pro- 
cess and produce directly from the ore and 
cast iron the very best quality of steel. We 
have ourselves examined the steel and the 
wrought iron produced by this combination, 
and in every test to which it can be subject- 
ed, whether of tenacity, tensile strength, 
hardness, elasticity, or capacity of receiving 
and retaining the highest temper, it is unsur- 
passed by any steel or iron known to manu- 
facturers. Whether wrought iron and steel 
can be made without puddling from a com- 
bination of this ore with other ores of good 
quality has not yet been ascertained, but we 
believe that it will. By the processes at 
present employed, the best of steel can be 
made with the use of fifteen or twenty per 
cent, of this ore at a cost of not above $70 
or $75 per ton, and possibly lower. 

Of the other ore, found at Port Leyden, 
Lewis Co., N. Y., still more remarkable 
things are stated. The following account 
of the ores and process of reduction, made in 
the New York Tribune, is believed to be 
fully authenticated. The steel is certainly 
of excellent quality 



" The discovery of an inexhaustible bed 
of iron ore at Port Leyden, Lewis County, 
about 40 miles above Utica, a few years ago, 
tempted citizens of the latter-named place to 
invest about $500,000 in the effort to estab- 
lish the manufacture of iron there. The 
' Port Leyden Iron Works ' were a sad fail- 
ure, and the entire amount of money invested 
in them was lost, as pig iron could not be 
produced from the ore. From this impracti- 
cable ore, steel is now produced, at one fus- 
ion, by a process invented by Prof. E. L. 
Seymour, a metallurgist and chemist, who 
resides in this vicinity. The outlines of the 
process are as follows : The ore is crushed, 
in something like-an ordinary quartz-crusher, 
until it is reduced to about the fineness of 
rifle powder. It is then thrown into a re- 
volving cylinder, in which are set numer- 
ous magnets. The ore is of the kind known 
as ' magnetic' By an arrangement oi small 
brushes, the metallic particles are separated 
from the refuse, which is principally stony 
and earthy matter in the shape of fine dust. 
The application of certain chemicals and 
fusion by charcoal are the next steps in the 
process, and the immediate product is pure 
steel, ready for molding into ' ingots. Speci- 
mens of steel thus manufactured and con- 
verted into finely-tempered table cutlery, 
and other articles, and the certificate of a 
well-known cutler of Brooklyn, who made 
the articles, that it is as good steel as he ever 
worked, and adapted to all cutlery purposes, 
have been exhibited. The estimated cost of 
this steel is less than four cents. By the 
Seymour process, it is claimed that the aim 
of iron-masters and chemists for the last 200 
years is accomplished — viz : to rid iron of 
its arch enemies, sulphur and phosphorus — 
the former rendering the metal what is tech- 
nically called ' red-short,' so that it flies to 
pieces under the hammer when at a red heat, 
though it may be quite strong when cold ; 
while the least quantity of phosphorus ren- 
ders the metal ' cold-short,' making it weak 
and brittle when cold, though quite strong 
when hot. 

" The Port Leyden Works are about one- 
eighth of a mile from the railroad and the 
canal. The buildings, furnaces, etc., were 
erected several years ago at great expense ; 
and for some time there have lain in the 
forest near by nearly 100,000 bushels of 
charcoal, the overplus of what was made be- 
fore it was found that iron could not* be pro- 
duced from the ore by the old processes." 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



407 



It has recently been discovered that there 
are extensive veins of a peculiar coal, called 
blo«k coal in Indiana, which is remarkably 
adapted to the production of the best iron. 
In its constituents and its working, it is very 
nearly a pure charcoal and containing nei- 
ther sulphur nor phosphorus, it does not im- 
part to iron in the smelting process any in- 
gredient which impairs its value. These 
veins of block coal are of great thickness, 
and extend widely over the central and 
southern part of the state. It has not thus 
far been discovered in any other state. In- 
diana has no great variety of iron ores, but 
her railroad facilities present, and prospec- 
tive, for bringing the Missouri ores from 
Pilot Knob and Iron Mountain and the rich 
specular ores from the Lake Superior re- 
gion in Michigan, are such that with this 
excellent coal, her citizens can manufacture 
the finest qualities of iron and steel at con- 
siderably lower prices than they can be pro- 
duced for, elsewhere. As a consequence 
numerous furnaces were erected in 1870 
and 1871, along the line of the block coal 
veins, and many more are now going up. 
The improved process and new discoveries 
to which we have alluded, while they will 
materially reduce the cost of making steel, 
have also so far reduced the cost of mak- 
ing iron, that the reduction of ten per cent, 
on iron and iron manufactures in the new 
tariff of 1872, only stimulated the manu- 
factures, after the panic of 1873 had spent 
its force, to new exertions, and there ha; 
been an enormous increase in the produc 
tion of both iron and steel. The amoun 
of pig iron made in the U. S. in 1880 wi. 
3,781,021 tons, an increase of 84 per cent 
on 1870, and of the products of iron roll- 
ing mills in 1880 2,353,248 tons, an in- 
crease of G3 per cent, on 1870. Total iron 
produced in 1880, 6,134,269 tons, against 
3,494,650 tons in 1870. 

In 1870 the quantity of old iron rails re- 
rolled made it difficult to determine how 
many new rails were actually produced ; but 
in 1880, old rails (both iron and steel) were 
counted only as material. In that year 
708,534 tons of old iron rails were used in 
the production of 2,453,248 tons of rolled 
iron, and 466,917 tons of new iron rails 
were made; 85,653 tons of old steel rails, 
etc., were used as material, and 750,580 
tons of new steel rails were made. 
Sheet Iron. — For making sheet iron the 



bars are gradually spread out between smooth 
rolls, which are brought nearer together as 
the metal grows thinner. The Russians have 
a method of giving to sheet iron a beautifully 
polished surface, and a pliability and dura- 
bility which no other people have been able 
to imitate. All attempts that have been 
made to learn the secret of this process have 
entirely failed, and the business remains a 
monopoly with the Russians. The nearest 
imitation of this iron is produced at Pitts- 
burg, Pennsylvania, and several eastern estab- 
lishments, by what is called Wood's process. 
This consists in rolling the common sheet at 
a certain temperature while it is covered 
with linseed oil. A very fine surface is thus 
produced, but the pliability and toughness 
of the Russian iron are wanting, even though 
the sheets are often annealed in close vessels, 
and the glaze and color are also inferior. 
Sheet iron is now extensively prepared for 
roofing, and other uses requiring exposure to 
the weather, by protecting its surface with a 
coating of zinc. This application is an 
American invention, having been discovered 
in 1827, by the late Prof. John W. Revere, 
of New York. In March, 1859, he exhibited, 
at a meeting of the Lyceum of Natural His- 
tory, specimens of iron thus protected, which 
had been exposed for two years to the action 
of salt water without rusting. He recom- 
mended it as a means of protecting the iron 
fastenings of ships, and introduced the proc- 
ess into Great Britain. Sheets thus coated 
are known as galvanized iron, though the 
iron is now coated with zinc by other means 
as well as by the galvanic current. One 
method, that of Mallet, is to place the 
sheets, after they are well cleaned by acid 
and scrubbed with emery and sand, in a satu- 
rated solution of hydrochlorate of zinc and 
sulphate of ammonia; and after this in a 
bath composed of 202 parts of mercury and 
1,292 of zinc, to every ton weight of which 
a pound of potassium or sodium is added. 
The compound fuses at 680° Fahrenheit, 
and the zinc is immediately deposited upon 
the iron surface. Another method is to stir 
the sheets in a bath of melted zinc, the sur- 
face of which is covered with sal ammoniac. 
The use of heavy sheets or plates far build- 
ing purposes is also a recent application of 
iron, that adds considerably to the demand 
for the metal. The plates are stiffened by 
the fluting, or corrugating, which thev re- 
ceive in a powerful machine, and may be 
protected by a coating of zinc. Their prep- 



408 



IRON. 



aration is largely carried on in Philadel- 
phia; and in the same works a great 
variety of other articles of malleable iron, 
for domestic and other uses, are similarly 
protected with zinc, as window shutters, 
water and gas pipes, coal scuttles, chains 
for pumps, bolts for ships' use, hoop iron, 
and telegraph and other wire. 

The production of sheet iron in 1870 was 
74,753 tons; in 1880, 04,992 tons; of all 
kinds of plate iron in 1870, 284,702 tons 
were made; in 1880, there were 437,139 
tons, an increase of more than 50 per cent. 

This great increase was due to several 
causes, among which may be enumerated 
its use in the construction of coasting and 
other steamers, the large consumption of 
corrugated plate iron in the construction of 
churches, warehouses, and stores, and also 
in the construction of machines for manu- 
facturing and household uses. The 1,000,- 
000 sewing machines made in this country 
in 1880, and the hundreds of agricultural 
machines produced the same year, con- 
sumed a large quantity of plate iron; cer- 
tainly not less than 90,000 tons. 

Iron Wire. — The uses of iron wire have 
greatly increased within a few years past. 
The telegraph has created a large demand 
for it ; and with the demand the manufac- 
ture has been so much improved, especially 
in this country, that the wire has been found 
applicable to many purposes for which brass 
or copper wire was before required. It is 
prepared from small rods, which are passed 
through a succession of holes, of decreasing 
sizes, made in steel plates, the wire being 
annealed as often as may be necessary to 
prevent its becoming brittle. In this branch 
the American manufacturers have attained 
the highest perfection. The iron prepared 
from our magnetic and specular ore is un- 
equalled in the combined qualities of strength 
and flexibility, and is used almost exclusively 
for purposes in which these qualities are es- 
sential. But where stiffness combined Avith 
strength is more important, Swedish and 
Norwegian iron also are used. Much of the 
iron wire now made is almost as pliable as 
copper wire, while its strength is about 50 
per cent, greater. In Worcester, Mass., a 
large contract has been satisfactorily filled 
for No. 10 wire, one of the conditions of 
which was that the wire, when cold, might 
be tightly wound around another wire of the 
same size without cracking or becoming 
rough on the surface. Such wire is an ex- 



cellent material for ropes, and considerable 
American iron is already required for this 
use, especially for suspension bridges. Wires 
are also used for fences, and are ingeniously 
woven into ornamental patterns. The so- 
called "netting fence," thus made, can be 
rolled up like a carpet. For heavier railing 
and fences, as for the front yards of houses, 
for balconies, window guards, etc., iron bars 
and rods are now worked into ornamental 
open designs, by powerfully crimping them 
and weaving them together like wires. 

Nails. — Among the multitude of other 
important applications of malleable iron, that 
of nail making is particularly worthy of no- 
tice, as being in the machine branch of it — 
the preparation of cut nails — entirely an 
American process. Our advance in this de- 
partment is ascribed to the great demand for 
nails among us in the construction of wooden 
houses. In England, even into the present 
century, nails were wrought only by hand, 
employing a large population. In the vi- 
cinity of Birmingham it was estimated that 
60,000 persons were occupied wholly in nail 
making. Females and children, as well as 
men, worked in the shop, forging the nails 
upon anvils, from the "split iron rods" fur- 
nished for the purpose from the neighboring 
iron works. The contrast is very striking 
between their operations and those of the 
great establishments in Pennsylvania, con- 
sisting of the blast furnaces, in which the 
ores are converted into pig ; of the puddling 
furnaces, in which this is made into wrought 
iron ; of the rolling and slitting mills, by 
which the malleable iron is made into nail- 
plates ; and of the nail machines, which cut 
up the plates and turn them into nails — all 
going on consecutively under the same roof, 
and not allowing time for the iron to cool 
until it is in the finished state, and single 
establishments producing more nails than the 
greater part of the workshops of Birming- 
ham fifty years ago. Public attention was 
directed to machine-made nails as long ago 
as 1810, by a report of the secretary of the 
treasury, in which he referred to the success 
already attained in their manufacture in Mas- 
sachusetts. " Twenty years ago," he states, 
" some men, now unknown, then in ob- 
scurity, began by cutting slices out of old 
hoops, and, by a common vice gripping these 
pieces, headed them with several strokes of 
the hammer. By progressive improvements, 
slitting mills were built, and the shears and 
the heading tools were perfected, yet much 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



411 



labor and expense were requisite to make 
nails. In a little time, Jacob Perkins, Jona- 
than Ellis, and a few others, put into execu- 
tion the thought of cutting and of heading 
nails by water; but being more intent upon 
their machinery than upon their pecuniary 
affairs, they were unable to prosecute the 
business. At different times other men have 
spent fortunes in improvements, and it may 
be said with truth that more than a million 
of dollars have been expended ; but at length 
these joint efforts are crowned with com- 
plete success, and we are now able to manu- 
facture, at about one-third of the expense 
that wrought nails can be manufactured for, 
nails which are superior to them for at least 
three-fourths of the purposes to which nails 
are applied, and for most of those purposes 
they are full as good. The machines made 
use of by Odiorne, those invented by Jona- 
than Ellis, and a few others, present very 
fine specimens of American genius." The 
report then describes the peculiar character 
of the cut nail — that it was used by northern 
carpenters without their having to bore a 
hole to prevent its splitting the wood ; that 
it would penetrate harder wood than the 
wrought nail, etc. At that time, it states, 
there were twelve rolling and slitting mills 
in Massachusetts, chiefly employed in rolling 
nail plates, making nail rods, hoops, tires, 
sheet iron, and copper, and turning out about 
3,500 tons, of which about 2,400 tons were 
cut up into nails and brads. That State 
still leads in this manufacture, having in 
1870, 49 out of 142 establishments in the 
whole country, more than one-fourth of the 
capital and more than one-fifth of the an- 
nual products. The smaller establishments 
are gradually going out of the business, 
and this is becoming more concentrated in 
the coal and iron regions, thus saving the 
cost of transportation in these heavy ar- 
ticles. The manufacturers of New Eng- 
land, however, ingeniously divert a part of 
their operations to the production of 
smaller articles, with which the cost of 
transportation is a less item in proportion 
to their value, such as tacks, rivets, screws, 
butts, wire, and numerous finished articles, 
the value of which consists more in the 
labor performed upon them and in the use 
of ingenious machinery than in the cost of 
the crude materials employed. 

The statistics of the nail, spike, tack, and 
brad business in 1880 have not yet been, 
published, but in 1870 there were 142 es- 



tablishments, of which 119 were confined 
to nails and tacks alone. These nail mills 
employed 7,7 70 hands, of whom G,062 
were men, 381 women, 1,327 children; the 
capital used was $9,091,912. They used 
about 250,000 tons of wrought iron, and 
other material valued in all at $18,792,383; 
paid wages to the amount of $3, 9G 1,1 72, 
and produced goods to the annual value of 
$24,823,996. Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, 
New York, West Virginia, New Jersey, 
and Ohio were the only States largely en- 
gaged in the business. The weight of cut 
nails produced in 1880 was 252,830 tons, 
or 5,056,600 kegs. The demand for the 
larger sizes has greatly diminished bolts of 
iron, bronze or copper having been substi- 
tuted for them, and being safer from the 
readiness with which they are riveted. 
A great variety of machines have been 
devised for nail making, very ingenious in 
their designs, and all too complicated for 
description. The iron is rolled out into bars 
for this manufacture, of 10 or 12 feet in 
length, and wide enough to make three or 
more strips, each one of which is as wide as 
the length of the nail it is to make. The 
cutting of these strips from the wider bars 
is the special work of the slitting mill, which 
is, in fact, but a branch of the rolling opera- 
tion, and carried on in conjunction with it. 
The slitting machine consists of a pair of 
rolls, one above the other, each having 5 or 
6 steel disks upon its axis, set as far apart as 
the width required for the nail-rod. Those 
upon one roll interlock with those upon the 
other, so that when the wide bar is intro- 
duced it is pressed into the grooves above 
and below, and cut into as many strips as 
there are spaces between the disks. This 
work is done with wonderful rapidity, several 
bars being passed through at once. In the 
nail factory each nail-making machine works 
upon one of these strips, or nail-rods, at a 
time, first clipping off a piece from the end 
presented to it, and immediately another, as 
the flat rod is turned over and the end is 
again presented to the cutter. The reason 
of turning it over for each successive cut is 
because the piece cut off for the nail is 
tapering, in order to make it a little wider 
at the end intended for the head than at the 
other, and thus, making the wider cut on al- 
ternate sides of the rod, this is regularly 
worked up into pieces of the proper shape. 
In the older operations a workman always 
sat in front of each machine, holding the 



412 



IRON. 



rod and turning it over with every clip ; but 
by a modern improvement this work is also 
done by mechanical contrivance. Each 
piece, as fast as it is clipped off, disappears 
in the machine. There it is seized between 
powerful jaws, and the head is pressed up 
from the large end by the short, powerful 
motion imparted to the piece of apparatus 
called the header. As it is released, it slides 
down and drops upon the floor, or in a vessel 
placed to receive the nails. 

Machinery has been applied in the United 
States to the manufacture of horse-shoe nails, 
according to a number of patented plans. 
Of these, the most successful is probably that 
invented about the year 1848, by Mr. L. Gr. 
Reynolds, of Providence ; also the inventor 
of the solid-headed pin. The form of this 
nail could not be given as in ordinary cut 
nails by the cutter, but the sides required to 
be pressed as well as the head. This in- 
volved the use of movable plates of suitable 
figure ; and as it was found that the nails 
could not be shaped except when the metal 
was softened by heat, the plates must neces- 
sarily be of the hardest steel, and protected 
as effectually as possible from the effects of 
constant working of heated iron. These 
difficulties were fully overcome, and the 
nails, after being turned out, were toughened 
by annealing, giving them all the excellent 
qualities of hand-made nails, with the ad- 
vantage of perfect uniformity of size, so that 
one nail answers as well as another for the 
holes in the horse-shoes. They are, more- 
over, made with great rapidity, each machine 
producing half a ton of nails in 12 hours. 
The process has been taken to Europe, and 
is there in successful operation. Spikes, also, 
have been made and headed in similar ma- 
chines ; and among all small articles in iron, 
none, perhaps, has proved so profitable to 
the inventor as the hook-headed spike, used 
for holding down, by its projecting head, the 
edge of the iron rails to the sill. This was 
the invention of Mr. Henry Burden, of Troy, 
whose machines for wrought-iron spikes and 
for horse-shoes have also proved very success- 
ful. By the latter, perfect shoes arc turned 
out at the rate of 60- in a minute. This proc- 
ess has been introduced in most of the 
European countries. 



As already remarked, steel differs in com- 
position from metallic iron only by contain- 
ing from h to l£ per cent, of carbon, and 



from cast-iron by the latter containing a 
larger proportion of carbon, which may 
amount to 5.5 per cent. To readily convert 
these varieties into each other is an object 
of no small importance, for their properties 
are so entirely distinct, that they really serve 
the purposes of three different metals. Steel 
is particularly valuable for its extreme hard- 
ness, fine grain, and compact texture, which 
admits of its receiving a high polish. It is 
the most elastic of metals, and much less 
liable to rust than iron. It has the peculiar 
property of assuming different degrees of 
hardness, according to the rapidity with 
which it is chilled when heated ; and it may 
be melted and run into moulds like cast iron, 
and the ingots thus prepared may be ham- 
mered, rolled, and forged into shapes like 
wrought iron ; and these may finally be tem- 
pered to any degree of hardness desired. 
Differing so little in composition from me- 
tallic iron and from cast iron, and being 
so universally in demand for a multitude of 
uses, it would seem that it ought to be pro- 
duced as cheaply as one or the other of the 
varieties, between which its composition 
places it. But this is far from being the 
case. While pig iron is worth only $23 to 
$30 per ton, and bar iron $46 to $76, steel 
rails are worth from $60 to $88 per ton, 
and steel bars or ingots from $150 to $2 CO 
per ton. This is chiefly owing to the diffi- 
culty of procuring in large quantities steel 
of uniform character, which the consumers 
of the article can purchase with perfect 
confidence that it is what they require and 
have been accustomed to use. The Eng- 
lish, though producing themselves little or 
no iron fit for making alone the best steel, 
imported enough of the Swedish and Nor- 
wegian bar iron to insure a good quality, 
and were especially cautious to render this 
as uniform as possible. Of late years, 
however, their ingot has not been supe- 
rior to the American. Their method of 
manufacture is to introduce carbon into the 
wrought iron by what is called the cementing 
process. On the continent of Europe steel 
is made to some extent, in Silesia and Stvria, 
by removing from cast iron enough of its 
carbon to leave the proper proportion for 
steel, and then melting the product and cast- 
ing it into ingot moulds. But this cheaper 
method does not appear to have been taken 
up in Great Britain. In the United States 
several processes are in operation, two of 
which are peculiarly American. The ce- 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



413 



menting method, as conducted in England, 
has been longest known, and will be first de- 
scribed. The cementing furnace is a sort of 
oven, furnished with troughs or shelves, upon 
which charcoal dust is laid for receiving the 
bars. These are placed edgewise in the 
charcoal, half an inch apart, and the spaces 
are filled in with more sifted coal. Enough 
is added to cover the bars, and upon this a 
second tier is laid in the same way, and so 
on till the trough is filled with several tons 
of iron, all of which is perfectly excluded 
from the air. The trough being secured 
with others in the oven, a fire is started 
under them. In about six days the bars 
have absorbed enough carbon to acquire the 
properties of the softer kinds of steel, such 
as are used for saws and springs. In a day 
or two longer it answers for cutting instru- 
ments, and some time after this it gains in 
hardness, so as to be fitted for cold chisels, 
for drills such as miners use, etc. Its 
character is ascertained at any time by 
drawing out one of the bars. After the 
change is effected the fire is extinguished, 
and about a week is allowed for the furnace 
and its contents to cool. When at last the 
bars are obtained, their surface is found to be 
covered with blisters, whence the steel is 
called blistered steel. The fibrous texture 
of the iron has given place to a granular 
structure, but is so irregular and uneven that 
the metal requires further treatment to per- 
fect it. To make the English shear-steel, so 
called from its being originally employed for 
shears used in sheep-shearing, the bars are 
cut into lengths of a foot and a half, and 
a number of these are bound together to 
make a faggot. This is brought to a weld- 
ing heat, and drawn down first under a forge- 
hammer, and then under the tilt-hammer. 
This weighs from 150 to 200 pounds, and 
strikes from 150 to 360 strokes a minute. 
The rapidity of the work keeps the steel at 
a glowing heat, and it is soon fashioned into 
a dense bar of smooth surface, susceptible 
of a polish, and suited for the manufacture 
of cutting instruments. Sometimes it is cut 
into pieces to be refaggotcd, and drawn down 
again into bars, which are then called double- 
shear. 

Cast steel is a still more dense and perfect 
variety. It is prepared by melting, in large 
crucibles, blistered steel broken into small 
pieces, and pouring the metal into moulds. 
These are then worked into shapes by the 
forge hammer and the rolls. 



One of the most approved American 
methods of making steel was discovered 
by Prof. A. K. Eaton, of New York, before 
1850, and was practically demonstrated 
by him in Rochester and its vicinity 
in 1851 and 1852. This consisted in car- 
bonizing and melting malleable iron in cruci- 
bles at one operation, by introducing into the 
pot with the pieces of iron a carbonaceous salt, 
such as the ferro-cyanidc of potassium, either 
alone or in combination with charcoal powder. 
At an intense heat this salt rapidly carbon- 
izes the iron, which thus first becomes steel, 
then fuses, and is poured into moulds. The 
quantity of the salt employed is proportional 
to the quantity of the iron and the quality 
of the steel required. The operation is suc- 
cessfully carried on in different establish- 
ments in New Jersey, New York, and Penn- 
sylvania, and cast steel of the very best 
quality is produced at less expense than the 
article has ever before cost in this country. 
For bar steel, according to the prospectus of 
the company, the best charcoal-made iron is 
employed, costing $85 per ton, and this, to- 
gether with the coal used for fuel, the chem- 
ical materials, the melting, crucibles, and 
hammering, make the whole cost about $142 
per ton, while that of the imported article is 
#300 or more. The great difficulty in the 
process is to obtain suitable crucibles for 
withstanding the intense heat required to 
melt the charge of 60 lbs. of malleable iron. 
Those in use are blue-pots, costing §1.60 
each. Though made of the best of plum- 
bago, they stand only two or three meltings. 

The other process, which was introduced 
into practice in 1 859, is based upon the prop- 
erty of carbonate of soda to remove from cast 
iron the carbon it contains, when the metal is 
kept for a few hours in a bath of the melted 
alkali. The decarbonizing effect is in part due 
to the action of the oxygen of the alkaline 
base, which is given up to the carbon of highly 
heated cast iron, but principally to the decom- 
position of the combined carbonic acid, which 
gives to the carbon one of its atoms < >f oxygen, 
and is resolved into carbonic oxide. This prop- 
erty of soda was discovered by Prof. Eaton in 
1856, but the fact that the carbonated or bi- 
carbonated alkalies act principally by virtue 
of their carbonic acid, was only recently rec- 
ognized and made practically available l»y 
him. The action of soda or its carbonates is 
not limited to the removal of the excess of 
carbon in cast iron. It combines with and 
removes those impurities which would prove 



414 



IRON. 



fatal to the quality of the steel if remain- 
ing in it, as sulphur, phosphorous, arid sili- 
con; and the method thus admits of the 
use of crude irons, such as could never be 
applied to this manufacture by any other 
mode. The cast iron, in the form of thin 
plates, having been kept at a bright red 
heat in the bath of melted carbonate for a 
sufficient time, which is determined by 
occasionally taking out and testing some of 
the pieces, is transferred to the crucible, 
and is then melted and poured into moulds, 
as in the ordinary method of making cast 
steel. The crucibles endure much longer 
than when employed for melting wrought 
iron in the carbonizing process; thus a 
great saving is effected in the expense of 
the conversion; and this economy is still 
further increased by the use of 'a crude ma- 
terial, costing only from $6 to $10 per 
ton, in place of the superior qualities of 
wrought iron, worth S85 per ton. So 
great, indeed, is the saving, that the cost 
of the cast steel, when obtained in ingots, 
is found not to exceed the cost of the mal- 



leable iron employed in the other process. 
Later processes have effected these results 
still more successfully. 

Statistics. — The records of the produc- 
tion of iron of the United States are very 
incomplete up to the year 1854. Even the 
census returns are highly defective, as they 
often make no distinction between iron 
made from the ore and the products of the 
secondary operations of remelting and 
puddling. The first systematic attempts 
to obtain complete accounts of the business, 
as conducted in Pennsylvania, were made 
in 1850 by the Association of Iron Manu- 
facturers, organized in Philadelphia. Mr. 
Charles E. Smith collected the returns, and 
published them in a small volume, together 
with other papers relating to the manu- 
facture. The published statistics of 1856 
are the first which were at all full or com- 
plete; since that time there have been more 
frequent reports; those of 1873 and 1880 
being especially complete. We give the 
three reports of these years, to show the 
progress which has been made in 24 years. 



1856. 


Blast Furnaces. 


to 
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o 

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204 


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2 
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189 


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19 

2 

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4 
13 
12 

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1873. 

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Furnaces. 


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1880. 


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States. 


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1 

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1 

7 

14 

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6 

143 

21 
39 

3 

4 

7 

3 

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41 

2 

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Massachusetts.. 

Connecticut. . .. 

New Jersey 

Pennsylvania.. . 

Maryl'd & D. C 

West Virginia.. 
North Carolina. 


'i 

36 
13 
139 

4 
1 

1 
3 

2C8 


74 
4 
2 

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3 
51 

8 
10 

3 

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167 


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2 

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700 

290 

191 

6,513 

275 

685 

11,444 

4,792 

57.9.12 

867 

2.781 

2,522 

4,121 

63 


$141,494 

127.690 

50.035 

2,576.539 

130,969 

881.184 

4.099.451 

1,808,448 

25.095 850 

844,476 

912.618 

065,432 

1,541.816 

7,907 


Georgia 

Tennessee 

Ohio 

Indiana 

Michigan 

Utah T 


1.303 
1,686 

8.077 

4.095 

20,071 

2,048 

6,258 

3,089 

2,153 

180 

3.139 

260 

680 

140 


186.489 

571,713 
. 659,773 
1,344.4(0 
8,265,070 

2,508,718 
922.597 
1,004.931 
25 275 
734,575 
46,822 
166,500 
27,720 


125 
319 
100 
184 


7,000 
177,722 
50,000 
79.650 




37 


47 


339 ! 51 


10 


1,005 


140.978 


$55,476,785 







CASTING PIG IKON. 




BLAST FURNACE. 



CASTING STEEL INGOTS. 



I 



MINING INDUSTRIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



417 



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418 



IRON. 



Foundry pig 302,154 tons a $27, $8,158,158 

Foundry cold-blast ) 

charcoal iron for 1 35,000 " a 35, 1.225,000 

car wheels, &c. . . . ) 

Rails 142,555 " a 63, 8,980,965 

Boiler and sheet.... 38,639 " a 120, 4,636,680 

Nails 81,462 " a 84, 6,842,808 

B band 0d ' hOOP ' and | 235 ' 425 " ° 65,15,302,625 
Hammered iron 21,000 " a 125, 2,625,000 

Total $47,771,236 

Mr. Smith presents the following conclu- 
sion to the " Statistical Report of the Iron 
Manufacture:" "The great facts demon- 
strated are, that we have nearly 1,200 effi- 
cient works in the Union ; that these pro- 
duce annually about 850,000 tons of iron, 
the value of which in an ordinary year is 
$50,000,000 ; of this amount the portion 
expended for labor alone is about $35,000,- 
000." 

The following table gives the different 
kinds of pig metal and the total amount pro- 
duced in each year since 1856 : 





Tons 


Tons raw 


Tons 






Anthracite 


Bituminous 


Charcoal 




TEAR. 


Pig Iron. 


Coal and Coke 
Pig Iron. 


Pig Iron. 


Total. 


1857. 


390,385 


77,451 


330.321 


798,157 


1858, 


361.430 


58,351 


285,313 


705.095 


1859, 


471,745 


84,841 


284,041 


840,627 


1860, 


519,211 


122,228 


278,331 


919,770 


1861, 


409.229 


127,037 


185,278 


731,544 


" 1862, 


470,315 


130,687 


186,660 


787,662 


1863, 


577,638 


157,961 


212,005 


947.604 


.1*4, 


684,018 


209.626 


241,853 


1,135.497 


1-6 >, 


479,588 


189,682 


262,342 


831,282 


H68, 


749,367 


286,996 


332.280 


1,350,943 


1-67, 


79*. 638 


31s. 617 


344.311 


1,461,626 


186-1, 


893,000 


340.11(10 


370.000 


1.603,000 


1619, 


971.150 


553,341 


392,150 


1,916,611 


WO, 


940,500 


550,000 


360.000 


1,850,00(1 


0871, 


875,999 


650,000 


375,000 


1,900.000 



The manufacture of iron rails has existed 
for nearly twenty-five years in the United 
• States, but has only assumed any great mag- 
nitude since 18i4. The annual production 
of American rails since 1861 has been : 1861, 
189,818 tons; 1862, 213.912; 1863, 275,- 
768; 1864,335,369; 1865, 356,292 ; 1866, 
430,778; 1867, 462,108; 1868, 506,711; 
1*69. 593,586 ; 1870, 62'>,000 ; 1871, 722,- 
•000 tons. In the la4 named year, 572,386 
ton- were imported from Great Britain. 

The census of 1860 gives the following 
statistics of the iron production and manu- 
facture of that year. There had been very 
little progress in the production of iron in 
the country for several years previous, in 
consequence of the very low rate of duty at 
which foreign railroad and other iron was 
.admitted. 

Iron blooms, valued at $2,623,178 

Pig iron 20,870,120 

Ear, sheet and railroad iron.. 31,888,705 



Iron wire 1.643,857 

Iron forgings 1,907,460 

Car wheels 2,083,350 

Iron castings of all kinds 36,132,033 

$97,148,705 



The opening of the war, in 1861, gave an 
extraordinary impetus to iron production 
and manufacture. The tariff and other 
causes reduced the importation to a mini- 
mum,' while the demand for iron for the 
fabrication of small arms and cannon ; for 
the construction of the large fleet of iron- 
clads, and for the other war vessels ; for the 
building of locomotives, the casting of car 
wheels and furnishing the vast quantity of 
railroad iron needed to repair the old tracks 
destroyed by the contending armies, and to 
lay the tracks of new roads, extended the 
business vastly beyond all former precedent ; 
and the requirement that the Pacific railroad 
and its branches shall be constructed solely 
of American iron, as well as the increase in 
its use for buildings, and for shipping, have 
maintained it in a prosperous condition. 

The manufacture of steel and the other 
manufactures of iron, aside from those al- 
ready enumerated, brought the aggregate 
production and manufacture of iron and 
steel, in 1860, up to $285,S79,510. The 
revenue tax paid on iron and steel manufac- 
tures in 1864 indicates that the product of 
the branches taxed amounted to about 
$123,000,000. This estimate was far below 
the production, as many branches were not 
taxed, and the returns of that year were im- 
perfect. The production and manufacture of 
1865 were not less than400 millions of dollars. 

There is every reason to expect that the 
development of the iron mines will be 
pushed forward with constantly increasing 
energy, and that the time is not far distant 
when many of the great repositories of 
ores we have described — now almost un- 
touched — will be the seats of an active in- 
dustry and centres of a thriving popula- 
tion, supported by the home markets they 
will create. The great valley of the west, 
when it becomes intersected in every 
direction with the vast system of railroads, 
of which the present lines form but little 
more than outlines, will itself require more 
iron than the world now produces, and the 
transportation of large portions of this 
from the great iron regions of northern 
Michigan, Wisconsin, Oregon, and Utah, 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



419 



and of coal back to the mines, will sustain 
larger lines of transportation than have 
ever yet been employed in conveying to 
their markets the most important products 
of the country. The importation of for- 
eign iron — already falling off in propor- 
tion to the increased consumption — must, 
before many years, almost cease, and be 
succeeded by exports for the supplies of 
other nations less bountifully provided for 
than the United States and Great Britain. 



CHAPTER II. 

COPPER. 

The early attempts to work copper mines 
in the United States have already been al- 
luded to in the introductory remarks to the 
department of this work relating to mining 
industry. The ores of this metal are widely 
distributed throughout the country, and in 
almost every one of the states have been 
found in quantities that encouraged their ex- 
ploration — in the great majority of cases to 
the loss of those interested. The metal is 
met with in all the New England states, but 
only those localities need be named which 
have at times been looked upon as important. 

Copper occurs in a native or metallic state, 
and also in a variety of ores, or combi- 
nations of the metal with other substances. 
In these forms the metallic appearance is 
lost, and the metal is obtained by different 
metallurgical operations, an account of some 
of which will be presented in the course of 
this chapter. Until the discover}' of the 
Lake Superior mines, native copper, from its 
scarcity, was regarded rather as a curiosity 
than as an important source of supply. The 
workable ores were chiefly pyritous copper, 
vitreous copper, variegated copper, the red 
oxide, the green carbonate or malachite, and 
chrysocolla. The first named, though con- 
taining the least proportion of copper, has 
furnished more of the metal than all the 
other ores together, and is the chief depen- 
dence of most of the mines. It is a double 
sulphuret of copper and iron, of bright yel- 
low color, and consists, when pure, of about 
34 per cent, of copper, 35 of sulphur, and 
30 of iron. But the ore is always inter- 
mixed with quartz or other earthy minerals, 
by which its richness is greatly reduced. As 
brought out from the mine it may not con- 
tain more than 1 per cent, of copper, and 
when freed as far as practicable from foreign 



substances by the mechanical processes of 
assorting, crushing, washing, jigging, etc., 
and brought up to a percentage of 6 or V of 
copper, it is in Cornwall a merchantable ore, 
and the mine producing in large quantity the 
poor material from which it is obtained may 
be a profitable one. Vitreous copper, known 
also as copper glance, and sulphuret of cop- 
per, is a lead gray ore, very soft, and con- 
tains 79.8 per cent, of copper, united with 
20.2 per cent, of sulphur. It is not often 
found in large quantity. Variegated or pur- 
ple copper is distinguished by its various 
shades of color and brittle texture. It yields, 
when pure, from 56 to 63 per cent, of copper, 
21 to 28 of sulphur, and 7 to 14 of iron. 
The red oxide is a beautiful ore of ruby red 
color, and consists of 88.8 per cent, of cop- 
per and 11.2 per cent, of oxygen. It is 
rarely found in sufficient quantity to add 
much to the products of the mines. Green 
malachite is a highly ornamental stone, of 
richly variegated shades of green, famous as 
the material of costly vases, tables, etc., man- 
ufactured in Siberia for the Russian govern- 
ment. It is always met with in copper 
mines, especially near the surface, but rarely 
in large or handsome masses. It consists 
of copper 57.5, oxygen 14.4, carbonic acid 
19.9, and water 8.2 per cent. Chrysocolla 
is a combination of oxide of copper and 
silica, of greenish shades, and is met with as 
an incrustation upon other copper ores. It 
often closely resembles the malachite in ap- 
pearance. It contains about 36 per cent, of 
copper. 

The first mines worked in the United 
States were peculiar for the rich character 
of their ores. These were, in great part, 
vitreous and variegated copper, with some 
malachite, and were found in beds, strings, 
and bunches in the red sandstone formation, 
especially along its line of contact with the 
gneiss and granitic rocks in Connecticut, and 
with the trap rocks in New Jersey. The 
mine at Simsbury, in Connecticut, furnished 
a considerable amount of such ores from the 
year 1709 till it was purchased, about the 
middle of the last century, by the state, 
from which time it was occupied for sixty 
years as a prison, and worked by the con- 
victs ; not, however, to much profit. In 
1830 it came into possession of a company, 
but was only worked for a short time after- 
ward. On the same geological nange, but 
lying chiefly in the gneiss rocks, the most 
productive of these mines was opened in 



420 



COPPER. 



1836, in Bristol, Conn. It was vigorously 
worked from 1847 to 1857, and produced 
larger amounts of rich vitreous and pyrit- 
ous ores than have been obtained from any 
other mine in the United States. No ex- 
pense was spared in prosecuting the min- 
ing, and in furnishing efficient machinery 
for dressing the ores. Although 1,800 
tons of ore, producing over $200,000, 
were sent to market, the ore yielding from 
18 to 50 per cent, of copper, the mine 
proved a losing affair, and was finally 
abandoned in 1857. Recently there have 
been mines of copper developed in Maine, 
some of them of considerable promise, 
others not as yet productive, though they 
have invested considerable sums in machin- 
ery, dead work, wages, and material. Three 
of the mines in Hancock county, Maine, 
are doing moderately well. They have 
been in operation about five years; the first 
two or three of which were spent in obtain- 
ing their capital, establishing their plant 
and reduction works and getting fairly at 
work. They had, in 1880, a capital of 
$104,000, of which the plant had cost 
$71,500, the real estate or mining lands, 
$28,000, and the working capital $4,500. 
They had raised that year 12,500 tons of 
ore, from which they had made 83,080 
pounds of ingot copper, worth $10,125, 
using $9,767 worth of material and pay- 
ing $36,500 wages. They were so situated 
as to have the capacity to produce 672,000 
pounds of ingot copper, and the ore, though 
not very rich, was plentiful, easily worked 
and readily shipped, eo that there was a 
fair prospect for a moderately paying bus- 
iness. In one and perhaps more of these 
mines there is a small percentage of silver 
with the copper. The New Hampshire 
mines (pyritous ores) had not, in 1880, 
produced any pure copper. 

The New Jersey mines have all failed 
from insufficient supply of the ores. The 
Schuyler mine, at Belleville, produced rich 
vitreous copper and chrysocolla, dissemi- 
nated through a stratum of light brown 
sandstone, of 20 to 30 feet in thickness, 
and dipping at an angle of 12°. During 
the" last century, the excavations reached 
the depth of 200 feet, and were extensively 
tunnelled. The mine was then so highly 
valued that an offer of £500,000, made for 
it by an English company, was refused by 
the proprietor, Mr. Schuyler. In 1857-58 
attempts were made to work the mine 



again, but soon failed. Among the other 
mines which have been worked to consid- 
erable extent in New Jersey are the Flem- 
ington mine, and the Bridgewater mine, 
near Somerville, at which native copper in 
some quantity was found in the last cen- 
tury; two pieces met with in 1754 weigh- 
ing together, it was reported, 1,900 lbs. A 
mine near New Brunswick also furnished 
many lumps of native copper, and thin 
sheets of the metal were found included in 
the sandstone. At different times this 
mine has been thoroughly explored, but 
always with a loss. In Somerset county, 
the Franklin mine, near Griggstown, has 
been worked to the depth of 100 feet. 
One mine is now (1881) operated in Mont- 
gomery County, Penn.. which yielded in 
1880 40,460 lbs of copper, worth $5,630, 
and at a net cost for mining of less than 
$2,000. The amount of capital invested is 
only $8,500. 

Another copper district, which at first 
promised fairly, is in Maryland, near 
Sykesville, Carroll county, on the Balti- 
more and Ohio railroad, thirty-two miles 
from Baltimore, in a region of micaceous, 
talcose, and chlorite slates. This 'mine 
first opened about 1850, in 1856-7 pro- 
duced 300 tons of ore, valued at $17,897, 
the ore yielding, according to the esti- 
mates of the metallurgists, 16.03 per cent, 
of ingot copper. It has been worked mod- 
erately to the present time, but its produc- 
tion has fallen off, the ore raised in 1880 
being only eighty-two tons. There is some 
error in the census report of the mine, 
which renders it impossible to say what 
the actual percentage of ingot copper in 
the ore now is ; but it is evident that the 
business is not profitable. The other cop- 
per mines in Maryland have not, in 1880, 
produced any ingot copper. 

Like the last named, all the other local- 
ities of copper ores of any importance along 
the Appalachian chain and east of it are 
remote from the range of the red sand- 
stone, and belong to older rock formations. 
In Vermont, mining operations were car- 
ried on for several years upon a large lode 
of pyritous copper, which was traced sev- 
eral miles through Vershire and Corinth. 
At Strafford, pyritous ores were worked in 
1829 and afterward, both for copperas and 
copper. One of these is still worked, and 
is the best single copper mine east of the 
Alleghanies. It yielded in 1880, 2,647,894 



MINING INDUSTRY OF TIIE UNITED STATES. 



421 



pounds of ingot copper, valued at $469,495, 
the expense of production (material and 
wages) being $367,760, or a net profit of 
about $102,000. Pyritous ores yielding 
24.3 per cent, of copper were found in 
Ulster Co., N. Y., in 1853, but did not 
hold out and the mine was abandoned. 

In Virginia, rich ores of red oxide of cop- 
per, associated with native copper and pyri- 
tous copper, have been found at Manassas 
Gap, and also in many other places further 
south along the Blue Ridge. The ores at 
these and other points were very promis- 
ing and yielded at first very considerable 
amounts (those in Carroll, Floyd and Gray- 
son Counties sending to market between 
1855 and 1860 about 10,000,000 lbs. of 
ores) ; but there was no appearance of any 
regular veins, and the supply soon gave 
out. In the gold mines of Virginia and 
North Carolina copper is often combined 
with the gold, and parted from it and sent 
to market, but there are no mines for cop- 
per alone in that region, except two in 
Ashe county, North Carolina, which yield- 
ed in 1880, 1,640,000 pounds of copper 
worth $350,000, at a net cost of $194,631 
(material and wages). These mines have 
a large capital, and employ about 328 men, 
but they are doing better than any other 
mines east of the Alleghanies. 

In Tennessee copper mining has passed 
through many vicissitudes. In 1847 the 
ores were first discovered in Polk county 
and traced to Gilmer county, Georgia, 
associated with masses of hematite iron 
ores. Mining was commenced in 1851, 
and in the next seven years fourteen min- 
ing companies were formed and copper 
mining was carried on upon a large scale. 
The ores yielded from 15 to 45 per cent, 
of copper and the product of 1856-7 was 
estimated at $1,836,000; there were sev- 
eral German smelting furnaces, producing 
regulus or concentrated copper ore in 
large quantities, four reverberatory, two 
blast and two calcining furnaces. In 1857 
these mines, now numbering seventeen or 
eighteen, were consolidated into three com- 
panies, with large capital, producing month- 
ly about 1,600 tons of ore, or nearly 20,- 
000 tons a year, ranging from 12 to 15 
per cent, in value, and with furnaces and 
smelting works of all kinds to reduce the 
ores. Railroad connections had been 
formed with the mines and there were 
prospects of a profitable and enduring min- 



ing interest. But the financial disasters of 
1857 were followed by the war, and the 
mines were abandoned. After the war 
some feeble efforts were made to revive 
them, but the richer mines of Lake Supe- 
rior supplied the market and not much 
could be done. In 1880 one mine was 
operated out of the whole number in Polk 
Co., and raised 294 tons of ore at an ex- 
pense of $1,200 for wages. The value of 
the product is not given — it may not have 
been smelted in Polk Co., but it could 
hardly have been sufficient to make the 
business profitable. The capital invested 
is reported at $140. There are also some 
small mines at Ducktown, Tenn.. the pro- 
duct of ore in 1880 being 70 tons, but no 
report of the value of product being given. 

Of the other States east of the Missouri 
River, aside from Michigan, only two, 
Missouri and Wisconsin, have copper mines 
in operation. At one time there were 
some small but unprofitable mines in Iowa, 
but these have been abandoned long since. 
The Wisconsin mine now in operation is in 
Iowa Co., in the lead district. It is a 
small mine, yielding in 1880 only 62 tons 
of ore, but the ore is rich, the investment 
small, and the mine pays better than some 
larger ones. The geologists report that the 
copper deposits of the Lake Superior re- 
gion in Michigan extend to the northeast 
counties of Minnesota and Wisconsin, but 
so far as we know there have as yet been 
no explorations for copper veins there. 

Missouri has a copper district small in 
extent, in St. Genevieve Co., in the vicinity 
of the lead and iron deposits in that State. 
There are three mines now in operation, of 
large capacity, but they yielded in all in 
1880 but 1.051 tons of ore, from which 
was extracted 230,717 pounds of ingot 
copper, worth $25,730, of which somewhat 
more than one-third was net profit. The 
capital is not large, only $15,480 for the 
three, but these are among the few copper 
mines away from Lake Superior that pay. 

Of the extreme western states and terri- 
tories four only (Colorado, Arizona, Idaho 
and California) are now known to produce 
copper. It is very probable that Utah, 
New Mexico, and possibly Montana, Da- 
kota (in the Black Hills country) and 
Washington Territory, may be added to 
the number. 

In Colorado there are very few if any 
copper mines proper, but both the gold 



422 



COPPER. 



and silver are combined with copper and 
often to such an extent as to make the 
saving of the copper in the reduction of 
the ores profitable. Arizona and Cali- 
fornia, and, it is probable, Idaho also, have 
deposits of pure copper ores, as well as 
these combinations with silver and gold ; 
and most of the ores are rich enough to 
pay well if a market is easily reached. 

The census of 1880 has not yet given us 
in detail the statistics of copper mining in 
these states and territories. Their aggre- 
gate production in that year is stated at 
6,244,702 pounds, worth $1,248,940. 

But the most remarkable deposits of 
copper in the United States, and perhaps 
in the world, are those of the Lake Supe- 
rior region in Northern Michigan. 

The existence of native copper on the 
shores of Lake Superior is noticed in the 
reports of the Jesuit missionaries of 1659 
and 1666. Pieces of the metal ten to 
twenty pounds in weight were seen, which 
it is said the Indians reverenced as sacred ; 
similar reports were brought by Father 
Dablou in 1670, and by Charlevoix in 
1744. An attempt was made in 1771 by 
an Englishman named Alexander Henry 
to open a mine near the forks of the On- 
tonagon, on the bank of the river, where a 
large mass of the metal lay exposed. He 
had visited the region in 1763, and re- 
turned with a party prepared for more 
thoroughly exploring its resources. They, 
however, found no more copper besides the 
loose mass, which they were unable to re- 
move. They then went over to the north 
shore of the lake, but met with no better 
success there. General Cass and Mr. H. 
R. Schoolcraft visited the region in 1819, 
and reported on the great mass upon the 
Ontonagon. Major Long, also, in 1823, 
bore witness to the occurrence of the metal 
along the shores of the lake. The country, 
till the ratification of the treaty with the 
Chippewa Indians, in 1842, was scarcely 
ever visited except by hunters and fur- 
traders, and was only accessible by a 
tedious voyage in canoes from Mackinaw. 
Dr. Douglass Houghton, the state geolo- 
gist of Michigan, made the first scientific 
examination of the country in 1841, and 
his reports first drew public attention to its 
great resources in copper. His explora 
tions were continued both under the state 
and general government until they were 
suddenly terminated with his life by the 



unfortunate swamping of his boat in the 
lake, near Eagle river, October 13, 1845. 

In 1844 adventurers from the eastern 
states began to pour into the country, 
and mining operations were commenced 
at various places near the shore, on Ke- 
weenaw Point. The companies took pos- 
session under permits from the general 
land office, in anticipation of the regular 
surveys, when the tracts could be properly 
designated for sale. Nearly one thousand 
tracts, of one mile square each, were 
selected — the greater part of them at ran- 
dom, and afterward explored and aban- 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



423 



doned. In 1846 a geological survey of the 
region was authorized by Congress, which 
was commenced under Dr. C. T. Jackson, 
and completed by Messrs. Foster and Whit- 
ney in 1850. At this time many mines were 
in full operation, and titles to them had been 
acquired at the government sales. 

The copper region, as indicated by Dr. 
Houghton, was found to be nearly limited to 
the range of trap hills, which are traced from 
the termination of Keweenaw Point toward 
the south-west in a belt of not more than two 
miles in width, gradually receding from the 
lake shore. The upper portion of the hills 
is of trap rock, lying in beds which dip to- 
ward the lake, and pass in this direction 
under others of sandstone, the outcrop of 
which is along the northern flanks of the 
hills. Isle Royale, near the north shore of 
the lake, is made up of similar formations, 
which dip toward the south. These rocks 
thus appear to form the basin in which the 
portion of Lake Superior lying between is 
held. The trap hills are traced from Kewee- 
naw Point in two or three parallel ridges of 
500 to 1,000 feet elevation, crossing Portage 
lake not far from the shore of Lake Superior, 
and the Ontonagon river about 1 3 miles from 
its mouth. They thence reach further back 
into the country beyond Agogebic lake, full 
120 miles from the north-eastern termina- 
tion. Another group of trap hills, known as 
the Porcupine mountains, comes out to the 
lake shore some 20 miles above the mouth 
of the Ontonagon, and this also contains 
veins of copper, which had been little de- 
veloped until the explorations commenced 
near Carp lake in these mountains in 1859. 
These resulted in a shipment of over 20 
tons of rough copper in 18 GO. The for- 
mations upon Isle Koyale, which is within 
the boundary of the United States, although 
they are similar to those of the south shore, 
and contain copper veins upon which ex- 
plorations were vigorously prosecuted, have 
not proved so valuable as they promised, 
and only three small mines are now worked 
there. The most productive mines are 
comprised in three districts along the main 
range of the trap hills. The first is on 
Keweenaw Point, the second about Portage 
lake, and the third near the Ontonagon 
river. All the veins are remarkable 
for producing native copper alone, the 
only ores of the metal being chiefly of 
vitreous copper found in a range of hills 
on the south side of Keweenaw Point, 



and nowhere in quantities to justify the con- 
tinuation of mining operations that were 
commenced upon them. The veins on Ke- 
weenaw Point cross the ridges nearly at right 
angles, penetrating almost vertically through 
the trap and the sandstones. Their produc- 
tiveness is, for the most part, limited to cer- 
tain amygdaloidal belts of the trap, which 
alternate with other unproductive beds of 
gray compact trap, and the mining explora- 
tions follow the former down their slope of 
40°, more or less, toward the north. The 
thickness of the veins is very variable, and 
also their richness, even in the amygdaloid. 
The copper is found interspersed in pieces 
of all sizes through the quartz vein stones 
and among the calcareous spar, laumonite, 
prehnite, and other minerals associated with 
the quartz. These being extracted, piles are 
made of the poorer sorts, in which the metal 
is not sufficiently clear of stone for shipment, 
and these are roasted by firing the wood in- 
termixed through the heaps. By this proc- 
ess the stone entangled among the copper 
is more readily broken and removed. The 
lumps that will go into barrels are called 
" barrel work," and are packed in this way 
for shipment. Larger ones, called " masses," 
some of which are huge, irregular-shaped 
blocks of clean copper, are cut into pieces 
that can be conveniently transported, as of 
one to three tons weight each. This is done 
by means of a long chisel with a bit three- 
fourths of an inch wide, which is held by one 
man and struck in turns by two others with 
a hammer weighing 7 or 8 lbs. A groove is 
thus cut across the narrowest part of the 
mass, turning out long chips of copper one- 
fourth of an inch thick, and with each suc- 
ceeding cut the groove is deepened to the 
same extent until it reaches through the mass. 
The process is slow and tedious, a single cut 
sometimes occupying the continual labor of 
three men for as many weeks, or even long- 
er* This work is done in great part be- 
fore the masses can be got out of the 
mine. The masses are found in working the 
vein, often occupying the whole space be- 
tween the walls of trap rock, standing up- 
on their edges, and shut in as solidly as if 
all were one material. To remove one of the 
very large masses is a work of many months. 
It is first laid bare along one side by extend- 
ing the level or drift of the mine through 
the trap rock. The excavation is carried 
high enough to expose its upper edge and 
down to it* lower line ; but on account of ir- 



424 



COPPER. 



regular shape and projecting arms of copper, 
which often stretch forward, and up and down, 
connecting with other masses, it requires long 
and tedious mining operations to determine 
its dimensions. When it is supposed to 
be nearly freed along one side, very heavy 
charges of powder are introduced in the rock 
behind the mass, with the view of starting 
it from its bed. When cracks are produced 
by these, heavier charges are introduced in 
the form of sand-blasts, and these are re- 
peated until the mass is thrown partly over on 
its side as well as the space excavated will 
admit. In speaking further of the Minesota 
mine, the enormous sizes of some of the 
masses, and the amount of powder consumed 
in loosening them, will be more particularly 
noticed. 

To separate the finer particles of copper 
from the stones in which they are contained, 
these, after being roasted, are crushed under 
heavy stamps to the condition of fine sand, 
and this is then washed after the usual 
method of washing fine ores, until the earthy 
matters are removed and the metallic par- 
ticles are left behind. This is shovelled into 
small casks for shipment, and is known as 
stamp copper. The stamping and crushing 
machinery, such as have long been used at 
the mining establishments of other countries, 
were found to be entirely too slow for the 
requirements of these mines, and they have 
been replaced by new apparatus of Amer- 
ican contrivance, which is far more efficient 
than any thing of the kind ever before ap- 
plied to such operations. The stamps here- 
tofore in use have been of 100 lbs. to 300 lbs. 
weight, and at the California mines were first 
introduced of 800 lbs. to 1,000 lbs. weight. 
At Lake Superior they are in use on the plan 
of the steam hammer, weighing, with the rod 
or stamp-ieg, 2,500 lbs. and making 90 to 
100 strokes in a minute. The capacity of 
each stamp is to crush over one ton of hard 
trap rock every hour. It falls upon a large 
mortar that rests upon springs of vulcanized 
rubber, and the force of its fall is increased 
by the pressure of steam applied above the 
piston to throw it more suddenly down. The 
stamp-head covers about one-fourth of the 
face of the mortar, and with every succeed- 
ing stroke it moves to the adjoining quarter, 
covering the whole face in four strokes. 

The only other metal found with the cop- 
per is silver, and this does not occur as an 
alloy, but the two are as if welded together, 
and neither, when assayed, gives more than 



a trace of the other. It is evident from this 
that they cannot have been in a fused state 
in contact. The quantity of silver is small ; 
the largest piece ever found weighing a little 
more than 8 lbs. troy. This was met with 
at the mines near the mouth of Eagle river, 
where a considerable number of loose pieces, 
together with loose masses of copper, were 
obtained in exploring deep under the bed of 
the stream an ancient deposit of rounded 
boulders of sandstone and trap. The veins 
of even the trap rocks themselves of this lo- 
cality exhibited so much silver that in the 
early operations of the mines a very high 
alue was set upon them on this account. 
The principal mine of this district is the 
Cliff mine of the Pittsburgh and Boston 
Company, opened in 1845, and steadily 
worked ever since. In 1858, the extent of 
the horizontal workings on the vein had 
amounted to 12,368 feet, besides 831 feet 
in cross-cuts. Five shafts had been sunk, 
one of which was 817 feet deep, 587 feet 
being below the adit level, and 230 feet 
being from this level to the summit of the 
ridge. The shaft of least depth was sunk 
422 feet. 

The production of the mine from the year 
1853 is exhibited in the following; table: — 





, 


u 




i O 






o 


0) 






id 






p, 


a 








Bi 


a 


o 


.0 £ t'o 






t»T3 


o . 




" 8 a 




Yr. 


8J 


u on 






C3 




3-° 


a 


2 
73 




"a 






n 


(H 


£-3 


> 


1853, 


2,263,182 


1,071.288 


47.33 


Cts 27 32 


$292,647.05 


1854. 


2,332.614 


1,315,308 


66.86 


24.38 


320.783.01 


1855, 


2,9:15.837 


1,874,197 


62.56 


25.33 


475,911.26 


185(5, 


8,291,239 


2,220.934 


67 48 


24.12 


535.843.67 


1857, 


3,363,557 


2,863,850 


70.28 


20.44 


497,870.47 


1858, 


3,183,685 


2,331.964 


7100 


21.03 


475.321.89 


1859, 


2,139.632 


1 415.007 


64.35 


20 50 


290.097 97 


1860, 


2,865,442 


1,843.313 




22 87 


421,565.67 


1861, 




1,928,011 




27.44 




186-2, 




2,004.060 




26.75 




1863, 




2,100,354 




34.00 




1864. 




1,351,334 




47.00 




1865, 




1,494,626 




39.25 




1866, 




1,642,928 




34 25 




1867, 




1,121.725 




25 37 




186S, 




1,227.746 




23.12 




1861), 




1,905,314 




24.25 




1870, 




809,571 




20.88 




1871, 




142.238 




24.25 




1872. 




118.386 




36.12 




1873, 




751.203 




27.50 




1874, 




1.052,901 




22.00 




1875, 




1.162.883 




22.50 




1876, 




9iK),146 




21.00 




1877, 




161,319 




19.25 




1878, 




414,415 




16.62 




Tot'l 




37,245,226 


Av. 


Av. 25.87 


$9,635,339 97 



The Portage lake mining district is some 
twenty to twenty -five miles west from the 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



425 



Cliff mine on the same range of hills. This 
region is of more recent development, the 
explorations having been attended with 
little success previous to 1854. The veins 
are here found productive in a gray variety 
of trap as well as the amygdaloidal, and in- 
stead of lying across the ridges, follow the 
same course with them, and dip in general 
with the slope of the strata. Some of the 
larger veins consist in great part of epi- 
dote, and the copper in these is much less 
dense than in the quartz veins, forming 
tangled masses which are rarely of any 
considerable size. On the eastern side of 
this lake are worked, among other mines, 
the Quincy, Pewabic, and Franklin, and 
on the opposite side the Isle Royale, Por- 
tage, and Columbia mines. 

The Quincy, Pewabic, and Franklin com- 
menced operations from 1855 to 1857, and 
by I860 were doing a fine business. There 
were some masses of native copper taken 
from each mine and considerable barrel 
work, but two thirds of the whole was from 
the small quantity of copper in the amyg- 
daloid belt or veinstone, which was passed 
through the stamps (each mine having a 
first-class stamp-mill). Farther on we shall 
give a full de3cription of this process of 
mining and stamping, which is used on all 
the quartz veins and lodes in the gold dis 
tricts. as well as in copper mining. At 
first the Pewabic mine took the lead, reach- 
ing in 1861 a production of 958| tons of 
copper, but this was its highest production; 
the Quincy in 186D, the first year that it 
reported, produced 970^- tons; in 1861, 
1,282 .V tons, and has ranged from 1,100 to 
1,536 tons almost every year since, while 
the Pewabic has ranged from 147 tons to 
920, the later years averaging not over 280 
tons annually since 1870. The Franklin 
beginning much smaller has ranged from 
183 to 1,178 tons, yielding more than the 
Pewabic and about half as much as the 
Quincy. To 1st January, 1878, the Frank- 
lin mine had produced 11,500 tons, 914 
lbs. of copper; the Pewabic 10,643 tons, 
1,314 lbs.; the Quincy 23,175 tons, 675 lbs. 
or more than both the others. This last 
company, whose stockholders had never 
expended more than $200,000 upon it, had 
divided among them $2,130,000 and had a 
surplus of $464,000. It had received from 
the sales of copper, etc., $11,127,109.12. 
The Pewabic with a capital of $240,000 
had paid $400,000 dividend. The Frank- 



lin with $380,000 capital had paid $240,- 
000 dividends. 

The Ontonagon river crosses the trap 
hills about forty miles southwest from Por- 
tage lake, and the mines worked in the 
Ontonagon district are scattered along the 
hills northeast from the river for a dis- 
tance of nearly twenty miles. The outlet 
for a greater number of them is by a road 
through the woods to the village at the 
mouth of the river. The veins of this dis- 
trict also lie along the course of the ridges, 
and dip with the trap rocks toward the 
lake. As they are worked, however, they 
are found occasionally to cut across the 
strata, and neighboring veins to run into 
each other. In some places copper occurs 
in masses scattered through the trap rock 
with no sign of a vein, not even a seam or 
crevice connecting one mass with another. 
They appear, however, to be ranged on the 
general course of the strata. At the Ad- 
venture mine they were so abundant, that 
it has been found profitable to collect them, 
and the clifts of the trap rock present a 
curious appearance, studded over with 
numerous dark cavities in apparently inac- 
cessible places leading into the solid face 
of the mountain. 

The great mine of this district from 1 855- 
1869 was the Minnesota, two miles east from 
the Ontonagon river. The explorers in 
this region in the winter of 1847-48, found 
parallel lines of trenches, extending along 
the trap hills, evidently made by a man at 
some distant period. They were so well 
marked, as to be noticed even under a 
cover of three feet depth of snow. On ex- 
amination they proved to be on the course 
of veins of copper, and the excavations 
were found to extend down into the solid 
rock, portions of which were sometimes 
left standing over the workings. When 
these pits were afterwards explored, there 
were found in them large quantities of rude 
hammers, made of the hardest kind of 
greenstone, from the trap rocks of the 
neighborhood. These were of all sizes, 
ranging from four to forty pounds weight, 
and of the same general shape — one end 
being rounded off for the end of the ham- 
mer, and the other shaped like a wedge. 
Around the middle was a groove — the 
large hammers had two — evidently in- 
tended for securing the handle by which 
they were wielded. In every instance the 
hammers were more or less broken, evi- 



426 



COPPER. 



dently in service. One of them brought from 
the mine by the writer, and now in the col- 
lection of the Cooper Union of New York, 
is represented in the accompanying sketch. 
It measures 6d inches in length, the same in 
breadth, and 2£ inches in thickness. 

The quantity of hammers found in these 
old workings was so great that they were col- 
lected by cart-loads. How they could have 
been made with such tools as the ancient 
miners had, is unaccountable, for the stone 
itself is the hardest material they could find. 
And it is not any more clear, how they ap- 
plied such clumsy tools to excavating solid 
rock nearly as hard as the hammers them- 
selves. Every hammer is broken on the 
edge, as if worn out in service. The only 
tools found besides these were a copper gad 
or wedge, a copper chisel with a socket head, j 
and a wooden bowl. The great extent of 
the ancient mining operations indicates that 
the country must have been long occupied 
by an industrious people, possessed of more 
mechanical skill than the present race of In- 
dians. They must also have spread over the 
whole of the copper region, for similar evi- 
dences of their occupancy are found about 
all the copper mines, and even upon Isle 
Royale. It is not improbable that they be- 
longed to the race of the mound builders of 
the western states, among the vestiges of 
whom, found in the mounds, various utensils 
of copper have been met with. But of the 
period when they lived, the copper mines 
afford no more evidence than the mounds. 
Some of the trenches at the Minesota mine, 
originally excavated to the depth of more 
than twenty-five feet, have since filled up 
with gravel and rubbish to within a few 
feet of the surface, a work which in this 
region would seem to require centuries; and 
upon the surface of this material large trees 
are now standing, and stumps of much older 
ones are seen, that have long been rotting. 
In clearing out the pits a mass of copper 
was discovered, buried in the gravel nearly 
twenty feet below the surface, which the an- 
cients had entirely separated from the vein. 
They had supported it upon blocks of wood, 
and, probably by means of fire and their 
hammers, had removed from it all the adhering 
stone and projecting points of copper. Under 
it were quantities of ashes and charred wood. 
The weight of the mass, after all their at- 
tempts to reduce it, appears to have been 
too great for them to raise ; and when it was 
finally taken out in 1848, it was found to 



weigh over six tons. It was about ten feet 
long, three feet wide, and nearly two feet 
thick. Beneath this spot the vein after- 
ward proved extremely rich, affording many 
masses of great size. 

The veins worked by the Minesota Com- 
pany all lie along the southern slope of the 
northern trap ridge, not far below the sum- 
mit. Three veins have been discovered which 
lie nearly parallel to each other. The lowest 
one is along the contact of the gray trap of 
the upper part of the hill and a stratum of 
conglomerate which underlies this. It dips 
with the slope of this rock toward the north- 
north-west at an angle of about 46° with the 
horizon. The next upper vein outcropping, 80 
or 90 feet further up the hill, dips about 61°, 
and falls into the lower vein along a very 
irregular line. Both veins are worked, and 
the greatest yield of the mine has been near 
their line of meeting. 

The position of the veins along the range 
of the rocks, instead of across them, gives to 
the mines of this character a great advantage, 
as their productiveness is not limited to the 
thickness of any one belt which proves favor- 
able for the occurrence of the metal ; and 
the outcrop of the vein can be traced a great 
distance along the surface, affording conve- 
nient opportunities for sinking directly upon 
it at any point. 

The Minnesota Company, having abund- 
ant room, were soon able to sink a large 
number of shafts along a line of outcrop 
of l,8t'0 feet, and several of the levels be- 
low extended considerably further than this 
entire length. In 1858 nine shafts were 
in operation, and ten levels were driven on 
the vein, the deepest at 5i36 feet down the 
slope. The ten fathom level at that time 
was 1,960 feet in length. This mine has 
been remarkable for the large size and great 
number of its masses. The largest one of 
these, taken out during the year 1857, after 
being uncovered along its side, refused to 
give way, though 1,450 pounds of powder 
had been exploded behind it in five succes- 
sive sand-blasts. A charge of 625 pounds 
being then fired beneath it, the mass was so 
much loosened that by a succeeding blast of 
750 pounds it was torn oft' from the masses 
with which it connected, and thrown over 
in one immense piece. It measured forty- 
tivo feet in length, and its greatest thickness 
was over eight feet. Its weight was estima- 
ted at about 500 tons. What it proved to 
be is not certain, as no account was preserved 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



427 



of the pieces into which it was cut, but it 
is known to have exceeded 400 tons. 
Other masses have been taken out which 
presented a thickness of over five feet solid 
copper. The value of the silver picked out 
from among the copper has amounted in 
one year to about $1,000. 

This mine was the first in which large 
masses of copper were found. It is pecu- 
liar in its character, being not a true vein, 
but a lode running with the formation, and 
carrying as its chief burden masses of cop- 
per of great purity and several hundred 
tons in weight. From 1848 to 1869 it 
yielded a vast amount of copper (1,976 
tons in 1857 and 1,901 in 1858, but in 
1865 it began to fall off, and diminished 
every year till in 1876 it yielded only 44^ 
tons, and its managers withdrew from it 
and it went into the hands of tributors. It 
had paid its stockholders over two million 
dollars in dividends, and had, in 1878, 
produced 17,2634- tons of copper. Besides 
the dividends named, the original stock- 
holders have derived large profits from the 
sale of portions of the extensive territory, 
three miles square, which belonged to the 
company, and the organization upon these 
tracts of new companies. 

We have yet one more of these mines to 
describe, and this probably the most pro- 
ductive copper mine in the world for the 
time it has been operated. We give it 
also as an example of a class of mines not 
elsewhere known, the ores being found not 
in veins or lodes, but in belts of conglom- 
erate. 

The Calumet and Hecla Mine, situated in 
Houghton county, about ten miles from Han- 
cock on the old Eagle River trail, was first 
discovered in 1866, in the following man- 
ner: A half-way house, a rude cabin, or in 
western phrase a "shebang" was kept by a 
man who dealt out whiskey, and had for 
his only constant companions, some barn- 
yard fowls and two pigs, which he strove 
to keep in a pen. Not liking the confine- 
ment, the pigs as often as possible rooted 
their way out and wandered into the adja- 
cent roads. Their owner tried, often in 
vain, to lure them back to the pen. One 
hot day after an ineffectual chase, he came 
in swearing like a pirate, and begged a 
French gentleman, who was resting in the 
cabin, to shoot them. The gentleman did 
as he desired, and shot and wounded one 
of them. The pig ran away squealing, and 



tracking it by its blood the owner found it 
hidden in a nest on the side of a knoll. He 
noticed, where the pigs had rooted, green 
carbonate of copper plentifully mixed with 
the earth, and digging into the knoll found 
further evidences of copper. He commu- 
nicated the discovery to Mr. John Hulbert, 
who was exploring there at the time, and 
he in turn to Mr. Edward J. Hulbert. The 
mound was examined, a pit sunk some 15 
feet through the sand, and they came upon 
the great Calumet Conglomerate. This 
mound had been evidently the work of 
" the ancient miners." 

A company or rather two companies 
were formed, but soon after consolidated 
into one, the Calumet and Hecla, with a 
capital of $2,000,000 in 80,000 shares. Of 
this only $800,000 was called in; but min- 
ing was commenced on a large scale at 
once, and proved profitable " from the 
grass roots down," as the western miners 
say. In 1867 it yielded 675^ tons, though 
its proprietors were ridiculed for their folly 
in supposing that a conglomerate could 
ever yield any considerable quantity of 
copper. In 1868 it produced 2,549^ tons, 
more than any other mine in the Lake 
Superior region had ever yielded; in 1869 
6, 157f tons; it continued to increase nearly 
1,000 tons a year, in 1874 reaching 10,- 
062^ tons; in 1877, 11,2844, tons, in 1878 
12,537! tons ; in l879 > 14; 200 tons, and in 
1880, over 15,000 tons. Its entire product 
in the fifteen years of its production is 
about 140,000 tons of ingot copper. The 
mineral yields 88 per cent. Its actual cap- 
ital paid in was $800,000, and it has di- 
vided over 16 million dollars among its 
shareholders to the close of 1881. Its 
product of copper ingots has realized over 
$56,000,000. It employs more than 2,000 
men, who with their families form a large 
and important town. 

The following description is condensed 
from an account of the processes employed 
in the Calumet and Hecla mines: — 

" These shafts are sunk to a depth of 
75 or 100 feet, at which point the first 
level is started, and is run from shaft to 
shaft until the whole number of shafts are 
connected by a continuous gallery or drift. 
These drifts are six feet by four, or wider, 
if necessary to accommodate rail tracks. 
The shafts, while the drifts are opening, 
are sunk away to the second level; the 
second level, in due time, is opened like 



428 



COPPER. 



the first, and so on down. Between the 
shafts, for the purpose of ventilation and 
convenience in stoping, minor shafts are 
sunk, called winzes. The mine thus 
opened is like the rectangular blocks on a 
city map tilted up; the shafts and drifts 
are main streets crossing each other, and 
the winzes are alleys. The solid blocks of 
veinstone bounded by the streets are, if 
the whole lode is workable, taken out, ex 
cepting pillars of rock left to support the 
hanging wall and keep the mine from 
coming together. This work is technically 
called stoping. The shafts are cribbed 
from the surface down to solid rock with 
square timber and plank, and are divided 
into two or more compartments, in one of 
which is laid the rail track, in another the 
pumps, and in the third a ladder-way. But 
in large mines, like the Calumet, one shaft 
is used as a pump-shaft, while another 
shaft, or intermediate opening, is fitted for 
the man-engine, the duty of which machine 
is to take the men in and out of the mine. 
The top of the shaft is carried from twenty 
to thirty feet above the ground for con- 
venience in the handling of rock. The 
iron cars or skips, holding several tons, are 
held by large wire ropes, which pass over 
pulleys to the drum of the engine. The 
movement of these skips is regulated with 
great precision by bell signals, from under 
ground ; and to the brakeman at the drum 
the position of the skip at any depth, is 
told by an ingenious little indicator. The 
skip comes up out of the mine, dumps it- 
self, and returns whence it came. At the 
Calumet, the skip dumps its load into a 
car resting on a horizontal tram-road, which 
car, moved by an endless rope, apparently 
without human agency, moves off at a con- 
siderable speed to the rock-breaking house, 
perhaps a thousand feet away, where it 
dumps itself and immediately returns to its 
proper position. This economical railroad, 
set on tressels, more or less elevated above 
the ground, is called Frue's automatic road. 
The rock from each shaft has the same 
common destination, the great receiving 
rock house. Here the large blocks of 
copper-tied conglomerate are first crushed 
under a ponderous steam hammer, winch 
resembles a section of the main shaft of 
an engine; it operates vertically in slides, 
and has the lower end beveled off. To 
compare great things with small, it is like 
the stub of the pencil which the writer is 



using. The motive power is a steam cylin- 
der on top. Broken by this great ham- 
mer, the pieces of rock fall into a number 
of large and small Blake rock-breakers, 
whose corrugated iron jaws Crunch them 
up remorselessly. From these breakers 
the comminuted conglomerate falls into 
shutes, and thence it is at will drawn into 
cars. A train of cars, each holding four 
to eight tons, drawn by a locomotive en- 
gine, moves off to the stamp mill, five miles 
distant, where the copper rock is dumped 
into large bins placed at the top of the 
mill. The stamps now begin their work of 
further reduction; the rock is thrown into 
the hoppers of the great steam stamp, 
which strikes a blow of many tons eighty 
times a minute, smashing the rock into 
minute pebbles, fine sand, and slime, which 
is washed from unde'r the head by a stream 
of water, and carried by the same agent to 
the washers set on an inclined floor, when 
by a process of jigging, in fresh supplies 
of water, the gravel and sand are separated 
from the freed copper, which, owing to its 
greater specific gravity, settles at the bottom 
on the sieves, while the sand is carried 
over the apron to the waste launder, and 
is washed out into the lake, or spoil bank. 
There are a large number of washers in this 
stamp mill, and the copper rock is subjected 
to repeated washings, and even the fine 
slimes are carefully treated upon slime ta- 
bles, yet quite a percentage of fine copper 
goes to waste in spite of the most ingenious 
contrivances used to save it. The mineral, 
or washed copper, having been graded, is 
packed into barrels and sent to the smelt- 
ing works, where, passing through fire, it 
is purified from all rock remaining and 
cast into ingots, bolts, bars, and cakes. 
All of this work — processes which we 
have not pretended to describe in detail — 
is accomplished by that potent agent, steam. 
These stamp mills are an interesting study 
for any one interested in such works. 

" Returning to the mine, we go under- 
ground, and fathoms deep, where no ray 
of sunlight ever pierces, we find a popu- 
lous community of busy workers; the at- 
mosphere of the place is damp and murky, 
with a strong odor of sulphur, the remains 
of exploded powder. The only light is 
that of tallow candles stuck on the hats of 
the men with clay, or upon the walls, or as 
head -lights on the rock cars. Each level 
is provided with tram roads; the cars are 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



429 



pushed along by men to and from the 
shafts, where the loaded rock is dumped 
into the skips. ***** The 
men work ten hours, and are divided into 
day-shifts and night-shifts, and change 
from day to night once in seven days. But 
it frequently happens, in different places, 
or when greater expedition is required, cer- 
tain of the miners are divided into three 
gangs, each gang working eight hours, and 
all fully occupying the twenty-four hours. 
Much of the mining is done upon contract, 
and fie average wages are from $45 to $50 
r e • month, out of which the man has to pay 
his board and other necessary expenses." 
Yet p citable as some of these mines 
have proved, and vast as is the amount of 
copper shipped from them, it should not 
be forgotten that of about one hundred 
and fifty mines, and nearly seventy mining 
companies, which at various times in the 
last thirty-five years have been actively and 
mo3t of them profitably employed, there 
are now but nineteen mines in the whole 
Lake Superior district which are actively 
engaged in mining copper. The total pro- 
duction of these mines from 1847 to Jan., 
1881, is about 317,000 tons of ingot cop- 
per, worth at the average price $163,952,- 
400. The present production is limited to 
six mines in Houghton county (of which 
the Calumet and Hecla is one); four in Ke- 
weenaw, one in Isle Royale, and eight in 
Ontonagon. These mines raised in 1880, 
938,960 tons of mineral and produced 45,- 
830,262 pounds of ingot copper; the value 
was $7,979,232. The number of hands 
employed was 5,004; the amount of wages 
paid. $2,461,243, and the value of material 
consumed, $1,215,206. The amount of 
capital invested was $30,413,551. In the 
same year (1880), the whole number of 
copper mines reported in operation east of 
the 100th meridian W. long., was thirty- 
two; the quantity of mineral raised, 1,005,- 
955 tons; the amount of ingot copper 
produced, 50,655,140 pounds; its value, 
$8,842,961; the number of hands employed, 
6,116; wages paid, $2,915,103; material 
used, $1,391,101; capital employed, $31,- 
675,096. 

COPPER SMELTING. 

The ores of copper, unlike those of most 
of the other metals, are not in general re- 
duced at the mines; but after being con- 
centrated by mechanical processes called 



dressing — which consist in assorting the 
piles according to their qualities, and 
crushing, jigging, and otherwise washing 
the poorer sorts — they are sold to smelters, 
whose establishments may be at great dis- 
tances off, even on the other side of the 
globe. The richer ores, worth per ton 
three or four times as many dollars as the 
figures that represent their percentage of 
metal, well repay the cost of transportation, 
and are conveniently reduced at smelting 
works situated on the coast near the mar- 
kets for copper, and where the fuel re- 
quired for their reduction is cheap. At 
Swansea, in South Wales, there are eight 
great smelting establishments, to which all 
the ores from Cornwall and Devon are car- 
ried, and which receive other ores f om 
almost all parts of the world. It is stated 
that in this district there are nearly 600 
furnaces employed, which consume about 
500,000 tons of coal per annum, and give 
employment to about 4,000 persons besides 
colliers. The amount of copper they sup- 
ply is more than half of that consumed by 
all nations. The total product of fine cop- 
per produced by all the smelting establish- 
ments of Great Britain for 1857 is stated 
to be 18,238 tons, worth £2,079,323. 

The copper smelting works of the United 
States are those upon the coast, depending 
chiefly upon foreign supplies of ores, and 
those of the interior, for melting and refining 
the Lake Superior copper. There are also 
the furnaces at the Tennessee mines, which 
have been already noticed. The former are 
situated at the following localities: At 
Point Shirley, in Boston harbor, are the 
furnaces of the Revere Copper Company, 
which also has rolling mills and other works 
connected with the manufacture of copper 
at Canton, on the Boston and Providence 
railroad. At Taunton, Mass., a similar estab- 
lishment to that at Canton is owned by the 
Messrs. Crocker, of that town. There are 
smelting furnaces at New Haven, Conn. ; at 
Bergen Point, in New York harbor; and at 
Baltimore, on a point in the outer harbor. 
There are in the interior, not only the 
smelting works connected with some of 
the large mines in the Lake Superior re- 
gion, but reduction works at Detroit, Chi- 
cago, St. Louis, Omaha, and Golden, Colo- 
rado, and so complete is their success that 
there is no longer any necessity for the ex- 
portation of these ores to Swansea or any- 
where else for reduction. 



430 



The furnaces established for working the 
Lake Superior copper are at Detroit, Cleve- 
land, and Pittsburg. At, the last named 
are two separate establishments, with each 
of which is connected a rolling mill, at 
which the ingot copper is converted into 
sheets for home consumption and the eastern 
market. A furnace was also built at Port- 
age lake, Lake Superior, in 1860, of capacity 
equal to melting 6000 tons of copper annu- 
ally. The details and extent of the opera- 
tions carried on by the smelting works ap- 
pear to have been carefully kept from publi- 
cation. In a work on " Copper and Copper 
Smelting," by A. Snowclon Piggott, M. D., 
who had charge of the chemical assays, etc., 
for the Baltimore Company, published in 
1858, while the English processes are fully 
described, no information is given as to the 
methods adopted at the American works ; 
and of their production all the information 
is contained in the two closing sentences of 
the appendix, as follows: "Of the copper- 
smelting establishments of the United States 
I have no statistics. Baltimore turns out 
about 8,000,000 pounds of refined copper 
annually." Applications which have been 
made by the writer to the proprietors of 
several of the establishments for information 
as to the business, have been entirely unsuc- 
cccsful. The total production of copper in 
1880 was supposed to be about 25,328 tons 
per annum; and of this about 16,000 tons 
were required by the rolling mills for mak- 
ing sheet copper, sheet brass, and yellow 
metal. 

The French treatise on Metallurgy by 
Professor Rivot contains the only published 
description of the American method of 
smelting copper. By the English process, 
the separation of the metal from its ores is 
a long and tedious series of alternate roast- 
ings or calcinations, and fusions in rever- 
beratory furnaces. The system is particu- 
larly applicable to the treatment of poor, 
sulphurous ores contaminated with other 
metals, as iron, arsenic, etc., and can only be 
conducted to advantage where fuel is very 
cheap, the consumption of this being at the 
rate of about 20 tons to the ton of copper 
obtained. The process employed in Ger- 
many is much more simple, and the methods 
in use at the American smelting works are 
more upon the plan of these. Blast or cu- 
pola furnaces supply at some of them the 
place of reverberatories, and the separation 
of the metal is completed in great part by 



one or two smeltings. The treatment of the 
Lake Superior copper is comparatively an 
easy operation. For this large reverberatory 
furnaces are employed, through the roof of 
which is an opening large enough to admit 
masses of 3 to 3-J tons weight, which are 
raised by cranes and lowered into the fur- 
nace. The barrels of barrel work are intro- 
duced in the same way, and left in the fur- 
nace without unpacking. When the furnace 
is charged, the opening in the top is secure- 
ly closed by fire-proof masonry, and the fire 
of bituminous coal is started, the name from 
which plays over the bridge, and, rellected 
from the roof, strikes upon the copper, caus- 
ing it gradually to sink down and at last 
flow in a liquid mass. A small portion of 
the copper by the oxidizing action of the 
heated gases is converted into a suboxide, 
which is partially reduced again, and in part 
goes into the slags in the condition of a 
silicate of copper, the metal of which is not 
entirely recovered. The mixture of quartz, 
calcareous spar, and epidote accompanying 
the copper, is sometimes such as to melt 
and form a good cinder without addition of 
any other substance, but usually some lime- 
stone or other suitable material is added as 
a flux. Complete fusion is effected in 12 to 
15 hours according to the size of the masses, 
and this is kept up for about an hour in 
order that the fine particles of copper may 
find their way through the fluid slag, which 
floats upon the metal. Working tools call- 
ed rabbles are then introduced through the 
side-doors of the furnace, and the charge is 
stirred up and the slag is drawn out through 
the door. It falls upon the ground, and is 
taken when sufficiently cool to the cupola or 
slag furnaces where it is chilled with water 
to render it easy to break up. Those por- 
tions which contain as much as one fourth 
per cent, of copper are reserved to be pass- 
ed through the slag furnace. The total 
amount of slag is usually less than 20 per 
cent, of the whole charge. In the melting 
the copper absorbs carbon, which if allow- 
ed to remain would render it brittle and 
unfit for use. To remove it the fire is so 
arranged that the gases pass through with 
much unconsumed air ; this playing on the 
surface of the copper produces a suboxide 
of the metal, which in the course of half an 
hour is quite taken up by the copper, and 
coming in contact with the particles of car- 
bon the oxygen combines with this, and re- 
moves it in the form of carbonic acid gas. 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



431 



It now remains to remove the excess of 
oxygen introduced, which is effected by the 
ordinary method of refining. A large pro- 
portion of fuel is employed on the grate for 
the amount of air admitted through it, so 
that the flames as they pass over the bridge 
convey little free oxygen, and the surface of 
the metal is covered with fine charcoal. 
After a little time a pole of green wood is 
thrust into the melted copper and stirred 
about so long as gases escape from the sur- 
face. It is then taken out, and if on testing 
the copper some suboxide still remains, the 
refining is cautiously continued with char- 
coal, and just when, as appears by the tests, 
all the oxide is reduced, the work of dipping 
out the metal is commenced. This is done 
by large iron ladles, the whole set of men 
employed at two furnaces, to the number 
of about 12, coining to this work and tak- 
ing turns in the severe task. They protect 
themselves from the intense heat by wet 
cloths about their arms, and as quickly as 
possible bale out a ladle full of copper and 
empty it into one or more of the ingot 
moulds, of which 36 are arranged in front 
of the furnace-door upon three parallel bars 
over a trough of water. As the metal be- 
comes solid in each mould, this is upset, 
letting the ingot fall into the water. The 
weight of the ingot being 20 pounds, the 
filling of them all removes 720 pounds of 
copper from the furnace. The metal that 
remains is then tested, and according to its 
condition the discharging may be continued 
or it may be necessary to oxidize the copper 
again and repeat the refining, or merely to 
throw more charcoal upon the surface and 
increase the heat. The time required to 
ladle out the whole charge is from four to 
six hours. When this is completed the sole 
of the furnace is repaired, by stopping the 
cracks with sand and smoothing the surface 
to get all ready for the next charge ; and at 
the same time the second furnace has reach- 
ed the refining stage of the process. One 
charge to a furnace is made every evening, 
and as in the night it is necessary only to 
keep up the fires, the great labor of the proc- 
ess comes wholly in the day time. 

The following is the estimated cost at 
Detroit of the smelting, on a basis of two 
furnaces, each of which is charged with four 
and a half to five tons of mass copper, con- 
suming two and a half tons of coal, and pro- 
ducing from three to three and a half tons 
of ingots : — 



Labor, 15 hands, at $1.50 $22.50 

Bituminous coal, 5 tons, at $5 25. 00 

Wood and charcoal 1.25 

Repairs to furnace, average for the season. . 2 00 

SOU. 75 
To this should be added, for superintend- 
ence, office, and general expenses, perhaps 
ten dollars more, which would make the 
cost for six or seven tons of ingot copper, 
$60.75, or $9 to $10 per ton. At Pitts- 
burg the rate charged has been $11 per ton; 
and fuel is there afforded at about one third 
the amount allowed in the above estimate. 

The cupola furnaces for treating the slags 
are of very simple plan and construction. 
They are of cylindrical form, about ten feet 
high, and three feet diameter inside. Their 
walls, the thickness of a single length of 
fire brick, are incased in boiler-plate iron, 
and stand upon a cast-iron ring, which is 
itself supported upon four cast-iron columns 
about three feet above the ground. Trans- 
verse iron bars support a circular plate, and 
upon this the refractory sand for the sole of 
the furnace is placed, and well beaten down 
to the thickness of a foot, with a sharp slope 
toward the tapping hole. A low chimney 
conveys away the gaseous products of com- 
bustion, and through the base of it the 
workmen introduce the charges. The blast 
is introduced by three tuyeres a foot above 
the sole ; but before it enters the furnace it 
is heated bypassing through a channel around 
the furnace. A steady current is obtained by 
the use of three double acting blowing cylin- 
ders, which give a pressure equal to about 
three and a half inches of mercury. 

The hands employed at the Detroit es- 
tablishment, besides the superintendent and 
head smelter, are eighteen furnace men and 
from five to ten workmen, according to the 
arrivals of copper during the season of navi- 
gation. After the stock thus received is 
worked up, the furnaces remain idle during 
the remainder of the winter. 

USEFUL APPLICATIONS OF COPPER. 

The uses of copper are so numerous and 
important that the metal must rank next in 
value to iron. In ancient times, indeed, it 
was the more useful metal of the two, being 
abundant among many nations to whom iron 
was not known. In the ancient Scandina- 
vian tumuli recently opened in Denmark, 
among the various implements of stone were 
found swords, daggers, and knives, the blades 
of which were, in some instances, of copper, 



432 



and in some of gold, while the cutting edges 
were formed of iron, showing that this was 
more rare and valuable than either copper or 
gold. It has been supposed that several of 
the ancient nations, as the Egyptians, Greeks, 
etc., possessed the art of hardening copper, 
so as to make it serve the purposes of steel. 
That they employed it for such uses as those 
to which we now apply tools of steel is cer- 
tain, and also that the specimens of some of 
their copper tools are considerably harder 
than any we make of the same metal. These 
are found, on analysis, to contain about one 
part in ten of tin, which, it is known, in- 
creases, when added in small proportions, 
the hardness of copper, and this was prob- 
ably still further added to by hammering. 

Among the most important uses of the metal 
at present is that of sheathing the bottoms 
of ships in order to protect the timbers from 
the ravages of marine animals, and present a 
smooth surface for the easy passage of the 
vessel through the water. The metal is well 
adapted, from its softness and tenacity, for 
rolling into sheets, and these were first pre- 
pared for this use for the Alarm frigate of 
the royal navy, in 1761. Sheet lead had 
been in use before this time, but was soon 
after given up for copper. On account of 
the rapid deterioration of the copper by the 
action of the sea-water, the naval department 
of the British government applied, in 1823, 
to the Royal Society for some method of 
preserving the metal. This was furnished 
by Sir Humphry Davy, who recommend 
ed applying strips of cast iron under the 
copper sheets, which, by the galvanic cur- 
rent excited, would be corroded instead 
of the copper. The application answered 
the purpose intended, but soon had to be 
given up, for the copper, protected from 
chemical action, it was found, became cov- 
ered with barnacles" and other shell-fish, so 
as seriously to impair the sailing qualities of 
the vessels, and for this reason it has been 
found necessary to submit to the natural wast- 
ing of the metal, and replace the sheets as fast 
as they become corroded. 

Various alloys have been proposed as sub- 
stitutes for copper. That known as yellow 
metal, or Muntz's, has been the most success- 
ful and has been very generally introduced. 
It consists of copper alloyed with about 40 
per cent, of zinc, and is prepared by plung- 
ing cakes of zinc into a bath of melted cop- 
per contained in a reverbcratory furnace. 
The volatilization of the zinc and oxidation 



of the metals is guarded against by a cover- 
ing of fine charcoal kept upon the melted 
surface. The bolts, nails, and other fasten- 
ings for the sheathing, and for various other 
parts of the ship, are made also of copper 
and of yellow metal ; and to secure the great- 
est strength, they should be cast at once in 
the forms in which they are to be used. 
The manufacture of all these articles is ex- 
tensively carried on at the different copper 
establishments in Massachusetts, Connecti- 
cut, and Baltimore. 

Sheet copper is also applied to many other 
very important uses, as for copper boilers 
and pipes, for large stills and condensers, 
the vacuum pans of sugar refineries, and a 
multitude of utensils for domestic purposes, 
and for employment in the different arts. 
For engraving upon it is prepared of the 
purest quality and of different thicknesses, ac- 
cording to the kind of engraving for which 
it is to be used. The engraver cuts it to the 
size he requires, planishes it,and gives to it the 
dead smooth surface peculiar to engraving 
plates. The smaller utensils of sheet copper, as 
urns, vases, etc., are very ingeniously hammer- 
ed out from a flat circular sheet. As the ham- 
mering is first applied to the central portion, 
this spreads and takes the form of a bowl. 
As the metal becomes harder and brittle by 
the operation, its softness and ductility are 
restored by annealing, a process that must 
often be repeated as the hammering is con- 
tinued, and toward the last, when the metal 
has become more susceptible to the change 
induced by the application of the hammer, 
the annealing must be very carefully attended 
to, and the whole process be conducted with 
much skill and judgment acquired by long 
experience. 

For larger and more common hollow ar- 
ticles, the sheet copper is folded around, and 
lapped by various sorts of joints, some of 
which are secured by rivets, and some by a 
double lap, the two edges locking into each 
other, and made close by hammering. The 
edges are also soldered either with soft 
or hard solder. For the latter an alloy is 
made for the purpose, by melting in a crucible 
a quantity of brass, and then stirring in one- 
half or one-third as much zinc, until the blue 
flame disappears. The mixture is then turn- 
ed out into a shallow pan, and when cold the 
plate is heated nearly red hot, and beaten 
on an anvil or in a mortar. This is the hard 
solder of the braziers. 

A still more important application of the 



MINING INDUSTRY OF TnE UNITED STATES 



433 



copper is in the manufacture of the alloy- 
known as brass ; and that called bronze also 
serves many useful purposes. The former is 
composed of copper and zinc, the latter of 
copper and tin. It is a curious fact in met- 
allurgy that brass was extensively manufac- 
tured, and used more commonly than any 
single metal or other alloy, many centuries 
before the existence of such a metal as zinc 
was known. It was prepared by melting 
copper and introducing fragments of the 
lapis cafaminaris, an ore of zinc, in which 
the oxide of the metal is combined with car- 
bonic acid. Charcoal was also added to the 
mixture, and by the reaction with this the 
zinc ore was reduced to the metallic state, 
and at once united with the copper, without 
appearing as a distinct metal. This process 
is still in use for making brass, but the more 
common method is to introduce slips of 
copper into melted zinc, or to plunge beneath 
melted copper lumps of zinc held in iron 
tongs. The proportion of the two metals is 
always uncertain, owing to the unknown 
quantity of zinc that is consumed and es- 
capes in fumes This is prevented as much 
as possible by covering the melted metal 
with fine charcoal, and by throwing in pieces 
of glass, which melt and cover the mixture 
with a thin protecting layer. Qld brass is 
much used in making new, and the addition 
of quantities of this to the pot containingthe 
other ingredients, adds to the uncertainty of 
the composition. The best proportion of 
the two metals is believed to be two parts of 
copper to one of zinc, which is expressed by 
the term " eight-ounce brass," meaning eight 
ounces of zinc to sixteen of copper. Sixteen- 
ounce brass — the two metals being equal — 
is a beautiful golden yellow alloy called 
prince's metal. But all brass of more than 
ten ounces of zinc to the pound of copper is 
whitish, crystalline, hard, and brittle ; of less 
than ten ounces it is malleable, soft, and 
ductile. The alloys known as pinchbeck, 
Manheim gold, bath metal, etc., formerly 
much in use as imitations of gold, are about 
three to four ounce brass. 

Brass combines a number of excellent 
qualities, which adapt it for many uses. Its 
compactness, durability, strength, and soft- 
ness, render it an excellent material for fine 
work, and nothing, except tin, perhaps, is bet- 
ter adapted for shapiig in the lathe. In use 
it is not liable to rust by exposure, is easily 
kept clean, and takes a polish almost as beau- 
tiful as that of cold. It is hence a f ivorite 
23 



material for the works of watches and clocks, 
almost all sorts of instruments in which great 
hardness is not essential, and for various 
household utensils, and ornaments upon fur- 
niture. In thin plates it is stamped and em- 
bossed in figures, and is thus cheaply applied 
to many useful and ornamental purposes. 
Its ductility is such, that those sorts contain- 
ing little zinc are beaten out, as in Dutch 
gilding, like gold-leaf itself, so as to be used 
as a cheap substitute for this in gilding in. 
some cases. It is also drawn out into wire,, 
often of great fineness ; and of the suitable- 
sizes of this there is a very large consumption 
in the manufacture of pins, and hooks and 
eyes. By ingenious machinery the brass 
wires are clipped to their proper length for 
pins, pointed, headed, and after being tinned. 
are stuck in paper, with very little atten- 
tion from the workmen. This manufacture 
serves to exemplify the perfection of machin- 
ery, and some of the most admirable of this,. 
particularly that by which the finished pins 
are stuck in their papers, is a peculiarly 
American invention, and worth, to the manu- 
facturers at Waterbury alone, many thousand 
dollars annually. The solid-headed pin, 
made somewhat after the manner in which 
cut nails are headed, was invented by two cit- 
izens of Rhode Island, Mr. Slocum and Mr. 8. 
G. Reynolds. This was before the \ ear 184(1. 
The brass pins and hooks and eyes are cov- 
ered with a coating of tin by placing them 
in a barrel, together with about twice their 
weight of tin in grains, several ounces of 
cream of tartar, and several gallons of warm 
water. The barrel is then made to revolve 
upon its axis, until the pins or other articles 
are perfectly clean. After this they are 
boiled in a similar mixture. 

Much of the brass of the ancients was 
properly bronze — that is, a compound of cop- 
per and tin. This alloy, In different propor- 
tions of its ingredients, is still of very great 
service. Gun metal — the material of the so- 
called brass cannon — is composed of copper 
96 to 108 parts, and tin 11 parts. The com- 
pound resists wear extremely well, but its- 
strength is only about one-half that of 
wrought iron. Statues, and hard castings for 
machinery, are formed of this alloy. Messrs, 
Mitchell, Vance & Co., of New York, have- 
been very successful in casting bronze statu- 
ettes and ornaments, clock cases, &c, which 
rival the antique bronze in beauty. One 
of the most noted foundries for the casting 
ot cannon, statues, and bronze ornaments in 



434 



GOLD. 



ths United States is that of the Messrs. 
Ames, at Chicopee, Mass. The equestrian 
statue of Washington, in Union square, New 
York, is one of their most successful produc- 
tions. The French bronze contains 2 parts 
of tin, 1 of lead, G of zinc, and 91 of copper. 
Bell-metal is a bronze usually consisting of 
7 parts of copper and 22 of tin. The larg- 
est bell in the country, that formerly on 
the City Hall, in New York, weighs 23,000 
pounds, and was cast in Boston. The 
largest number of bells is probably pro- 
duced at the foundry of the Messrs. Men- 
eely, at Troy, N. Y. The Chinese gong is 
now an American manufacture, composed of 
bell-metal, which, after being cast, is forged 
under the hammer, between two di.-ks of 
iron. The casting is made malleable by 
plunging, while hot, into cold water. 

As with zinc, copper forms an alloy m ide 
to imitate gold, so with tin and nickel it forms 
a combination resembling silver, known as 
German silver. The proportions of the met- 
als are 8 parts of copper to either 3 or 4 each 
<of tbe two other metals. This is used in the 
manufacture of spoons, forks, and other uten- 
sils, and instead of brass in various instru- 
ments. It is plated with silver, and is as 
beautiful as the genuine silver. 

Becently, processes of refining nickel on 
a large scale have been discovered, by 
which it is rendered as malleable as silver, 
retaining, however, a greater hardness. In 
this condition it is combined with copper, 
forming an alloy having all the servicea- 
ble qualities of gold; with platinum and 
copper forming a beautiful argentine metal. 
Another alloy of copper and tin is the 
telescope or speculum metal, which consists 
of about one-third tin and two-thirds cop- 
per. It is of a steel- white color, very hard 
and brittle, and susceptible of a high pol- 
ish, which is not soon tarnished, qualities 
that cause it to be used for the mirrors of 
telescopes. 

Copper is largely used in the coinage, 
pure in the cent, combined with nickel in 
the three and five cent pieces, and as an 
alloy in the silver and gold pieces. 

Among the later alloys of copper is 
what is called oroide of gold, which in its 
best qualities consists of pure copper, 100 
parts; zinc or tin, 17 parts; magnesia,, 6 
parts; sal-ammonia, 0.5 parts; quicklime, 
0.125 parts; tartar of commerce, 9 parts. 
Aluminium Bronze, 90 parts copper and 10 
of aluminium. 



CHAPTER III. 
GOLD. 

Although the discovery of gold was one 
of the motives that first led to the settle- 
ment of the American continent, the search 
for it in the United States does not appear 
to have been successful until the present 
century. The only exception to this state- 
ment was in the alleged discovery made 
by some Europeans of the gold region of 
northern Georgia at a period long antece- 
dent to the occupation of this district by the 
whites. Of this fact no written record is 
preserved ; but in working the deposit mines 
of the Nacoochee valley, in Habersham coun- 
ty, there were discovered, about the year 
1842, various utensils and vestiges of huts, 
which evidently had been constructed by 
civilized men, and had been buried there 
several centuries. It is supposed they be- 
longed to De Soto's party, which passed 
through this region in the sixteenth century 
on their exploring expedition from Florida 
to the Mississippi river. The earlier his- 
torians hardly mention gold as even being 
supposed to exist in the colonies. Salmon, 
in the third volume of his "Modern His- 
tory," 1746, merely alludes to a gold mine 
in Virginia, which of late " had made much 
noise," but does not even name the locality, 
and evidently attaches no importance to it. 
In Jefferson's " Notes on Virginia " mention 
is made of the discovery of a piece of gold 
of 17 dwts. near the Rappahannock. In 
1799, as mentioned by Wheeler in his " His- 
tory of North Carolina," a son of Conrad 
Reed picked up a piece of gold as large as 
a small smoothing iron from the bed of a 
brook on his father's farm, in Cabarrus coun- 
ty, and its value not being known it was 
kept for several years in the house to hold 
the door open, and was then sold to a silver- 
smith for $3.50. In Drayton's " View of 
South Carolina," 1802, the metal is stated 
to have been found on Paris Mountain, in 
Greenville district. About this time it be- 
gan to be met with in considerable lumps in 
Cabarrus county, N. C, and not long after- 
ward in Montgomery and Anson counties. 
At Reed's mine, in Cabarrus, the discovery 
by a negro of a lump weighing 28 lbs. avoir- 
dupois, near the same stream already referred 
to, led to increased activity in exploring the 
gravelly deposits along the courses of the 
brooks and rivers of this region, and numer- 
ous new localities of the metal were rapidly 
discovered. A much larger proportion of 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



435 



gold was collected, during these earlier work- 
ings, in coarse lumps than in the operations 
of later times — pieces of metal of one to 
several pounds weight heing often found. 
Before the year 1820, as stated in Bruce 's 
Mineralogical Journal (vol. i., p. 125), the 
quantity of American gold received at the 
mint at Philadelphia amounted to $43,689. 
All of this was from North Carolina. In 
1827 there had been received from the same 
source $110,000. But besides this amount, 
a considerable proportion of the gold prod- 
uct was consumed by jewellers, who paid a 
better price than was received from the mint, 
and was retained by the banks, in which it 
was deposited. It also circulated to some 
extent as a medium of exchange in the min- 
ing region, being carried about in quills, and 
received by the merchants usually at the rate 
of ninety cents a dwt. The total product 
of the mines must, therefore, have been 
much larger than appears from the mint re- 
turns. In 1829, Virginia and South Caro- 
lina began to appear as gold-producing states 
— there being deposited in the mint from 
the former gold to the value of $2,500, and 
from the latter of $3,500. The same year 
the rich gold deposits of northern Georgia 
were discovered, and suddenly became very 
productive, so that the receipts at the mint 
from this state for the year 1830 amounted 
to $212,000. Gold mining had now become 
an established branch of the productive in- 
dustry of the states,- and as its importance 
increased, the necessity was felt of the estab- 
lishment of branch mints . in the mining 
region. One was constructed by act of Con- 
gress at Dahlonega, Lumpkin county, Geor- 
gia, and another at Charlotte, Mecklenburg 
county, N. C. ; and both commenced coining 
gold in 1838. From the irregular manner 
in which the gold deposits were worked, and 
their uncertain yield, the annual production 
of the mines was very variable. In a single 
year the mint at Dahlonega received and 
coined gold to the value of $600,000 ; and 
until the discovery of the California gold 
mines, the American production was estima- 
ted to average annually about $100,000. It 
was, however, gradually declining in impor- 
tance from the year 1845 ; and of late years 
has dwindled away, so as not to amount to 
enough for the support of the branch mints, 
and these were abolished in 1861, but an 
assay office has been opened at Charlotte 
since the war. The introduction into the 
mines of North Carolina and Georgia of 



the hydraulic and sluice washing, which 
has proved highly successful in California, 
gives encouragement that these mines may 
again become productive. 

Gold is found only in mountain ranges 
and in the valleys which divide them; and 
in the latter usually only in placer deposits. 
It is oftenest found in its native state, in 
grains, fine dust, or nuggets, mingled with 
quartz, feldspar, or schist, in veins which 
fill fissures of trachyte, porphyry, or other 
metamorphic rocks. It is one of the char- 
acteristics of the true fissure veins that 
they are narrow, and filled with a con- 
glomerate of quartz, feldspar, and other 
rock, among which the grains of gold oc- 
cur more or less plentifully. Occasionally 
^old is found combined with some other 
metal or mineral, as the gold-bearing pyri- 
tes of iron and copper, the tellurides of 
gold and silver, the combination with sil- 
ver, and the various sulphides and sulphates 
which are occasionally found in Colorado, 
and perhaps in California; but even in these 
cases, it usually occurs in veins. Placer 
gold is deposited where the mountain tor- 
rents or the larger rivers which erode or 
eat out the strata of the rocks over and 
through which they flow, and meeting with 
these fissure veins in their course carry 
down the gold and gold-bearing quartz 
which they contain, with the other debris 
from the rocks, and deposit it in the river- 
bads or valleys below. The Appalachian 
range, a name applied to the whole moun- 
tain chain of which the Alleghanies are a 
part, and which extends from the Cana- 
dian province of Quebec to northern Geor- 
gia, Alabama, and Mississippi, is gold-bear- 
ing, in a moderate degree, throughout most 
of its course, as we shall presently show; 
though but few of the veins, and still fewer 
of the placers, render a very generous re- 
turn for the labor expended on them. The 
Mississippi Valley, and the prairies on 
either side of it, contain no gold, nor does 
there seem to be any considerable quantity 
in the upper peninsula of Michigan, but 
the Black Hills and the Bighorn range, 
eastern and outlying spurs of the Pocky 
Mountains, have many veins which yield 
the precious metal, if not in large, yet in 
very constant quantity. 

When we como to the three or four 
ranges which go to make up the Rocky 
Mountains, we find all along the chain and 
in the spurs and cross ranges abundant 



436 



GOLD. 



evidence that the whole mountains are per- 
meated by veins of gold bearing quartz, at 
not distant intervals from Alaska to the 
Gulf of Mexico. It was thought at one 
time that only the easternmost of these 
ranges contained gold in very large quan- 
tities, but it is now certain that the main 
range, or "Great Divide," as the miners 
call it, and even the somewhat lower west- 
ern range, contain veins and lodes of both 
silver and gold in still greater abundance. 
It is probable, though not absolutely cer- 
tain, that the Wahsatch range, which with 
its spurs forms the eastern wall of the 
great Utah basin, is gold-bearing; but the 
Sierra Nevada, whose eastern range forms 
the western wall of that basin, and which 
extends under various names and with 
numerous spurs and short ranges through 
Arizona and southeastern California into 
Mexico, is exceedingly rich in silver and 
gold, and its northern extension, the Cas- 
cade Mountains, has given abundant proof 
that it, also, is gold bearing. The Coast 
Range, also, from Washington Territory or 
British Columbia to the peninsula of Low- 
er California, has, at many points, yielded 
up its treasures, while the golden sands of 
Del Norte, Humboldt, and Mendocino 
counties, in California, show that they have 
been washed down from the mountains of 
the Coast Range, for the law has no ex- 
ceptions, "no mountain vein, no placer." 

Having thus passed in rapid review the 
sources from which gold is derived, let us 
now take up more in detail the localities in 
which gold has been discovered in paying 
quantities. 

A gold mine was opened in 1851-2 in 
the province of Quebec, on the Chaudiere 
river and its tributaries, the Du Loup and 
the Touffe des Pins. This was a placer 
deposit; about 1,900 pennyweights were 
discovered and collected, but the returns 
were not sufficient to cover the outlays, 
and it was abandoned. In Vermont, at 
Bridgewater, Plymouth, and Newfane, 
there have been some attempts to open 
gold mines; but though they have struck 
the veins or lodes, they were not sufficiently 
rich to be successfully worked. In Mas- 
sachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and 
New Jersey, gold has been found recently 
along the line of these mountains, and 
specimens of quartz rich in gold have been 
produced in Montgomery county, Penn. 
In Virginia, the placer mines of Louis Co. 



especially were very productive, even in 
1833, and they had not been worked long 
before rich veins were traced up, and oper- 
ations upon these had been carried on to 
considerable extent previous to 183G, prin- 
cipally in the counties of Spottsylvania, 
Orange, Louisa, Fluvanna, and Bucking- 
ham. Some of the mines produced at 
times very rich returns, but their yield was, 
for the most part, exceedingly irregular, 
the gold occurring in rich pockets or nests, 
very unequally scattered in the vein. The 
occasional richness of the veins caused the 
attention of wealthy capitalists in this coun- 
try and in England to be directed to this 
region, and large outlays were made, in 
providing powerful engines and other suit- 
able machinery for working the ores, and 
in opening the mines. But, although the 
operations have been directed by the best 
mining skill, supported by abundant capi- 
tal, the enterprise, on the whole, has not 
met the expectations of its owners. The 
entire production of gold in Virginia, from 
the beginning to June 30, 1880, was 
$1,672,067.70, but there has been a de- 
cided falling off during the last decade. In 
1880 there was only $9,322.07 -deposited 
at the mint and assay offices, and the aver- 
age of ten years was only about $15,000. 
In North Carolina numerous quartz veins 
have been worked during the last fifty 
years, and operations are still carried on 
with considerable success at mines in Guil- 
ford, Davidson, Montgomery, Cabarrus, 
Rowan, and Mecklenburg counties. Placer 
mines have been worked with great 
success, also, in Burke, Rutherford, and 
McDowell counties. At a single time, it is 
stated, there might have been seen, from 
one point of view in McDowell county, no 
less than 3,000 persons engaged in washing 
the deposits. In this district sluice- wash- 
ing has recently been successfully intro- 
duced by Dr. Van Dyke, who is also en- 
gaged in the same process in Georgia. The 
most important group of mines is at Gold 
Hill, on the southern line of Rowan and 
Cabarrus counties. Mining operations 
were begun here in 1843, and for ten years 
the annual product averaged about SI 00,- 
000 ; the last four years of this period more 
than one-third of all the gold coined at the 
Charlotte mint was from Gold Hill. In 
1853 the property was purchased by a New 
York company, by which it has since been 
worked, but with greatly reduced profits, 






MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



437 



although the mines have been furnished 
with the most efficient machinery. These 
are the deepest gold mines in the Atlantic 
states, one of the shafts having now reached 
the depth of 680 feet. The ore is pyritous 
iron, containing gold in particles rarely 
visible, and probably chemically combined 
with the iron and sulphur in the form of a 
double sulphuret. It is separated with 
difficulty, and very imperfectly, by the 
processes of crushing and amalgamating; 
and the immense heaps of tailings collected 
below the mines, amounting probably to 
over two million bushels, still retain quan- 
tities of gold worth from fifty cents to two 
dollars the bushel. The Washington mine, 
in Davidson county, opened in 1839, after 
producing considerable gold, was thought 
to be more valuable for silver than for 
gold. It is the only silver mine of any 
importance east of the Rocky Mountains, 
but up to June, 1880, it had yielded only 
$45,581.33 of silver. The yield of the 
precious metals from North Carolina, how- 
ever, has been considerably greater than 
that of any other of the states oast of the 
Rocky Mountains, aggregating $10,658- 
932.43. 

Although many gold mines have been 
worked in South Carolina, the only one of 
much note is the Dorn mine, in Abbeville 
district. In 1850 this mine, then quite 
new, produced gold to the value of $19,- 
000, and in 1852 the production rose to 
$202,216. This large yield was caused by 
finding pockets or chimneys in the vein, 
soon fell off, and the production of 1880 
was only $11,861.70, and that of the state 
from the beginning to June, 1880, was 
$1,401,875.74. 

The Georgia gold mines, first worked in 
the northeast part of the state in 1829, 
were soon found to extend southwest into 
the country beyond the Chestatee river, 
which was then possessed by the Cherokee 
Indians. In 1830 the borders of this ter- 
ritory were overrun by a reckless set of 
adventurers, notwithstanding the attempts 
made, first by a force of United States 
troops stationed for the protection of the 
Indians, and afterward by Georgia troops, 
when the state extended her laws In 1830 
over the Cherokee country. On the re- 
moval of the Indians, their lands were dis- 
tributed in forty-acre lots, by lottery, among 
the inhabitants of the state, and thus titles 
were obtained to the gold mines. The 



placer mines yielded richly for a few years, 
and the whole product of gold for the first 
ten years of their working is supposed to 
have amounted to $16,000,000, a large por- 
tion of which never reached the United 
States mints, but was distributed in barter 
throughout the neighboring states, and 
worked up in jewelry. From 1839 to 1 849 
the production did not probably exceed 
$4,000,000. A number of quartz veins 
were opened in Habersham, Lumpkin, 
Cherokee, Carroll. Columbia, and other 
counties, and considerable amounts of gold 
were obtained from these. They were, 
however, generally abandoned when the 
workings reached a depth at which ma- 
chinery would be required for draining the 
mines. In Columbia county, about twenty 
miles from Augusta, the McCormack mine 
has been worked without much interrup- 
tion for about forty years, producing very 
fair profits. The gold is found in small 
particles in a honey-combed quartz, which 
contains but little pyrites and some galena. 
Nearly all the gold was obtained within 
seventy feet of the surface. 

In Lumpkin county the gold is found in 
immense placers of decomposed micaceous 
and talcose slates, and an effort was made 
to work these placers by the process of 
hydraulic mining as early as 1858 by Dr. 
H. M. Van Dyke, who had lived in Cali- 
fornia in the mining disti'icts. Dr. Van 
Dyke secured the cooperation of Boston 
capitalists, and purchasing large tracts of 
land near Dahlonega, commenced opera- 
tions in 1858, and was very successful for 
the next three years. Another Boston 
company followed his example, and estab- 
lished themselves in White county, and 
utilized the Nacoochee river for their pur- 
pose. Between 1837 and 1861 the branch 
mint at Dahlonega had coined $6,121,919, 
mostly Georgia gold. The war put an end 
both to the hydraulic mining and the mint- 
ing- of the bullion. After the war the 
mint was abolished, and for some years 
there was no attempt to resume mining 
operations. In 1873 efforts were made to 
renew work there, and in 1880 Georgia 
sent to the mint $89,831.08 of gold. Her 
entire production up to June, 1880, has 
been $7,698,540.23. 

From Georgia, the gold-bearing rocks 
are traced into eastern Tennessee, where 
they have been worked along the range of 
the Coweta and Smoky Mountains. The 



438 



GOLD. 



production of this state has not been large, 
aggregating in forty years only $84,266.25, 
and amounting in 1880 to only about 
$12,000. And from the south side of the 
Blue Ridge, in Georgia, they have proved 
productive in a southwest direction, 
through Carroll county, into Alabama. 
The mines in this state were placers main- 
ly, and after yielding moderately well for 
a number of years, producing in all $219,- 
873 to June, 1880, they have fallen off so 1 
completely that the production of 1880 
was only $753. 

But all these gold mines east of the 
Mississippi, with their production of about 
$22,000,000 of gold in fifty years or more, 
sink into insignificance' when brought into 
comparison with the vast production, both 
in gold and silver, of the region west of 
the Mississippi. While some portions of 
this great western empire had been worked 
for gold by the Spaniards and natives two 
centuries ago, as was the case in New Mex- 
ico, Arizona, and possibly in Colorado and 
Wyoming, these mines had been aban- 
doned till the explorations which followed 
the discovery of gold in California, in 
1848, brought to light the hidden treasures 
of the hills. The mining excitement, or 
fever, has had its remissions and exacerba- 
tions; but at no time hac it been so wide 
spread, or its discoveries so numerous, as 
since 1876. Of the twenty-one states and 
territories lying west of the Mississippi 
river, gold (and in most, silver) mining is 
actively prosecuted in twelve, and gold is 
known to be present, in paying quantities, 
in two more, Texas and the Indian Terri- 
tory. The gold states and territories, be- 
ginning at the west, are California, Oregon, 
Washington, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Arizo- 
na, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, 
Montana, and Dakota. Of these, Califor- 
nia was the first to produce gold in great 
abundance, and has held its pre-eminence, 
though Colorado is, in its present produc- 
tion, not far behind; while Montana, Idaho, 
Oregon, and Nevada, Arizona, and Utah, 
bring up the rear — the last three being 
more prolific in silver than in gold. 

In the thirty -three years since the dis 
co very of gold in California, this great 
western region has yielded over $1,800,- 
000,000 in gold, a sum more than equal to 
our entire national debt, and this is but 
the beginning of gold production, for 
though placer-mining, except by the hy- 



draulic process, and in the newer gold 
fields, is nearly at an end, the discoveries 
of the last three or four years have devel- 
oped such rich and permanently productive 
veins, and so many new forms of gold 
mining, that the annual product of gold is 
increasing. The gold product of 1880 ex- 
ceeded $36,000,000; that of 1881 exceeds 
$37,000,000. The remaining eighteen 
years of the present century cannot fail to 
advance the total output of gold to $2,600,- 
000,000, while that of silver, though very 
large, will hardly amount to more than 
one-third of that sum. 

Let us now describe, as briefly as we 
may, the different methods of mining and 
of extracting gold from its earthy or me- 
tallic combinations and attachments. As 
we have already said, gold may be found 
in placers, or in small nuggets, in grains, 
or coarse or fine dust, in the bed of 
streams, or on the sea-shore; it may occur 
as free milling gold, in veins or lodes of 
quartz or conglomerate, or it may bo com- 
bined with sulphur, tellurium, silver, cop- 
per, iron, zinc, or lead in ores, and often 
with more than one of these at the same 
time. Each condition requires a different 
mode of treatment. In placer-mining, the 
primitive method was the use of the pan ; a 
large milk-pan being partly filled with 
the earth supposed to contain gold, was 
taken by the miner to a neighboring stream 
and filled with water, and then shaken vio- 
lently, till its earthy contents were sus- 
pended, and by gentle tipping washed 
away, and the more solid gold particles set- 
tled to the bottom. This process was waste- 
ful, particularly if the gold was in fine parti- 
cles; so the rocker was substituted, some- 
thing like a child's cradle of the olden 
time, with one end considerably lower 
than the other, and at the upper end a rid- 
dle or colander, with holes of considerable 
size; underneath the riddle was the floor 
of the rocker, provided with cleats or rif- 
fles extending nearly across to catch the 
gold. In each riffle was placed some quick- 
silver, which combined with the gold form- 
ing an amalgam, provided there was no oil 
or grease to prevent the union. This saved 
more, but did not work fast enough. Next 
came the " Tom,'' 1 a longer and larger rock- 
er, twelve or fifteen feet in length, also pro- 
vided with a riddle, cleats, or riffles, and 
the quicksilver for amalgamating the g< 'Id. 
This required three men, one to pump the 



MINING INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. 



439 



water into the Tom, one to throw in the 
pay-dirt, and another to throw out the 
stones and throw the undissolved lumps 
back into the riddle. To this succeeded 
the sluice, a trough of boards made water- 
tight, and from a hundred to five thousand 
feet in length, with its riffles and quicksil- 
ver, and provided with water which ran 
through it constantly, by a flume or canal 
from some mountain stream or lake. The 
difficulty now was to obtain sufficient labor- 
ers to throw in the pay-dirt with such ra- 
pidity that none of this costly water should 
be lost. The next step was hydraulic min- 
ing. The large pan or riddle of the great 
sluice was still farther enlarged, and so 
placed that the earth from a neighboring 
hill or bluff which contained gold would 
fall into it, and the water conveyed by a 
flume often for many miles, and with a 
head of from sixty to two hundred feet 
passed through a strong hose to a nozzle 
two inches or more in diameter, was di- 
rected upon the hill, breaking it down, 
pulverizing it, and forcing it in a muddy 
current through the perforated sluice. 
Bars were placed across the sluice at such 
an angle as to turn aside the larger stones 
and boulders, and four or five men could 
accomplish more and gain larger returns 
than four or five hundred by the old pro- 
cesses. Sometimes the clay which bound 
together the gold-bearing gravel and sand 
proved too tough to be broken down 
even by the force of the hydraulic stream, 
and then the miner tunnelled the base of 
the hill, and introduced a heavy charge of 
giant powder, gun cotton, or dynamite, 
which, when exploded, disintegrated the 
tough masses, and made the task of the 
hydraulic pipe easy. This process has 
brought many millions of gold bullion into 
the market, and kept up the gold produc- 
tion. It fails, however, in some cases, and 
the tailings contain a good deal of gold in 
all cases, which the patient Chinese, by re- 
peated washings, obtain in sufficient quan- 
tities to give them from two to five dollars 
a day. 

On the Snake, Salmon, and Wood rivers, 
in Idaho, the gold was deposited in the 
finest possible powder, in an equally fine 
clay, ami though the assays would show 
from $i0 to $50 of gold to the ton, and 
sometimes even more, it was impossible to 
extract by the ordinary process of washing 
more than from $3 to $5 per ton. This 



difficulty was finally obviated by placing 
in the sluice, at short intervals, sheets of 
boiler iron, electro-plated with silver, and 
then covered with quicksilver; in some 
cases both surfaces were coated, and they 
were so arranged that the flow of water 
would cause them to partially revolve on 
each other, thus causing the gold-bearing 
clay to be ground between them. This 
process was found to be considerably suc- 
cessful. But the placers become exhausted 
after a time, and being traced back to their 
source, they are found to come from veins 
or lodes in the hills or mountains, where 
the gold is either ''free," as it is called, in 
quartz or conglomerate, the veins being 
generally narrow, and occupying a crack 
or fissure in the different slates, the gran- 
ite, gneiss, trachyte or porphyritic rocks, 
or is found in ores more or iessrefrrctory, 
composed of sulphides of iron, copper, 
zinc, or tellurium, or with silver, in some 
combination, with lead, zinc, copper, or 
tellurium, in veins or lodes, in the same 
classes of rocks. 

The processes of mining for gold in 
these veins — quartz mining, as it is usually 
called — are entirely different from those of 
placer-mining. Gold may occur in true 
fissure veins, or in pockets or chimneys, or 
in what Prof. Newberry calls mechanically- 
filled veins, as at the Bull Domingo mines, 
in Custer county, Colorado, but, unlike 
silver, it seems never to occur in what are 
known as contact lodes, like the carbonate 
belts at Leadville and elsewhere. The 
true fissure veins may have, and often do 
have, chimneys, chutes, pockets, bonanzas, 
or branch fissures, generally connecting 
with the main vein or lode on its upper 
side, at an angle of from thirty to forty- 
five degrees, and these branches, etc., may 
be richer than the main vein, but they are 
not generally of any great extent. 

The main gold-bearing vein or lode fol- 
lows the dip of the stratum in which it ia 
located, and hence may be at any angle 
with the surface. They generally pene- 
trate to a great depth, and often the gangue 
or vein matter which is charged with 
gold is softer and more easily worked at a 
considerable depth than near the surface 
The veins vary greatly in productiveness 
at different depths, there being not unfre 
quently barren tracts of quartz, miniature 
boulders which block up the whole vein, 
and which have given the name of ''boul- 



440 



GOLD. 



der veins" or "horses" to these tracts, as possible, the miner stakes off and records 
When, from the presence of these boul- 1 his claim in accordance with the mining 



ders or other anises, a vein becomes bar 
ren for a considerable distance, there often 
succeeds a space, which is filled up with 
soft and decaying quartz, and is rich in 
gold. " A distinctly marked banded struc- 
ture," says Mr. W. P. Blake, "with a more 
or loss crystalline medial plane is not un- 
common where veins traverse a hard homo- 
geneous rock, such as granite or syenite. 
This is a structural arrangement of the 
gangue, which is regarded as one of the 
characteristics of true fissure veins. A 
banded structure, due chiefly to the paral 
lei arrangement of the pyrites, or to en- 
closed films of slate, is often seen in veins 
traversing slates. Such veinstone is often 
known as "ribbon quartz," and is consid- 
ered by miners as favorable to the. rich- 
ness of the ore. There is a class of veins 
known as "slate veins," in which a belt of 
slates is traversed by thin seams of quartz 
so much divided up into films and mixed 
with the layers of slate as scarcely to be 
recognized. Such seams, perhaps not 
thicker than a card or a knife-blade, are 
sometimes highly charged with gold." 

The gold in many veins, especially in 
Colorado, Utah, and Montana, is not 
"free," i. e. not pure gold or gold only 
mixed with silver, but is associated and 
sometimes chemically combined with pyri- 
tous minerals, such as sulphuret of iron, 
yellow copper ore, galena, arsenical pyrites, 
tellurium, and the tellurides of bismuth or 
other metals. The amount of these pyritous 
minerals may not be large, but some of 
them constitute the most refractory ores 
known to the metallurgist. The tellurides 
in Colorado for a long time resisted all 
efforts for their reduction, except by pro- 
cesses so expensive as to consume all the 
profits. They yielded at length to the 
chloridizing processes, and of late to an 
electric process, which is said to be still 
cheaper and easier. 

But it is time we described the ordinary 
processes of gold lode mining. It does not 
vary greatly from the mode of mining for 
copper, already described on page , ex- 
cept in these particulars: the veins are 
generally narrower, the rock in which they 
are enclosed harder, and the mines pene- 
trate to a greater depth. The vein, or 
what is hoped may prove such, being dis- 
covered, and its course ascertained as far 



laws of the state or territory, which give 
him, on certain conditions, a width of from 
150 to 600 feet, and a length on the course 
of the vein of from 600 to 1,500 feet. This 
matter settled, he proceeds to work his 
claim. At first he sinks a shaft, an exca- 
vation of perhaps 10x12 or 10x15 feet 
on the line of the vein. For the first 50 
or 100 feet, this shaft can be dug with only 
a windlass, with crank and bucket for hoist- 
ing the ore, waste rock, and water, driven 
by one or two men. For the next hundred 
feet, horse-power, used with a whip or pul- 
ly, or with a whim or large drum of tim- 
ber, around which the rope winds and un- 
winds as the bucket ascends or descends. 
Beyond two hundred feet the man-power 
and horse-power give place to the steam 
engine and its hoisting apparatus, and if 
water rushes in huge steam pumps are re- 
quired. At the depth of 50 or 100 feet, 
and generally at every 50 or 100 feet there- 
after, a level is run — a horizontal chamber 
eight or ten feet in height — following the 
course of the vein or veins, and extending 
perhaps 50 or 60 feet from the shaft; some- 
times a level is connected with the one 
below it by a shaft running from it to the 
level below, but not reaching to the sur- 
face. This is called a winze. These levels 
require to be supported by timbers, even 
though the rock in which they are cut may 
be very hard. For the most part, also, the 
shafts require to be lined with timber, both 
for protection from water and from falling 
rock. There are often several minor veins 
running parallel or at angles with the main 
vein, and these are laid open at some point 
in their course, either by the shaft or levels. 
When a vein is located on the top of a hill, 
or on its slope, it is often reached most 
readily after sinking a shaft by tunnelling 
toward the shaft from the base of the hill; 
in this way, also, the water, if troublesome, 
can be drawn off, from the upper levels at 
least. The sinking of the shaft and winzes, 
and running the levels and the tunnel, if 
required, are called "dead work," as, except 
incidentally, there is no direct yield of the 
ore or vein -stuff obtained in their construc- 
tion; but when these are completed, the 
profitable work of the mine begins. The 
miners, with their picks, extract the ore or 
quartz from the veins, either bringing it 
down from the walls above them, or on the 



l/¥kiV 







UTDRAULIC MINING. 



By this operation, as described in the text, hills of loose materials or of decomposed slates and other 
rocks containing gold, are washed down, and the earthy matters are swept away through the sluices 
raado either of wooden troughs or by excavating channels in the bed-rock. In these the coarse gold is 
caught against the bars placed at intervals across the sluices. This is a purely Californian method, and 
has proved so effectual in collecting the little gold buried in large bodies of earth, that it is now generally 
adopted in other gold regions in which the conditions are favorable for its practice. 




TUNNELLING AT TABLE MOUNTAIN. CALIFORNIA. 



This represents a common method of reaching beds of rich ores that lie at considerable depths 
below the surface, by which the labor of removing the superficial deposits is avoided. Veins of ores, 
whether lying at a steep or gentle inclination, are often explored by such tunnels driven in upon their 
course. The sides and roof may be protected or not, as the ground is soft or solid, by timbering. 

At the outside of the tunnel below the railroad track is the machine called the "long torn,"' a shallow 
trough, ten to twenty feet long, and about sixteen inches wide. The lower end, which turns up gently 
from the plane of the bottom, is shod with iron and perforated with holes. The water from the mine is 
turned on the upper end, and flows up this slope and through the holes, carrying with it the finer mud 
and sand which are continually thrown into the torn. One man at the lower end keeps the mud in motion 
and removes the coarse lumps. Under the lower end of the torn is placed a "riffle box," in which mer- 
cury may be used to advantage if the gold is in fine particles. 




LARGE ROCKER USED IN CALIFORNIA WITH QUICKSILVER. 



The above cut represents a rocker of unusual dimensions, which lias been introduced in sonic places 
in California, and is employed particularly for auriferous deposits in which the gold is in too fine particles 
to be caught in the long torn. It is slightly inclined, and is rocked by one man while the others colled 
the gravel and throw it upon the perforated iron plate. Across the bottom of the trough are placed 
"riffle bars," and behind each one of these some mercury. The fine particles of gold coming in contact 
with this are caught and retained in the form of amalgam. The coarse gravel tails off the lower end of 
the plate, while the fine mud and sand are washed by the water through the holes in the plate. 




STAMPS FOR CRUSHING GOLD ORES. 



This cut represents a common form of stamps, such as are used for pulverizing auriferous quartz 
or other ores. They are variously arranged at different mills ; sometimes four or five running in one 
set, and several sets being placed on the same line, but separate from each other. This arrangement is 
more convenient for stopping a portion at a time as may be required for repairs or for collecting the very 
coarse gold under the stamps which cannot pass through the grating or the plates, perforated with many 
Ik ilcs, that are usually employed in front of the stamps. 



FINING INDUSTRY OF TUE UNITED STATES. 



445 



sides of the level, which is called "over- 
hand stoping;" or digging it from the 
floor of the level, which is '-underhand 
stoping." In all the larger mines tracks 
are laid along each level to the shaft, on 
which cars are run, which, when filled with 
the ore or waste rock, are hoisted to the 
surface. Sometimes, when the vein rock 
is very hard, hand drilling has to be re- 
sorted to, to break it out. But the ore, 
being brought to the surface, a specimen 
of it is assayed, and its yield to the ton 
approximately determined. No ore, on re- 
duction, and no free gold, under the stamps, 
ever realizes fully the amount per ton 
which the assayer assigns to it. In the 
early mining in California, under the waste- 
ful processes of their imperfect machinery, 
forty per cent, of the assay was the average 
yield. Under the improved machinery of 
the present day, the free milling gold gives 
up from seventy-five to eighty-five per 
cent. — the pyritous ores something less. 

If the vein-stuff contains only free mill- 
ing gold, and a stamp-mill is at hand, it is 
crushed by the stamps, or if the pieces of 
quartz are large, and the wall rock adheres 
to a considerable extent, it is first put into 
the rock-breaker and the size reduced to 
that of an English walnut or an egg, and 
then put in the stamp-mill. The mill pro- 
per, consists of a solid framework, heavy 
iron stamps and attachments, propelled by 
steam or water power by means of a hori- 
zontal shaft and connections. Mortars, in- 
clined tables, and other accessories go to 
make up the contents of the establishment. 
The framework is upright, as are also the 
iron stamps, which are made to rise and 
fall by means of cams or arms extending 
from the revolving shaft above. The 
stamps rise from twelve to eighteen inches 
and drop on the ore in iron mortars or 
troughs beneath from twenty - seven to 
thirty-five times per minute. These mor- 
tars are several feet long, and from twelve 
to fourteen inches high, and nine or ten 
deep, and rest on solid wooden foundations. 
They are placed between the upright wood- 
en posts of the frame ; the stamps, usually 
five in number, that rise and fall thereon, 
form what is termed a battery. The mor 
tars are the receptacles for the ore, which 
is shoveled or fed into them as fast as it 
can be advantageously crushed by the 
stamps, at the same time that a constant 
stream of water flows in the same direc- 



tion. Some mills have but a single battery 
of five stamps; others have ten or twenty, 
and there are some that have from seven- 
ty-five to one hundred and fifty. 

On the side of the mortars where the ore 
feeding is done, the framework is boarded 
up some distance, and on the other side 
are sheet-iron screens, through which the 
pulverized ore and water is forced on to 
the sloping copper-plated inclines or tables 
below. Quicksilver is fed into the batteries 
and upon the tables when the mill man 
deems it necessary. This retains most of 
the gold on the tables, while the pulp or 
slimes from the batteries are being carried 
onward by the water to the huddling tanks 
or stream beyond. The stamps are stopped, 
the water turned off, and the mortars and 
the plates of the table are cleaned once a 
day, or once in several days, and the amal- 
gam, or gold and quicksilver combination, 
is taken to the retort-room. Here it is 
skimmed and cleaned and pressed in a 
cloth so as to get rid of as much of the 
quicksilver as possible; the remainder is 
retorted, and the crude bullion sold at the 
banks at from fourteen to eighteen dollars 
per ounce, or shipped in other ways. Gold 
from different mines varies in fineness and 
value, the quantity of silver accompanying 
it having much to do with this. The aver- 
age fineness of Gilpin county, Colorado, 
bullion or retort gold is 78*7 parts of pure 
gold, 198 parts pure silver, and 15 parts 
copper. The bullion obtained is from one- 
fourth to one-half of the amalgam, but 
rarely the latter. The quicksilver, after 
being condensed, is saved for future use. 

After the pulverized ore leaves the bat- 
teries it is usually washed over two sets of 
inclined tables — the lower ones being cov- 
ered with blankets. Some mills use pans, 
modeled after the principle of an arastra. 
The pulp or slimes, on leaving the mill 
proper, are generally worked over or con- 
centrated by washing or huddling, when 
the concentrates are sold to the smelters. 
This often adds a dollar or two per ton to 
the total receipts from the ore. Formerly 
no effort was made to save anything be- 
yond the tables. About one ton of these 
tailings can be saved and sold to every ten 
tons of ore crushed. 

The stamps used in these mills weigh from 
five hundred to seven hundred pounds, are 
generally ten or twelve feet high, and con- 
sist of a stem, head, shoe, and a collar, by 



446 



GOLD. 



means of which the cam raises them. The 
stem is made of wrought iron, and is from 
two to three inches in diameter, while the 
shoes attached to the lower part of the 
stem, and which come in contact with the 
ore, are thicker, and are made of steel or 
hardened iron. These stamps crush the 
ore to a pulp or powder, and much of the 
gold contained therein falls to the bottom 
of the mortars, and is taken up by the 
quicksilver placed there. Other portions 
of the gold are caught on the tables, blank- 
ets, and in the pans. The stamp-mill 
affords the only method of treating the low- 
grade ores, of which the veins are mainly 
composed. Something like 140,000 tons 
are crushed in the Gilpin county, Colorado, 
mills every year, and a still larger quantity 
in the great mills of the Deadwood belt, in 
Dakota. The smelting works are the des- 
tination of the high-grade mineral, from 
which thay save nearly all of the gold, sil 
ver, and copper. 

The quartz mills used in 1859 were prim- 
itive affairs, with wooden, unplated tables, 
and had only from three to six stamps 
each. Up to this time, the surface-dirt 
and soft outcroppings of the veins had 
been shoveled into and washed in sluices, 
while other material was treated in aras- 
tras. Copper plates on tables, and cyanides, 
were not used at first, and few of the mill 
men knew anything about treating ores. 
It took a decade to bring quartz milling 
into even passable shape, and nearly another 
to get it up to its present partly satisfactory 
condition. 

This detailed account of the quartz mill 
is given because it is the basis of some other 
processes, and enters into their constitu- 
tion more or less. All ores must be pul- 
verized before the silver and gold is ex- 
tracted, and this is done either by stamps 
or by crushers and rolls. One or the other 
is found in all reducing, smelting, sampling, 
and concentrating works. 

Smelting with lead riches is carried on 
at several points in the west. The lead 
comes out in bars, and the silver and gold 
in other bars. No copper is saved. 

Chlorodizing-roasting and amalgamation 
is practiced at several places in Colorado, 
Utah, California, and Montana, and at 
Omaha and St. Louis. The ores are first 
broken in Dodge crushers and Cornish 
rolls, dried, sampled, and assayed, and then 
crushed dry by stamps, after which they 



are roasted in revolving iron cylinders, 
and then amalgamated in pans. Separa- 
tion then takes place in the melting-room, 
and bars containing from $1,500 to $1,800 
each, and of a fineness of from 800 to 900, 
are melted and ready for shipment. 

The pulverized ores are placed in the 
cylinders in charges of 3,500 pounds, more 
or less, and the cylinders are then revolved 
at the rate of one revolution in two min- 
utes. After four hours, from six to eight 
pounds of salt are introduced for every 
one hundred pounds of ore. Caribou ores 
require only from eight to eleven hours of 
roasting, and Georgetown ores from ten to 
twenty, according to lode. From 2,000 to 
2,500 pounds of the roasted ore goes into 
each amalgamating-pan or leaching-tub at 
one time. In the pans, mullers do the 
grinding, and after one or two hours from 
350 to 400 pounds of quicksilver are added, 
when the grinding continues from eight to 
twelve hours longer. The pulp is then 
thinned by water, and the specific gravity 
of the quicksilver and of the silver it has 
attracted causes it to seek the bottom of 
the pans, when it is drawn off, the pulp or 
dirt discharged, the amalgam still adhering 
removed, and the pans made ready for 
another charge. Retorting and melting 
into bars closes the proceedings. 

Chlorodizing-roasting and leaching is 
carried on at Georgetown and Rosita, Col- 
orado, and in other states. The same kind 
of crushers, stamps, and roasting cylinders 
or furnaces are used as in the process just 
described, and the work is the same until 
the ore has been roasted. It is then placed 
in large agitating tubs, partially filled with 
a concentrated solution of hot water and 
salt kept in motion. This liquor extracts 
the chloride of silver, and with the silver 
in solution is siphoned off, and conducted 
into and through a series of tanks contain- 
ing upright copper plates setting at inter- 
vals one behind and below another. The 
silver precipitates itself on these copper 
plates, when the brine or liquor is pumped 
back again into the agitating-tubs for use. 

The blast smelting furnace is used on 
ores carrying a high per cent, of lead. 
When no roasting is required, as on car- 
bonate ores, the process is rapid and some- 
what simple. Skilled labor, attention, and 
experience are required, however, or dis- 
astrous results are likely to ensue. These 
furnaces are constructed of sheet iron, and 



MINING INDUSTRY OP THE UNITED STATES. 



447 



are usually circular in shape, and of much 
greater height than diameter horizontally. 
Some are of square or oblong shape. They 
are built so that ore, coke, charcoal, and 
slag or iron are fed from an upper floor 
into the body of the furnace, while the 
lead and silver bullion and the slag make 
their way from separate outlets at the base 
of the furnace and in the story below. The 
hot liquid, composed of lead and silver or 
other metal, is ladled out into the moulds 
made for the purpose, and cools into bars 
called base bullion. The interiors of these 
iron furnaces are lined with brick made 
of fire-clay. 

A reverberatory furnace is constructed 
of brick. The various compartments, 
hearths, or chambers, in which the fires are 
kept up and the pulverized ores roasted, 
are lined with fire-brick. These furnaces 
are often forty or sixty feet or more in 
length, and are divided into connecting 
hearths. The ore, while being roasted, is 
moved along from one hearth to another, 
by means of long iron shovels, reaching 
into the furnace. These furnaces are used 
in the large smelting works, except at 
Leadville. 

Concentration is a method of separating 
the valuable portions of low-grade ores 
from the gangue, in order that the miner 
will have the expense of smelting a smaller 
number of tons while securing nearly the 
same total value. There are two systems 
of concentration, known as dry and wet. 
Each embrace a great deal of machinery. 
There are crushers, rolls, stamps, screens, 
jigs, hoppers, tables, elevators, etc., in one 
or both processes. The Krom, or dry pro- 
cess, is represented in the Clear Creek 
Company mill, at Georgetown and else- 
where, and the Collom and other methods 
at Black Hawk, Silver Plume, Idaho 
Springs, and Spanish Bar, Colorado, and 
in other states and territories. The ma- 
chines known as frue vanners are used in 
Colorado, Utah, Idaho, and Montana. By 
the above-named mills the crude or low- 
grade ore is dressed and separated, so as to 
leave only marketable and paying mineral 
in place of rock too poor to sell to the 
smelter. 

While, as we have said, thirteen or four- 
teen of these western states and territories 
are gold -producing, the principal interest 
centers about those regions traversed by 
the Rocky Mountains and their outlying 



branches, the Sierra Nevada and the coast 
range. A distinction is also to be drawn 
between those states and territories in 
which gold predominates and those where 
the largest production is of silver, for, 
though there is no State or territory among 
those which produce largely, in which both 
metals are not found, yet, while California, 
Dakota, Colorado, Nevada, Montana, Idaho, 
and Oregon are the largest producers of 
gold, the order of silver producers is : 
Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Mon- 
tana, Idaho, while California produces less 
than a million of silver. 

California takes the lead, not only of all 
our own states and territories, but in the 
present century of all other States or dis- 
tricts in the world, in the production of 
gold. From January, 1848, to June 30, 
1881, a little more than 33 years, Califor- 
nia had deposited in the mints and assay 
offices of the United States $709,624,600.24 
of gold bullion and $2,314,748.72 of silver. 
Those writers on metallurgy who have 
given the subject the longest and most 
careful examination, say that the amcunt 
which did not go into the mint or assay 
offices, but which was sent to Europe, to 
South America, to China, used in manu- 
facture of jewelry, chains, watch cases, 
etc., etc., or which came east in private 
hands, was much more than equal to that 
which was sent to the mints; so that we 
have a production of over 1,500 millions 
of gold from this one state in 33 years. 

The existence of gold deposits in Cali- 
fornia had been mentioned by Hakluyt in 
his account of Drake's expedition of 
1577-79, and by Cavello, a Jesuit priest, 
who visited the present site of San Jose, 
and published an account of the country, 
in Spain in 1690; and by hunters and ex- 
plorers many years later, but it does not 
appear that any efforts were made to mine 
it until Mr. James W. Marshall, who, with 
several others, was digging a race foi a 
saw-mill at Coloma, about 35 miles east- 
ward from Sutter's Fort, on the 19th of 
January, 1848, discovered some pieces of 
yellow metal which he believed to be gold. 
He knew nothing of metallurgy, but he 
continued to collect these pieces, day after 
day, his companions laughing at him, till 
about the middle of February, when he 
sent some of them to San Francisco to 
learn whether they were really of any 
value. His messenger fell in with Isaac 



448 



GOLD. 



Humphrey, who had been a gold miner in 
Georgia, and who recognized at once the 
value of the deposit, and came to Coloma 
and commenced working it. Persons from 
other portions of California came to see 
the wonderful deposits, and returning to 
their homes commenced digging for gold 
in situations similar to those in which it 
had been discovered at Coloma, and in 
every instance they were successful. Be- 
fore the first of June every portion of Cali- 
fornia resounded with the cry of gold! 
gold! gold! and every kind of business was 
abandoned to dig for gold. Soldiers left 
their camps, sailors their ships, farmers 
their farms, and traders and mechanics 
their stores and shops and devoted them- 
selves to gathering the precious metal, and 
by the end of 1848, every large stream on 
the western slope of the Sierra Nevada 
was crowded with miner's camps. 

All these diggings were for placer de- 
posits. As yet, and for some years later, 
nothing was known of the veins in the 
mountains or of the processes of quartz 
mining. 

It is worthy of observation that this dis- 
covery was made ten days before the treaty 
of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, which ceded Cali- 
fornia to us, was signed, and three months 
before the ratified copies were exchanged. 
Had the discovery been made a few 
months earlier it may well be doubted 
whether Mexico would have parted on the 
terms she did with what proved to have 
been the choicest jewel of her crown. 

The various methods of placer mining 
were resorted to, in all parts of the state, 
including hydraulic mining on a gigantic 
scale, among the ancient placers in the 
former beds of rivers, whose course had 
been changed many thousands of years 
ago, by volcanic action ; and though in the 
northwest counties and in some of the 
mining districts of the central and southern 
counties, it is still successfully practiced, 
yet all of the shallow placers in the older 
counties have been abandoned or given 
up to the Chinese, who manage to gather 
a moderately good income, from working 
over the tailings. 

Quartz or vein mining was commenced 
in Grass Valley in 1850 and in Mariposa 
in 1852, but neither there, nor anywhere 
else in the state, did it prove successful be- 
fore 1858. The gold product of the state 
from 1850 to 1860 averaged over 55 mil- 



lion dollars a year, rising in 1853 to 65 
millions. Since 1860 there has been a 
falling off in the production, which for the 
next ten years did not average quite 45 
millions, and from 1870 t:> 1880 was be- 
low 20 millions. In 1881 it was about 
$19,000,000, an advance on the previous 
year, and is now again on the " upward 
curve." The gold production of the entire 
United States in the fiscal year 1881, is 
estimated by the director of the mint at 
$36,500,000, so that the product of gold 
in California is still more than half that of 
the whole country. 

The Black Hills in Dakota, though late 
in coming into the contest, now yield more 
gold in a year than any other district, ex- 
cept California. The first mining here 
was placer mining, and though there may 
have been some gold washed out in pans 
earlier there was no systematic mining till 
the spring of 1876. In five years these 
mines had produced $15,f44,852.78 gold, 
and of this, the product of the year ending 
June 30, 1881, was $4,500,000. The gold 
now produced is almost entirely from 
quartz veins, and is free milling gold, 
though the ore is not generally rich; but 
owing to the favorable situation of the 
mines and stamp-mills, ores yielding $8 
to $10 to the ton, uniformly can be profit- 
ably worked. 

Montana has produced a large amount 
of gold since 1862 or 1863, a single placer 
(Alder Gulch, now Virginia City) having 
produced over $73,000,000 in gold up to 
the present time, and two other gulches 
about $16,000,000 more. Of late the gold 
product has been diminishing and that of 
silver increasing. The gold product of 
the fiscal year 1881 was reported as $2,- 
5n0,000 and that of silver about the same. 
The entire gold product of Montana since 
1862 is probably not less than $125,000,- 
000. It is now mostly quartz mining, 
though there are many rich placers not yet 
worked. 

Colorado began with gold placers and 
gold mines in 1 859, and produced very little 
silver till 1870, and less silver than gold 
till 1872; the discoveries of the carbonates 
of lead and silver in Lake county in 1877, 
have greatly increased its silver produc- 
tion, and for a time its gold production fell 
off, but it is now again increasing. In the 
calendar year 1881 it is reported as exceed- 
ing $4,000,000, and the total gold produc- 



MINING INDUSTRY OF TIIE UNITED STATES. 



449 



tion since 1859 is stated to have exceeded 
$61,000,000, and that of silver $72,000,- 
000. There is more mining activity at the 
present time in Colorado than in any other 
of the western states or territories. 

Idaho has been engaged in mining ope- 
rations since 1862 or 1863, at first in 
placers in Owyhee county, which yielded 
large sums from 1866 to 1872, and'since 
1867 in quartz mines also. In 1880 and 
1881 new gold mines and placers were 
discovered at several points which promise 
a large production; but Idaho labors under 
three difficulties; much of its placer gold 
is what miners call flour gold — i. e., of such 
impalpable fineness that it does not readily 
settle at the bottom of the riffles of the 
sluice and the quicksilver fails to take it 
up. It can only be saved as we have already 
explained by being allowed to run very 
slowly over iron sheets plated with silver 
and covered with the quicksilver, and even 
by this process not more than 50 per cent, 
is saved. A second difficulty is the very 
rugged character of the mountains and the 
lack of roads which make its mines almost 
inaccessible even by pack-mules, and the 
consequent lack of reduction works, so 
that, except in the case of ores which were 
extraordinarily rich, the cost of transpor- 
tation and reduction was greater than their 
value. This is partly obviated now by the 
construction of some railways into the 
mining districts. A third difficulty is that 
Idaho is under Mormon control, and 
neither life nor property is safe. 

Since 1862 Idaho has pi-oduced about 
$75,000,000 in gold, and is now yielding 
some silver. 

Arizona has been known to be rich in 
gold, silver, and copper since 1857 or 1858, 
but owing to Indian raids and the ruffian 
outlaws who were its earliest inhabitants, 
life has been so unsafe there, till within the 
past three or four years, that its rich mines 
have been but slightly developed. A lack 
of timber and of water interferes to some 
extent with successful mining, but there is 
now a better condition of affairs, and its 
mining prospects are more encouraging. 
Silver is probably more plentiful than gold 
there, but there is enough of both. It is 
difficult to state with exactness the gold 
product since the mines were opened, but 
it must exceed $7,000,000, while the silver 
product is more than twice that sum. 

Nevada has been generally known as a 



silver state, and has a pre-eminent claim to 
that title, having produced almost $350,- 
000,000 of silver bullion since 1861 or 
1862, and more than two-thirds of that 
sum since 1870, but its silver has been 
" alloyed " with gold, and some of its many 
mines have been of gold alone. Its state 
metallurgist claims, and on very high 
authority, that it has produced also over 
$100,000,000 of gold in the same time. 
It yielded about $3,000,000 in the fiscal 
year 1881. 

Oregon is more an agricultural than a 
mining state, yet its gold mines since 1851 
have yielded about $35,000,000, and are 
now pi*oducing more than a million a year. 
It has produced but little silver. 

Utah, notwithstanding the many obsta- 
cles with which it has had to contend — 
its arid climate, its want of water and tim- 
ber, and its Mormon government — has de- 
veloped great mineral wealth, though more 
largely in silver than in gold. • Its gold 
products thus far (and no mines of any 
importance were worked before 1869) have 
been probably not more than $1,800,000, 
while its yield of silver has exceeded $25,- 
000,000, and is rapidly increasing. 

New Mexico gives the promise of large 
production both of gold and silver ; of 
the latter in greatest profusion, in the im- 
mediate future; while Washington, Wyo- 
ming, Alaska, and probably Texas and the 
Indian Territory are likely to develop as 
much mineral wealth as will be for their 
benefit, within the next decade. 

The following table prepared with great 
care under the supervision of the Director 
of the Mint, gives the annual production 
of gold and silver in the United States for 
the fiscal years 1880 and 1881. Its fig- 
ures are certainly not too high, but con- 
siderably below those of the state metal- 
lurgists who, however, give calendar in- 
stead of fiscal years. 

The most important use of gold is as a 
medium of exchange. For this purpose it 
is converted into coin at the mints, and 
into bars or bullion at the government 
assay office. In this form a large portion 
of the receipts from California were for- 
merly exported from New York to maice 
up the balance of foreign trade. Each bar 
was stamped with marks, representing its 
fineness and weight, and may continue to 
be thus used, or when received at foreign 
mints, is converted into coin. The amount 



450 



GOLD. 



State or 


Fiscal Year 1880. 


Fiscal Year 1881. 


Territory. 


Gold. 


Silver. 


Total. 


Gold. 


Silver. 


Total. 


Alaska 


$6,000 

400,000 

17,500,000 

3,200,000 

3,600,000 

120,000 

1,980,000 

2,400,000 

4,800,000 

130,000 

95,000 

1,090,000 

15,000 




$6,000 

2,400,000 

18,600,000 

20,200,000 

3,670,000 

120,000 

2,430,000 

4,900,000 

15,700,000 

555,000 

95,000 

1,105,000 

15,000 


$7,000 

770,000 

19,000,000 

3,400,000 

4,500,000 

150,000 

1,930,000 

2,500,000 

2,700,000 

120,000 

75,000 

1,000.000 

18,000 

2,000 

200,000 

11,000 

100,000 




$7,000 

8,570,000 

19.870,000 

18.400,000 

4,560,000 

150,000 

3,030,000 

4,800,000 

11,560,000 

390,000 

75 000 




$2,000,000 

1,100,000 

17,000,000 

70,000 


$7,800,000 

870,000 

15,000,000 

60,000 


California 

Colorado 

Dakota 


Idaho 


450,000 

2,500,000 

10,900,000 

425,000 


1,100,000 

2,300,000 

8,860,000 

270,000 


Montana 

Nevada 

New Mexico. . . 
North Carolina. 


Oregon .' 

South Carolina. 


15,000 


80,000 


1,080,000 
18 000 


Tennessee 






2 000 


Utah 


210,000 
10,000 

410,000 
20,000 
14,000 


4,740,000 


4,950,000 

10,000 

410,000 

20,000 

14,000 


5,710,000 


5,910,000 
11,000 




Washington... . 






100,000 


"Wyoming 




7,000 1 
10 000 




7,000 


Other 




50 ono 


60,000 








Total 


$36,000,000 


$39,200,000 


$75,200,000 


$36,500,000 $42,100,000 


$78,600,000 



of gold coin in circulation, i. e., in the 
Treasury, banks and. private hands, No- 
vember 1, 1881, was $468,493,227, and 
of silver, $181,070,624. A large amount 
of both gold and silver (over ten mil- 
lions of gold and four millions of silver 
annually) are used in the repair or manu- 
facture of instruments, chemicals, leaf and 
foil, pens, plates, spectacles, fine harness, 
electro-plating, watch cases, watches and 
jewelry, and the demand for these pur- 
poses is constantly increasing. The leaf 
and foil being worn out in the using, or 
being distributed in too small quantities 
together to pay for recovering them, are 
altogether lost to the community, after the 
articles have served the purpose intended. 
This loss in the time of James I. was con- 
sidered so serious, that a special act was 
passed, restricting the use of gold and 
silver-leaf, except for specified objects, 
which, singularly enough, were chiefly for 
military accoutrements. Gold employed 
in the process of electro-plating, in which 
large quantities are consumed, is similarly 
lost in the using. 

Besides the use of gold-leaf in gilding, 
it is employed quite largely by dentists as 



the best material for filling teeth. They 
also use some gold plate and wire for se- 
curing the artificial sets in the mouth. In 
book -binding, gold is consumed to consid- 
erable extent for lettering and ornament- 
ing the backs of the books. The manu- 
facture of gold-leaf is carried on in various 
places, both in the cities and country. It 
is a simple process, known in ancient times, 
but only of late years carried to a high 
degree of perfection. The ingots, molded 
for the purpose, and annealed in hot ashes, 
are rolled between rollers of polished steel, 
until the sheet is reduced from its original 
thickness of half an inch to a little more 
than ^i-fj- of an inch, an ounce weight mak- 
ing a strip ten feet long and 1^ inches 
wide. This is annealed and cut into pieces 
an inch squai*e, each weighing about six 
grains. A pile is then made of 150 of 
these pieces, alternating with leaves of fine 
calf-skin vellum, each one of which is four 
inches square, and a number of extra 
leaves of the vellum are added at the top 
and bottom of the pile. The heap, called 
a tool or kutch, is slipped into a parch 
ment case open at the two ends, and this 
into a similar one, so that each side of 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



451 



end th6y are made to diminish to half an 
rich thickness at the line across the middle. 
Each one is furnished with sides, and a strip 
•cross the thin end of six inches in height) 
the joining made perfectly tight, and is then 
swung between four posts in a horizontal 
position by four rods or chains, which should 
be at least eight feet long. Mercury is pour- 
ed into the two divisions, until they are 
more than half filled. The sands are made 
to flow in upon the thin end, and are receiv- 
ed upon the surface of the mercury ; and the 
table is made to swing forward and back by 
the revolution of a crank. By the motion 
the sands are mixed in with the mercury, 
and swept along in successive waves, and 
tailing over the middle ridge are treated in 
the same manner in the succeeding division. 
The mercury is retained by its weight in the 
depressed portions of the table, and the wa- 
ter and sands are discharged over the open 
end. Of the numerous machines designed 
for effecting the amalgamation of the gold 
patented within the last few years ; few in- 
volve any new principles, but are merely 
modified forms of the old contrivances. Prof. 
A. K. Eaton, of New York, found that amal- 
gamated metallic surfaces could be made to 
collect most completely the very fine parti- 
cles of gold, which by all other processes it 
has been found impossible to secure. The 
use of copper, brass, or zinc proved trouble- 
some and impracticable from the rapidity 
with which they were dissolved in the mer- 
cury, adulterating the amalgam. An amal- 
gamated iron surface proved to be free from 
this objection, and the following description 
of apparatus was dually decided on as the 
most efficient: A circular plate of wrought 
iron is amalgamated over what is intended 
to be its inferior surface, and an open tube 
is fixed in its center, rising three or four feet 
high, and furnished at the top with a bowl 
or funnel. This tube and disk are supported 
upon a surface of mercury contained in a 
shallow tub of larger diameter than the disk, 
a frame-work being attached to the tub for 
this purpose. A pulley is fixed upon the 
hollow shaft, so that a belt may be attached 
for causing the disk to rotate upon the mer- 
cury. The sands are fed with water into 
the funnel at the top of the tube, and the 
pre sure caused by the height of the column 
carries them down upon tl e mercurial sur- 
face, and, by reason of this p •• ssure and the 
centrifugal action of the revolving disk, they 
gradually work outward between this sur- 



face and the amalgamated surface above, be- 
ing pressed an 1 rubbed between them till 
they escape round the circumference of the 
disk, and flow over the edge of the tub. 
Hot water, as in all other modes of amalga- 
mating, is preferable to cold. By this pro- 
Cess all free gold, however fine the particles, 
must come in contact with the amalgamated 
surface, and be taken up by the mercury. 
It perfectly separates the gold that in other 
machines floats off in the fine slime. In gold 
ores, especially those of sulphurous character, 
much of the gold is so fine that it remains 
suspended a long time in water, and is en- 
tirely lost. The important feature of this 
invention is the use of an inferior amalga- 
mated surface, against which these floating 
particles are pressed. The pressure is se- 
cured by any desired depth of the mercury, 
but in practice less than an inch above the 
lower edge of the plate is found to be suffi- 
cient. The efficiency of the machine was 
fully tested in November, 1860, at the Gold 
Hill mine, in North Carolina, where good 
results were obtained with it. In the same 
month it was tried at the U. S. assay office, 
N. Y., upon the tailings of the sweeps from 
which all the gold had been extracted that 
could be removed by the amalgamating ma- 
chines in use, and from these it readily sepa- 
rated the remaining portion. 

As remarked in the mention made of the 
Gold Hill mines, when gold is associated 
with iron and copper pyrites it is held very 
tenaciously, as if combined itself with the 
sulphur, like the other metals. However 
finely such ores are pulverized, every micro- 
scopic particle of pyrites appears to retain a 
portion of gold, and prevent its uniting with 
the mercury. This portion of the gold, con- 
sequently, escapes in the tailings: and if 
these are kept in refuse heaps, exposed to 
the weather, the pyrites slowly decompose, 
and more gold is continually set free. Thus 
it is the heaps may be washed over with 
profit for many successive years. Roasting 
of the ores is recommended by high authori- 
ties for freeing the gold at once, the effect 
of it being to break up the sulphurets, caus- 
ing the sulphur to escape in vapor, and the 
iron to crumble down in the state of an oxide, 
or an ochreoua powder, from which the gold 
is readily separated. This is objected to by 
others, who assert that it involves a great 
loss of gold, which is volatilized or carried 
oil' mechanically in the sulphur fumes. Two 
other methods adopted, since 1857, for the 



452 



GOLD. 



reduction of those ores containing large pro- 
portions of the Bulphurets of iron and cop- 
per, deserve notice — viz., the " Sodium Amal- 
gamating Process," and the " Plattner 
Chlorination Process." 

The use of the Sodium in mechanical com- 
bination with mercury to oxidize and thus 
remove more readily the impurities, sulphur, 
arsenic, and antimony, which interfere with 
the reduction or extraction of gold from the 
quartz, was suggested about 1861, and has 
been made the subject of two patents, one 
by Dr. Chas. Wurtz in New York, in 1864, 
the other by Mr. Crookes, of London, in 
1865. It has proved very successful in Col- 
orado, Nova Scotia, and California, in those 
mines where the gold was so difficult of ex- 
traction, on account of the presence of a 
large percentage of refractory pyrites. The 
yield of gold from these ores has been in- 
creased from 20 to 30 per cent. The sodium 
is however as yet so costly, that it is only 
the richer ores in which it pays, commercial- 
ly, to use it. Amalgams are now put up 
according to the formulas of the patentees, 
containing the requisite quantity of sodium 
in combination with other metallic com- 
pounds. These are to be used, according 
to the amount of concentration, with from 
20 to 150 times their weight of mercury. 
The Amalgam varies from $1.25 to #1.75 
per pound. Recently it has been announc- 
ed that cyanide of potassium was to be 
preferred for this purpose to sodium — 
while it is much cheaper. The Plattner 
chlorination process requires as a prelimin- 
ary a double roasting of the ores, the first 
time at a low heat to oxidize the ore and 
burn out, as far as possible, the sulphurets 
and other impurities, and the second time, at 
a higher heat, to decompose the metallic salts 
formed at the first roasting. If sulphates 
of lime and magnesia are present they are 
removed by the addition of some common 
salt to the roasting mass. When the roast- 
ing is completed the ore is discharged from 
the furnare and allowed to cool, and then 
being damped is sifted into a large vat, lined 
with bitumen, and having a false bottom on 
which rests a filter composed of broken 
quartz and sand. The vat is provided with 
a close-fitting cover which can be luted on 
and made air-tight. The chlorine is then 
generated in a leaden vessel by means of 
sulphuric acid, and conducted into the bot- 
tom of the vat through a leaden pipe. As 
it passes up through the ore more ore is 



sifted in and the vat is gradually thoroughly 
charged with the gas, when the cover, having 
been luted on and all escape prevented, and 
the whole allowed to stand for twelve or 
eighteen hours the gold is completely chlori- 
dized. Water is then introduced which ab- 
sorbs the chlorine and dissolves the chloride 
of gold, and a stream of water is permitted to 
run in at the top of the vat till the lixiviation 
is complete. The residue in the vat is then 
thrown away, and the solution of chloride of 
gold goes to the precipitating vat when a 
solution of proto-sulphate of iron is added 
to it, and it is permitted to stand for eight 
or ten hours. The water is then carefully 
drawn off, the precipitated gold collected 
upon a paper filter, dried, melted and run 
into bars. This gold will be, if the process 
is carefully conducted, 999 fine, or almost 
absolutely pure gold. 

In the " branch mining " of the southern 
states, deposits worked by the rocker are 
regarded as profitable which pay a penny- 
weight or nearly one dollar per day to the 
hand employed. The great beds of decom- 
posed slates of Georgia can be worked to 
profit when they yield from four to five cents 
worth of gold to the bushel of stuff, or about 
100 lbs. weight ; but the mill for crushing 
and washing it must then be close at hand. 
The proportion of the gold, in this case, is 
less than 2 parts in 1,000,000. The hard 
quartz ores must contain nearly or quite 20 
cents worth of gold in the bushel, especially 
if they are pyritiferous. 

Although the gold is obtained in a metal- 
lic state, it differs very much in value in dif- 
ferent localities. Deposit gold from the 
vicinity of Dahlonega, in Georgia, is worth 
93 cents the pennyweight; that of Hart 
county, in the same state, 98 cents ; of Car- 
roll county, Georgia, and Chesterfield dis- 
trict, South Carolina, $1.02 ; of Union coun- 
ty. Georgia, or the Tennessee line, 72 cents ; 
Charlotte, North Carolina $1.00; and that 
of Burke county, North Carolina, only 50 
cents. The average fineness of California 
gold is found to be from 875 to 885 parts in 
1,<'00, which is very near that of our gold 
coin, viz , 900 in 1 ,000. The native gold 
from Australia has from 960 to 966 parts in 
1,000 pure gold, and some from the Chau- 
diere, in Canada, 877.3 pure gold, and 122.3 
silver; another specimen 892.4, silver 107.6. 
The specific gravity of the metal has been 
increased by casting from 14.6 in the native 
state to 17.48. 




11TK VALLEY. 




FATHER OF THE FOREST. 




PIIOSPECTER IV CALIFORNIA GOLD JUNES. 




CHINESE IN CALIFORNIA GOLD MINES. 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



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MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



459 



The most important use of gold is as a 
medium of exchange. For this purpose it 
is converted into coin at the mints, and into 
bars or bullion at the government assay of- 
fice. In this form a large portion of the re- 
ceipts from California is immediately ex- 
ported from New York to make up the bal- 
ance of foreign trade. Each bar is stamped 
with marks, representing its fineness and 
weight, and may continue to be thus used, 
or when received at foreign mints, is convert- 
ed into coin. A large amount of gold is 
consumed in jewelry, trinkets, watches, and 
plate, and still more in the form of gold- 
leaf. This last being worn out in the using, 
or being distributed in too small quantities 
together to pay for recovering it, is altogether 
lost to the community, after the articles have 
served the purpose intended. This loss in 
the time of James I. was considered so 
serious, that a special act was passed, re- 
stricting the use of gold and silver-leaf, ex- 
cept for specified objects, which, singularly 
enough, were chiefly for military accoutre- 
ments. Gold employed in the recently in- 
vented process of electrotyping, in which 
large quantities are consumed, is similarly 
lost in the using. 

Besides the use of gold-leaf in gilding, it is 
employed quite largely by dentists as the 
best material for filling teeth. They also 
use much gold plate and wire for securing 
the artificial sets in the mouth. In book- 
binding, gold is consumed to considerable 
extent for lettering and ornamenting the 
backs of the books. The manufacture of 
gold-leaf is carried on in various places, both 
in the cities and country. It is a simple 
process, known in ancient times, but only of 
late years carried to a high degree of per- 
fection. The ingots, moulded for the pur- 
pose, and annealed in hot ashes, are rolled 
between rollers of polished steel, until the 
sheet is reduced from its original thickness 
of half an inch to a little more than „!„ of 
an inch, an ounce weight making a strip ten 
feet long and 11 inches wide. This is an- 
nealed and cut into pieces an inch square, 
each weighing about six grains. A pile is 
then made of 150 of these pieces, alternating 
with leaves of fine calf-skin vellum, each one 
of which is four inches square, and a number 
of extra leaves of the vellum are added at 
the top and bottom of the pile. The heap, 
called a tool or kutch, is slipped into a 
parchment case open at the two ends, and 
this into a similar one, so that each side of 



the pack is protected by one of the case. It 
is placed upon a block of marble, and then 
beaten with a hammer weighing sixteen 
pounds, and furnished with a convex face, 
the effect of which is to cause the gold to 
spread more rapidly. The workman wields 
this with great dexterity, shifting it from one 
hand to the other, without interfering with 
the regularity of the blow. The pack is oc- 
casionally turned over, and is bent and rolled 
in the hands to cause the gold to extend 
freely between the leaves, as it is expanded. 
The gold-leaves are also interchanged to ex- 
pose them all equally to the beating. When 
they have attained the full size of the vellum, 
which is done in about twenty minutes, they 
are taken apart, and cut each one into four 
pieces, making 600 of the original 150. 
These are packed in gold-beater's skin, and 
the pack is beaten as before, but with a 
lighter hammer, until they are extended 
again to sixteen square inches. This oc- 
cupies about two hours. The gold-leaves 
are then taken out, and spread singly upon 
a leather cushion, where they are cut into 
four squares by two sharp edges of cane, ar- 
ranged in the form of a cross. To any 
other kind of a knife the gold would adhere. 
These leaves are again packed, 800 together, 
in the finest kind of gold-beater's skin, and 
expanded till each leaf is from 3 to Sc- 
inches square. The aggregate surface is 
about 192 times larger than that of the orig- 
inal sheet, and the thickness is reduced to 
about the rs^uo o °f an inch. The beating 
is sometimes carried further than this, es- 
pecially by the French, so that an ounce of 
gold is extended over 160 square feet, and 
its thickness is reduced to aaTWo" °^ an mcn i 
or even to 05 oV n o- When the pack is open- 
ed, the leaves are carefully lifted by a pair 
of wooden pliers, spread upon a leather 
cushion by the aid of the breath, and cut 
into four squares of about 3| inches each, 
which are immediately transferred one by 
one between the leaves of a little book of 
smooth paper, which are prevented from ad- 
hering to the gold-leaves by an application 
of red ochre or red chalk. Twenty-five 
leaves are put into each hook, and when fill- 
ed, it is pressed hard, and all projecting edges 
of the gold are wiped away with a hit of 
linen. The hook-, are then put np in pack- 
ages of a dozen together for sale. 

An imitation gold-leaf, called Hutch gold- 
leaf, is used to some extent. It is prepared 

from sheets of brass, which are gilded, and 



4G0 



LEAD. 



beaten down in the manner already des- 
cribed. When ne.v it appears like genuine 
gold-leaf, but soon becomes tarnished in 
use. Party gold-leaf is formed of leaves of 
gold and of silver, laid together and made 
to unite by beating and hammering. It is 
then beaten down like gold-leaf. 

The gold-beater's skin used in this man 
ufacture is a peculiar preparation made 
f r mi the caecum of the ox. The membrane 
is doubled together, the two mucous sur- 
f ices face to face, in which state they unite 
fi inly. It is then treated with preparations 
of alum, isinglass, whites of eggs, etc., 
sometimes with creosote, and after being 
beaten between folds of paper to expel the 
grease, is pressed and dried. In this way 
leaves are obtained 5^ inches square, of 
which books are made up, containing 850 
leaves. After being used for a considerable 
time, the leaves become dry and stiff, so 
that the gold cannot spread freely between 
them. To remedy this, they are moistened 
with wine or with vinegar and water, laid 
between parchment, and thoroughly beaten. 
They are then dusted over with calcined 
selenite, or gypsum, reduced to a fine pow- 
der. The vellum, which is used before the 
gold-beater's skin, is selected from the 
finest varieties, and this, too, after being 
well washed and dried under a press, is 
brushed over with pulverized gypsum. 

In the great exhibition at London in 
1851, machines were exhibited from the 
United States, and also from Paris, which 
were designed for gold-beating. After re- 
peated trials, both in Europe and America, 
these machines have been abandoned, and 
the gold-beaters have returned to the old 
method. 



CHAPTER IV. 

LEAD. 

Lead is met with in a great number of 
combinations, and has also been found in 
small quantity, at a few localities in Europe, 
in a native state. The ore from which the 
greater part of the lead of commerce is ob- 
tained, is the sulphuret, called galena, a com- 
bination of 86.55 per cent, of lead and 1 3.45 
of sulphur. It is a steel-gray mineral of 
brilliant metallic luster when freshly bro- 
k • .i, and is often obtained in large cubical 
crystals; the fragments of these are all in 
cubical forms. The ore is also sometimes 



in masses of granular structure. Very 
frequently galena contains silver in the 
form of sulphuret of that metal, and gold 
is often found in combination with it. The 
quantity of silver is estimated by the num- 
ber of ounces to the ton, and this may 
amount to 100 or 200, or even more; but 
when lead contains three ounces of silver 
to the ton this may be profitably separated. 
Ores of this character are known as argen- 
tiferous galena; if the silver is more valu- 
able than the lead they are more properly 
called silver ores. Galena is easily melted, 
and in contact with charcoal the sulphur is 
expelled and the lead obtained. The ore 
is found in veins in rocks of different geo- 
logical formations, as in the metamorphic 
rocks of New England, the lower silurian 
rocks of Iowa, Wisconsin, and Missouri, in 
limestones and sandstones of later age in 
New York and Pennsylvania, belonging to 
higher groups of the Appalachian system 
of rocks, and in some of the silver-produc- 
ing ores of the far west. 

Carbonate of lead is another of the lead 
ores which often contains much silver. It is 
of light color, whitish or grayish, commonly 
crystallized, and in an impure form is some- 
times obtained in an earthy powder. It 
abounds in Lake Co., Colorado, forming the 
sole ore of the Lead ville region and is found 
in other counties of that State, and in Ne- 
vada, Utah, California, and probably in 
Idaho and Dakota. At St. Lawrence Co., 
N. Y., large quantities of it have been col- 
lected for smelting, and were called lead 
ashes. The ore may escape notice from its 
unmetallic appearance, and at the Missouri 
mines large quantities were formerly thrown 
aside as worthless. It contains 77.5 per 
cent, of lead combined with 6 per cent, of 
oxygen, and this compound with 16.5 per 
cent, of carbonic acid. Beautiful crystals 
of the ore, some transparent, have been 
obtained at the mines on the Schuylkill, 
near Phoenixville, Pennsylvania; the Wash- 
ington mine, Davidson county, North Car- 
olina; and Mine la Motte, Missouri. 

Another ore, the phosphate or pyromor- 
phite, has been known only as a rare min- 
eral until it was produced at the Phoenixville 
mines so abundantly as to constitute much 
the larger portion of the ores smelted. It is 
obtained in masses of small crystals of a 
green color, and sometimes of other shades, 
as yellow, orange, brown, etc., derived from 
the minute portions of chrome in combina- 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



401 



tion. With these a variety of other com- 
pounds of lead are mixed, together with 
phosphate of lime and iluoride of calcium, so 
that the percentage of the metal is variable. 
The compounds of lead met with at these 
mines are the sulphuret, sulphate, carbon- 
ate, phosphate, arseniate, molybdate, chro- 
mate, chromo - molybdate, arsenio - phos- 
phate, and antimonial argentiferous. Be- 
sides all these, a single vein contained native 
silver, native copper, and native sulphur, 
three compounds of zinc, four of copper, 
four of iron, black oxide of manganese, 
sulphate of barytes, and quartz. 

For many years large quantities of lead 
were imported into the United States from 
Spain and Great Britain, and as lately as 
1872 these importations amounted to $3,- 
322,000, but they have now almost entirely 
ceased, amounting to only $62,000 in 1879, 
and $32,600 in 1880, and in both years be- 
ing balanced by our exports. The lead 
produced in Nevada, Michigan, Iowa, Wis- 
consin, Missouri, Colorado, and the other 
silver states fully supplies our markets 
The lead ores in the eastern states are not 
of much importance. In Maine the ores 
are found in Cobscook Bay, near Lubec 
and Eastport, in limestone rocks near dikes 
of trap. A mine was opened in 1832, and 
a drift was carried in about 155 feet at 
the base of a rocky cliff on the course of 
the vein; it was then abandoned, but 
operations have recently been recommenc- 
ed. In New Hampshire argentiferous 
galena is found in numerous places, but 
always in too small quantity to pay the 
expenses of extraction. At Shelburne a 
large quartz vein was worked from 1846 
to 1849, and three shafts were sunk, one 
of them 275 feet in depth. The ore was 
found in bunches and narrow streaks, but 
in small quantity. Some of it was smelted 
on the spot, and five tons were shipped to 
England, which sold for £16 per ton. The 
richest yielded 84 ounces of silver to the 
ton. Another vein of argentiferous galena 
was partially explored at Eaton in 1856. 

Massachusetts, also, contains a number 
of lead veins, none of which have proved 
profitable. The most noted are those of 
Southampton and Easthampton. Opera- 
tions were commenced at the former place 
in 1765 upon a great lode of quartz con- 
taining galena, blende, copper pyrites, and 
sulphate of barytas It is in a coarse 
granitic rock near its contact with the 



red sandstone of the Connecticut valley. 
About the year 1810 an adit level was 
boldly laid out to be driven in from 1,100 
to 1,200 feet, to intersect the vein at 140 
feet below the surface. A single miner is 
said to have worked at it till his death, in 
1828, when it had reached the length of 
900 feet. At different times this adit has 
been pushed on, and when last abandoned, 
in 1854, it was supposed to be within a few 
feet of the vein. The rock was so exces- 
sively hard that the cost of driving the 
adit was about $25 per foot. Lead veins 
are found in Whately, Hatfield, and other 
towns in Hampshire county. 

In Connecticut, also, several veins have 
been worked to some extent. That at 
Middletown, referred to in the introduc- 
tory remarks as one of the earliest opened 
mines in the United States, is the most 
noticeable. It is unknown when this mine 
was first worked. In 1»52 operations were 
renewed upon it, and a shaft sunk 120 feet 
below the old workings. The vein was 
among strata of a silicious slate, in some 
places quite rich, but on the whole it 
proved too poor to work. The ore con- 
tained silver to the value of from $25 to 
$75 to the ton of lead. 

Lead mines have been opened in New 
York, in Dutchess, Columbia, Washing- 
ton, Rensselaer, Ulster, and St. Lawrence 
counties. In the first four of these the ore 
is found in veins near the junction of the 
metamorphic slates and limestones. The 
Ancram or Livingston mine, in Columbia 
county, was worked at different times at 
considerable expense, but with no returns. 
A mine in Northeast, Dutchess county, was 
first opened by some German miners in 
1740, and ore from it was exported. The 
Committee of Public Safety, during the 
revolutionary war, sought to obtain sup- 
plies of lead from it. The lead veins of 
this part of New York attracted more 
interest, on account of their highly argen- 
tiferous character, than the quantity of ore 
they yielded would justify; but it seems 
to be almost universally the case through- 
out the eastern United States that the 
galena, yielding much silver fails in quan- 
tity. The Ulster county mines are found 
on the west side of the Shawangunk 
mountain in the strata of hard grit rock 
which cover its western slope. At differ- 
ent places along this ridge veins nave been 
found cutting across the strata in nearly 



46^ 



li:ad. 



vertical lines, and have produced some 
lead, zinc, and copper. The Montgomery 
mine, near Wurtsboro, in Sullivan county, 
was chiefly productive in zinc. Near 
Ellen ville, Ulster county, several veins 
have been followed into the mountain, and 
one of these, which was worked in 1853, 
afforded for a short time considerable 
quantities of rich . lead and copper ores. 
From the former there were smelted about 
459,000 pounds of lead, and the sales of 
the latter amounted to from GO to 70 tons, 
of which 50 tons yielded 24.3 per cent, of 
copper. Where the vein was productive 
it contained the rich ores unmixed with 
stony gangues, and sometimes presenting 
a thickness of five feet of pure ore; where 
it became poor it closed in sometimes to a 
mere crack in the grit rock, and then the 
expense of extending the workings became 
very great from the extreme hardness of 
this rock. The expense of working in the 
hard rock proved to be too great for the 
amount of ore obtained, and the mine was 
abandoned in 1854, although its produc- 
tion, for the extent of ground opened, has 
been exceeded by but few other mines in 
the eastern states. The most promising 
veins in the state are those of St. Lawrence 
county in the vicinity of Rossie. They 
occur in gneiss rock, which they cut in 
nearly vertical lines. One of these was 
opened along the summit of Coal Hill, in 
1837 and 1838, but was abandoned, in 
1839, after the company had realized about 
$241,000 by the sale of some 1,800 tons of 
lead they had extracted. A nearly trans- 
parent crystal of calcareous spar from this 
vein, weighing 165 lbs., is preserved in the 
cabinet of Yale College. 

In Pennsylvania the most productive 
lead mines were those of Montgomery and 
Chester counties, found in a sinall district 
of 5 or 6 miles in length by 2 or 3 in 
width, at the line of contact of the gneiss 
and red shale and sandstone. About 12 
parallel veins have been discovered, extend- 
ing north 32° to 35° east, and dipping 
steeply southeast. In the gneiss they are 
productive in lead ores, and in the red 
shale in copper. The gneiss is decom- 
posed, and the vein itself is in considerable 
part ochreous and earthy, owing to de- 
composition of pyritous ores. In this ma- 
terial, called by the miners gossan, silver 
has been discovered amounting to 10 
ounces to the ton. The two principal 



mines of this group are the Wheatley and 
the Chester County. Both yielded a con- 
siderable quantity of 60 percent, ore, prin- 
cipally phosphate, though containing some 
galena, the latter yielded also from 1.6 to 
16.2 oz. of silver to the ton. Both were 
abandoned in 1854. . 

Lead ores are found along the Blue 
Ridge, in Virginia, and at one point, near 
the central portion of its range across the 
state, a mine has been worked for a num- 
ber of years. They are also met with in 
several of the gold mines, but not in 
workable quantities. In south-west Vir- 
ginia and east Tennessee the ores are found 
in the silurian limestones, and a consider- 
able number of mines have been worked 
to a moderate extent in both states. The 
only one now worked is the Wythe lead 
mine, sixteen miles from Wytheville, which 
was opened in 1754. It is in a steep hill 
on the border of New River, a fall upon 
which, near the mine, affords power for 
raising the water required in dressing the 
ores, and also for producing the blast for 
the furnace. Several shafts have been 
sunk, one of which extending down to the 
adit — a depth of 225 feet — is used as a 
shot tower. The ores are galena, with 
more or less carbonates intermixed. The 
product for 1870 is stated to have been 242 
tons of lead, worth $43,720. 

South of Virginia the only lead mine of 
importance is the Washington mine, Da- 
vidson county, North Carolina. This was 
opened in 1836, in the silicious and talcose 
slates of the gold region, and was worked 
for the carbonate of lead, which was found 
in a dull, heavy ore of earthy appearance, 
with which were intermixed glassy crystals 
of the same mineral. Some galena and 
phosphate of lead were also met with. 
After a time native silver was detected, 
and the lead that had been obtained was 
found to be rich in silver. Till 1844 the 
mine continued to produce ores containing 
much silver, and afforded the first deposits 
of this metal in the mint from domestic 
mines. The character of the ores changed, 
however, below the depth of 125 feet, the 
silver almost disappearing. The actual 
product of the mine is not known. That 
of 1844 is said to have been $24,209 in 
value of silver, and $7,253 of gold, ob- 
tained from 160,000 pounds of lead — an 
average of 240 ounces of auriferous silver 
to 2,000 pounds of metal. In 1851 the 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



463 




BURKE HOOKER. 

production was 56,89G pounds of lead and 
7,942.16 ounces of auriferous silver — equal 
to 279 ounces to the ton of metal. Zinc 
blende and galena became after a time the 
prevailing ores, the silver varying from 
2.5 to 195 ounces to the ton; and at last 
the zinc blende alone remained. In 1870 
this yielded $522,000 of pure zinc. 

The most productive lead mines in the 
United States are those of Nevada. The 
galena ores there are almost all argentifer- 
ous, and beside their abundant yield of sil- 
ver, produced in 1870 lead to the amount 
of more than a million of dollars, and in 
1879 two of its three lead districts, Eureka, 
Lander, and Pine Co.'s, produced more 
lead than those of Missouri, Iowa, and Illi 
nois combine*!. The next state in the 
amount of its production is Missouri, or 
perhaps we should rather say that entire 
lead district in which are included the upper 
mines near the Mississippi, in Iowa, south- 
western Wisconsin, and northwestern Illi- 
nois, and the lower mines in Missouri. 
The consumption of lead in the United 
States in 1870 was about 45,000 tons, and 
its value about $7,000,000. The consump- 
tion of 1880 is nearly or quite 56,000 tons, 
and its value, owing to the reduction of 
price, is about $8,000,000. Of the con- 
sumption in 1870, just about one-half was 
imported; in 1880 none was imported, or 
onlv an amount no larger than that ex- 
ported. Of the $8,000,000 in value, Ne- 
vada produces about S3, 000, 000, and the 
Mississippi river district named above about 
the same. Colorado produces very nearly 
a million dollars' worth, and the remainder 
is divided between the other silver states, 
and Kansas, Arkansas, and the region east 
of the Mississippi. 

But to return to the Mississippi river dis- 
trict. The existence of lead ores in the up- 
per district, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois, 
was made known by Le Sueur, who discov- 
ered them in his voyage up the Mississippi 
in 1700-1701. They attracted no further 
attention, however, till a French miner, Ju- 
lien Dubuque, commenced to work them in 
1788 ; and in this employment he continued, 



on the spot whore now stands the eitv in 
[owa bearing his name, until bis death in 
1809. When the United States acquired 
possession of the country in 1807, the min- 
eral lands were reserved from the sales, and 
leases of mining rights were authorized. 
These*vere not, however, issued until 1822, 
and little mining was done before 1826. 
From that time the production of lead rap- 
idly increased ; and the government for a 
time received the regular rates for the leases. 
Butafter 1 8:34 the miners and smelters refused 
to pay them any longer, on account of so many 
sales ha zing been made and oatents granted 
of mineral lands in Wisconsin. In 1839 the 
United States government authorized a ideo- 
logical survey of the lead region, in order to 
designate precisely the mineral tracts, and 
this was accomplished the same year by Dr. 
D. D. Owen, with the aid of 139 assistants. 
In 1844 it was decided to abandon the leas- 
ing system, and throw all the lands into the 
market. The lead region, according to the 
report of Dr. Owen, extends over about 62 
townships in Wisconsin, 10 in the north-west 
corner of Illinois, and 8 in Iowa — a territory 
altogether of about 2,880 square miles. Its 
western limit is about 1 _' miles from the 
Mississippi river; to the north it extends 
nearly to Wisconsin river; south to Apple 
river, in Illinois; and east to the east branch 
of the Pekatonica. From east to west it is 
'87 miles across, and from north to south 54 
miles. Much of the region is a rolling 
prairie, with a few isolated hills, called 
mounds, scattered upon its surface, the high- 
est of them rising scarcely more than 200 
feet above the general level. The prevailing 
limestone formations give fertility to the soil, 
and the country is well watered by numer- 
ous small streams, which flow in valleys ex- 
cavated from 100 to 150 feet below the 
higher levels. The limestone, of gray and 
yellowish gray colors, lies in nearly horizon- 
tal strata, and the portion which contains 
the lead veins hardly exceeds 50 feet in 
thickness. Beneath it is a sandstone of the 
age of the Potsdam sandstone, and above it 
are strata of limestone recognized as belong- 
ing to the Trenton limestone, bo that it 
proves to be a formation interposed between 

these, quite western in character, as it is not 

met with east of Wisconsin. The veins oc- 
cupy straight vertical fissures, and several 
near together sometimes extend nearly a 
mile in an east and west direction. They 
never reach downward into the sandstone, 



464 



but are lost in the lower strata of the lime- 
stone, and where the upper strata of the for- 
mation appear, these cover over the veins, 
hihI are consequently known as the cap-rock. 
In the fissures or crevices the galena is found, 
sometimes in loose sheets and lumps embed- 
ded in clay and earthy oxide of iron, and 
sometimes attached to one or both walls. 
It is rarely so much as a foot thick. No 
other ores are found with it, except some 
zinc blende and calamine, and occasionally 
pyritous iron and copper. The lead con- 
tains but a trace of silver. The fissures, as 
they are followed beneath the surface, some- 
times expand in width till they form what 
is called an " opening ;" and the hollow 
space may go on enlarging till it becomes a 
cave of several hundred feet in length and 
30 or 40 in width. Their dimensions are, 
how T ever, usually within 40 or 50 feet in 
length, 4 to 8 in width, and as many in 
height. The walls of the openings often afford 
a thick incrustation of galena, besides more 
or less loose mineral in the clay, among the 
fragments of rock, with all of which the 
caves are partially filled. Flat sheets of ore 
often extend from the vertical fissures be- 
tween the horizontal limestone strata; these 
are more~apt to contain blende, and pyrites, 
and calcareous spar than the ore of the verti- 
cal crevices. Besides these modes of occur- 
rence, galena is found in loose lumps in the 
clayey loam of the prairies. This is called* 
float mineral, and is regarded as an evidence 
of productive fissures in the vicinity. 

The galena occurs under a variety of sin- 
gular forms in the crevices. It lines curious 
cavities which extend up in the cap-rock, ter- 
minating above in a point, and which are 
known as chimneys. Upon the roofs of the 
openings it is found in large bunches of cu- 
bical crystals, and the same are obtained lying 
in the clays of the same openings. A flat 
sheet of the ore was worked in Iowa that 
was more than 20 feet across and from 2 to 
3 feet thick, each side of which turned down 
in a vertical sheet, gradually diminishing in 
thickness. It yielded 1,200,000 lbs. of rich 
galena, and more still remained behind in 
sight. The crevices near Dubuque are the 
most regular and productive of any in the 
district. One called the Langworthy, on a 
length of about three-fourths of a mile, has 
produced 10,000.000 lbs. of ore. On the 
main fissure there were usually three ranges 
of crevices one above another, widening out 
to 15 or 20 feet. 



The smelters of this region form a distinct 
class from the miners, of whom the former 
buy the ores as these are raised, and convert 
them into metal in the little smelting estab- 
lishments scattered through the country. 
The lead has been principally sent down the 
Mississippi river to Saint Louis and New 
Orleans ; but a portion has always been con- 
sumed in the country, and some has been 
wagoned across to Milwaukee before the con- 
struction of railroads, which since 1853 have 
afforded increased facilities for distributing 
in different directions the product of the 
mines. The only records of the amount of 
lead obtained are those of the shipments 
down the river. The following table presents 
the number of pigs shipped from the earlier 
workings to 1879; the figures for 1841 to 
1850, inclusive, being furnished to Dr. 
Owen's Report of 1852 by Mr. James Car- 
ter, of Galena. The pigs weigh about 80 
pounds each. 

SHIPMENTS OF LEAD FROM TIIE UPPER 
MISSISSIPPI. 

Years. Pigs. Years.* Pigs. 

1821 to 1823,. 4,790 1857, 485,475 

1824 2,503 1863, 79,823 

1825, 9,490 1864, 93,035 

1827, 74,130 1865, 116,636 

1829, 190,620 1866, 149,584 

1831, 91,170 1867, 144,555 

1H33, 113,440 1868, 185.823 

1835 158,330 1869, 228,303 

1837, 219,360 1870, 237,939 

1839, 357,785 1871, 229,796 

1841 452,814 1872 285,769 

1843 561,321 1873 356.037 

1845 778.460 1874 479.448 

1847 771 ,679 1875, 579,202 

1849, 628,934 1876, 665,557 

1851, 474, 115 1877, 790,028 

1853, 425,814 1878, 754,357 

1855, 430,365 1879, 817,594 

The lead region of Missouri was first 
brought into public notice by the explora- 
tions of the French adventurer, Renault, 
who was sent out from Paris in 1720, with 
a party of miners, to search for precious 
metals in the territory of Louisiana, under 
a patent granted by the French government 
to the famous company of John Law. 
Their investigations were carried on in the 
region lying near the Mississippi and south 
of the Missouri river; and here, though 
they failed to find the precious metals they 
were in search of, they discovered and 
opened many mines of lead ore. A large 
mining tract in the northern part of Madi- 
son county is still called by the name of 
their mineralogist, La Motte. Their opera- 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



465 



tions, however, were altogether superficial, 
and the lead they obtained was wholly by 
the rude and wasteful process of smelting 
the ores upon open log-heaps — a practice 
which even of late years is followed to some 
extent. Up to Renault's return to France, 
in 1742, little progress had been made in 
the development of this mining district. The 
next step was made by one Moses Austin, 
of Virginia, who obtained from the Spanish 
government a grant of lacd near Potosi, and 
commenced in 1798 regular mining opera- 
tions bv sinking a shaft. lie also started 
a reverberatory furnace and built a shot 
tower. Schoolcraft states in his "View of 
the Lead Mines of Missouri," that there 
were in 1819 forty-five mines in operation, 
giving employment to 1,100 persons. Mine 
a Builon and the Potosi diggings had pro- 
duced from 1798 to 1816 an annual average 
amount exceeding 500,000 pounds ; and in 
1811 the production of Mine Shibboleth 
■was 3,125,000 pounds of lead from 5,000,- 
000 pounds of ore. At a later period, from 
1834 to 1837, the several mines of the La 
Motte tract produced, it is estimated, 1,035,- 
820 pounds of lead per annum. From 1840 
to 1854 the total yield of all the mines is 
stated by Dr. Litton in the state geological 
report to amount to over 3,833,121 pounds 
annually. At the close of this period it had, 
however, greatly fallen off, there being at 
that time scarcely 200 persons engaged in 
mining, besides those employed at the three 
mines known as Perry's, Valle's, and Skew- 
ers'. Lead has been found in 4 1 counties 
of Missouri, though not fully worked in 
half that number. The ores are found in 
strata of magnesian limestone of an older 
date than the galena limestone of Wiscon- 
sin, and supposed to lie, with the sandstones 
with which they alternate, on the same 
geological horizon as the calciferous sand 
rock, which is found in the eastern states 
overlying the Potsdam sandstone. Some 
of the mines are at the contact of the hori- 
zontal limestone with granite rocks, but the 
ores in this position are only in superficial 
deposits or in layers included in the lime- 
stone. In their general features the veins 
do not differ greatly from those of the north- 
ern mines. Some of them, however, con- 
tain a larger proportion of other ores be- 
sides galena, as well as a greater variety of 
them. Carbonate of lead, called by the 
Miners dry bone and white mineral, is 
more abundant, and also blende, called by 



them black jack, and the silicate of zinc. 
Iron and copper pyrites are often seen, and 
at Mine la Motte are found the black oxides 
of cobalt and manganese associated with 
the carbonates of lead and copper. Nearly 
all the mining operations have been mere 
superficial excavations in the clay, which 
were soon exhausted of the loose ore and 
abandoned. Put to this there are some re- 
markable exceptions of deeper and more 
permanent mines than are known in the 
northern lead regions. Such are Valle's 
and Perry's mines, both situated on the 
same group of veins, which form a network 
of fissures and openings running in every 
direction and spreading over an area of 
about 1,500 feet in length by 500 in 
breadth, the extension of which is from north- 
west to south-east. These mines have been 
steadily worked since 1824, and 22 shafts 
have been sunk upon the fissures, six of 
which are over 110 feet deep, one is 1 70 
feet deep, and only two are less than 50 
feet. For the first 10 to 30 feet they pass 
through gravel and clay, below this through a 
silieious magnesian limestone of light color, 
and then enter a very close-grained variety 
of the same, called by the miners the cast 
steel rock. A succession of openings are 
encountered, which are distributed with 
considerable regularity upon three different 
levels. Those of the middle series have 
been the most productive. Sometimes 
chimneys connect them with the caves of 
the tier above or below. The portion of 
these mines on the Valle tract produced, 
according to the state report, from 1824 to 
1834 about 10,000,000 pounds of lead, and 
in the succeeding 20 years about as much 
more; and Perry's mine from 1839 to 1S54 
has produced about 18,000,000 pounds. 

No accurate estimates have been pre- 
served of the total production of the Mis- 
souri mines. For many years it fell short 
of the yield of the northern mines. From 
1832 to 1843 it is reported as running from 
2,500 to 3,700 tons per annum, while that 
of the northern mines in the same time was 
from 5,500 to 14,000 tons, and in 1845 it 
even exceeded 24.000 tons. In 1852 Mr. 
J. D. Whitney estimated that the produc- 
tion in Missouri had fallen to 1,500 tons, 
or less; but since 1865 it has materially 
advanced. The report of receipts and ship- 
ments on the preceding page represents 
since 1863 mainly the production of the 



466 



Pig lend from 

American mines 

received at St. 

Tears. Louis and New 

Orleans. 

lbs. 

1832 8,540,000 

1833 12,600,000 

1834 14,140,000 

1835 16,000,000 

1836 18,000,000 

1837 20,000,000 

1838 20,860,000 

1839 24,000,000 

1840 27,000,000 

1841 30,000,000 

1842 33,110,000 

1843 39,970,000 

1844 44,730,000 

1845 51,240,000 

1846 54,950,000 

1847 46,130,000 

1848 42,420,000 

1849 35,560,000 

1850 40,313,910 

1851 34,934,480 

1852 28,593,180 

1853 31,497,950 

1854 21,472,990 

1855 21,441,140 

1856 15,347,880 

1857 14,028,140 

1858 21,210,420 

1S59 23,442,870 

1800 22,683,125 

1861 21,554,743 

1862 20,370,188 

1863 22,798,142 

1864 18,141,878 

1865 18,266,313 

1866 23,393,450 

1867 26,301,357 

1868 30,014,759 

1869 33,717,830 

1870 37,136,742 







Average 




Invoice 


Pig, bar, and 


Invoice value 


rate of 


White and 


value of 


sheet lead 


of yearly 


duty per 


red lead 


yearly im- 


imported. 


Importations. 


100 lbs. 


imported 


portations. 


5,333,588 


$124,311 


$3.00 


557,781 


$30,791 


2,282,068 


60,660 


3.00 


625,069 


36,049 


4,997,293 


168,811 


2.77 


1,024,663 


57,572 


1,006,472 


35,663 


2.77 


832,215 


50,225 


919,087 


35,283 


2.55 


908,105 


62,237 


335.772 


13,871 


2.57 


599,980 


47,316 


165,844 


6,573 


2.34 


522,681 


38,683 


528,922 


18,631 


2.31 


720,408 


50,905 


519,343 


18,111 


2.08 


643,418 


41,043 


62,246 


2,605 


2.07 


532,122 


31,617 


4,689 


155 


3.00 


479,738 


28,747 


290 


3 


3.00 
3.00 


93,166 


5,600 


19,609 


458 


3.00 


231,171 


14,744 


214 


6 


3.00 


215,434 


15,685 


224,905 


6,288 


0.56 


298,387 


15,228 


2,684,700 


85,387 


0.64 


318,781 


19,703 


36,997,751 


1,182,597 


0.64 


853,463 


43,756 


43,470,210 


1,517,603 


0.70 


1,105,852 


52,631 


37,544,588 


1,283,331 


0.70 


842,521 


43,365 


43,174,447 


1,618,058 


0.70 


1,224,068 


69,058 


47,714,140 


2,095,039 


0.90 


1,865,893 


102,812 


56,745,247 


2,556,523 


0.90 


2,319,099 


134,855 


55,294,256 


2,528,014 


0.91 


3,548,409 


174,125 


47,947.698 


2.305,768 


0.72 


1,793,377 


113,075 


41,230,019 


1,972,243 


0.72 


1,785,851 


109,426 


64,000,000 


2,617,770 


0.72 


61,936 


3,871 


45,896,700 


1,835,868 


0.72 


177,744 


11,109 


45,654,100 


1,826,164 


0.72 


200,848 


12,553 


34,611,575 


1,384,463 


0.78 


307,824 


19,239 


39,437,566 


2,816,969 


1.11 


1,004,624 


71,766 


20,897,109 


2,247,001 


1.32 


1,390,052 


149,468 


7,969,080 


1,195,362 


1.75 


1,662,516 


249,385 


40,223,888 


2,513,993 


2.25 


2,035,395 


135,693 


41,063,175 


2,737,745 


0.96 


1,464,972 


122,081 


41,437,520 


2,762,520 


1.00 


1,399,512 


116,626 


56,062,128 


3,503,883 


0.97 


336,732 


28,061 


58,310,464 


3,644,404 


0.96 


367,008 


30,584 



Missouri mines; that of the upper mines 
going mostly to Chicago. 

Lead Smelting. The lead mines of the 
United States being scattered over wide 
territories, and their products not being 
generally brought together in large quan- 
tities, the process of reducing the ores was, 
for some years, conducted in small estab- 
lishments and by the most simple methods. 
The earlier operations were limited to 
smelting the ores in log furnaces. Upon a 
layer of logs placed in an inclosure of legs 



or stones piled up, split wood was set on 
end and covered with the ore, and over 
this small wood again. The pile was fired 
through an opening in front. The com- 
bustion of the small wood removed from 
the ore a portion of the sulphur, and the 
reduction was completed by the greater 
heat arising from the burning of the logs. 
The lead run down to the bottom and out 
in front into a basin, whence it was ladled 
into the moulds. The loss of metal was of 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



4G7 



course very large ; but a portion was recov- 
ered by treating the residue in what was 
called an ash furnace. The process is still 
resorted to in places where no furnaces are 
within reach. But of late years extensive 
smelting works have been erected, both for 
the smelting of the pure lead and of those 
ores carrying a greater or less percentage 
of silver. Those in use are of two sorts: the 
Scotch hearth and the reverberatory. Besides 
these, another small furnace is often built 
for melting over the slags. This is little 
else than a crucible built in brick-work, and 
arranged for the blast to enter by an aper- 
ture in the back, and for the metal to flow 
out by another opening in front. 

The Scotch hearth is a small blast furnace, 
but resembles the open forge or bloomary 
fire for iron ores. It has long been in use in 
Europe, and is the most common furnace at 
our own mines. In this country it has been 
greatly improved by the introduction of hot 
blast ; and in its most perfect form is rep- 
resented in the accompanying figures ; figure 
a being a vertical section from front to back, 
and figure o a horizontal section. 




SCOTCH IIEARTn FURNACE. 



A is the reservoir of lead of the furnace, 
consisting of a box, open at top, about two 
feet square and one foot deep, formed of 
cast iron 2 inches thick. From its upper 
front edge a sloping hearth, H, is fixed so as 



to receive the melted lead that overflows, 
and conduct it by the groove into the basin, 
B. In this it is kept in a melted state by a 
little fire beneath, and, as convenient, the lead 
is ladled out and poured into moulds. D is 
a hollow shell of cast iron 2 ,,f an inch thick, 
its inner and outer sides inclosing a space of 
4 inches width. Into this space the blast is 
introduced at E, and becoming heated, 
passes out at F, and thence through the 
curved pipe into a tuyere, T, cast in the air- 
chest 2 inches above the level of the lead 
reservoir. Before commencing operations 
this reservoir is to be filled with lead, and is 
thus kept so long as the furnace is in use ; 
the process being conducted upon the sur- 
face of the melted metal. The furnace may 
be kept in continual operation by adding 
new charges of galena every ten or fifteen 
minutes, and working them down after they 
have become roasted at the surface. The 
fuel employed is dry pine wood split into 
small pieces, and billets of these are thrown 
in against the tuyere just before each new 
charge of ore, that already in the furnace 
being raked forward upon the hearth to 
make room for the fuel, and the blast being 
temporarily turned off. The old charge is 
then thrown, together with fresh ore, upon 
the wood, and the blast is let on, when the 
heat and flame immediately spread through 
the materials. The sulphur in the ore serves 
itself as fuel, accelerating the process by its 
combustion, and in a few minutes the 
whole charge is stirred up, spread out on the 
hearth, and the hard, unreduced fragments 
are broken in pieces by blows of the shovel. 
Slaked lime is sometimes added in small 
quantity when the partially reduced ore be- 
comes too soft and pasty by excess of heat. 
Its effect is to lessen this tendency rather by 
mechanical than chemical action. If any 
flux is used, it is fluor spar, blacksmith's 
cinders, or bits of iron. The latter hasten 
the reduction by the affinity of the iron for 
the sulphur of the ore. The east iron of the 
air-chest is protected from the action of the 
sulphur by the cooling influence of the air 
blown in ; and this is also advantageous by 
its keeping the furnace from becoming so 
hot, that the galena would melt before losing 
its sulphur, and thus form combinations of 
exceedingly difficult reduction. A tan, run 
by steam or water power, is commonly em- 
ployed for raising the blast ; but as this gives 
little pressure, it is replaced to great advan- 
tage by blowing cylinders, with an air- 



468 



receiver for giving regularity to the current 
of air. With such an apparatus, the smelter 
can apply the blast with great advantage at 
times to help loosen up the charge and 
throw the flame through every part of it. 
The ores are prepared for smelting by sep- 
arating from them all the stony and clayey 
particles, and as much as possible of the 
blende and other impurities that may ac- 
company them. This may require a succes- 
sion of mechanical processes, in which the 
ores are crushed to tine fragments and dress- 
ed by jigging and screening under water. 
Not only is the labor and cost of smelting re- 
duced by the purity of the ore, and espe- 
cially its freedom from blende and pyrites, 
but the quality also of the metal is thereby 
improved. Lead that contains iron is not 
adapted for the manufacture of white-lead. 
The American metal being generally free 
from this brings a higher price than Spanish 
or English lead. With pure ore a cord of 
wood may be made to produce four tons of 
lead ; and each furnace 7,500 lbs. every 24 
hours ; a smelter and his assistant managing 
the operation for 12 hours. At Rossie 
large quantities of lead have thus been 
smelted at a daily cost for labor of $5, and 
for fuel of $1.50, making $1.75 per ton. In 
Wisconsin, before the use of the hot blast, 
each furnace-shift was continued from 8 to 10 
hours, untd 30 pigs of lead were produced 
of 2,100 lbs. weight, at an expense of about 
$4 for labor, and $1.50 for fuel. 

The other form of furnace — the rever- 
berator;- — resembles others of this class em- 
ployed in smelting copper ores. The sole, 
or hearth, upon which the ores are spread, is 
about 8 feet in length by 6 in breadth, and 
is made to incline rapidly toward an aper- 
ture on one side, or at the end under the 
chimney, and out of which the lead - is 
allowed at the end of each smelting to 
flow into a receiver outside. The charge is 
supplied either through a hopper in the 
arched roof, or through the holes in the 
sides, which also serve for admitting the 
pokers used by the workmen to stir up the 
charge. Unless the galena has been pre- 
viously calcined or roasted — a process neces- 
sary for poor ores only — this is the first 
thing to be attended to in all the smelting 
operations. In the large charge of 30 cwt. 
of ore this usually takes the first two hours 
of the process, and is effected in great part 
by the heat remaining in the furnace from 
the preceding operation, the doors at the 



sides being kept open at the same time to al- 
low free access of air." The oxidation of the 
sulphur is expedited by almost constant 
stirring of the charge, which brings fresh 
portions to the surface, causing an evolution 
of white fumes. As these begin to diminish, 
the fire is started on the grate, and the heat 
is l-aised till the charge softens and the pieces 
of ore adhere to the rake. The doors are 
then closed, and the -fire is urged for a 
quarter of an hour, when the smelter opens 
the door to see if the metal separates and 
flows down the inclined hearth. If the sep- 
aration does not go on well, it is hastened 
by opening one of the doors, partially cool- 
ing the furnace, and stirring the charge. The 
fire is then again urged. If the slags which 
form seem to require it, he treats them with 
a few shovelfuls of lime and fine coal; and 
when, after having flowed down into the 
lower portion of the hearth, they are 
brought into a doughy consistency, the 
smelter pushes the slag to the opposite upper 
edge of the hearth, from which it is taken 
out through a door on that side by his as- 
sistant, while he lets off the lead into the 
receiver. 

The separation by this method is not so 
perfect as by the Scotch hearth, and the 
expense of fuel is greater ; but the reverbe- 
ratory is worked without the necessity of 
steam or water power, which is required to 
raise the blast for the other process. The 
slags of the reverberatory contain so much 
lead that they are always remelted in the 
slag furnace. Those of the Scotch hearth, 
when pure ores are employed, are sufficiently 
clear of metal without further reduction. In 
Europe other sorts of furnaces are in use, 
which are adapted particularly for ores of 
poorer quality than are ever smelted in the 
United States. 

In the Hartz mountains, at Clausthal, 
argentiferous silver ores containing much 
silica are worked in close cupola furnaces, 
into which only enough air is admitted to 
consume the fuel. The object is not to 
roast out the sulphur, but to cause this to 
combine with the granulated cast iron or 
with the quick-lime, either of which is mixed 
with the ores to flux them and form a fusible 
compound with the sulphur, through which 
the metallic lead can easily find its way to 
the bottom. The production of a silicate of 
lead is thus avoided, which is a difficult 
compound to reduce, and is always formed 
when much silica is present. This process 



mixing i:;dujtey ox' tuz i\.i:iyj states. 



4H9 



will probably be applied to some of the 
silicious ores of the United States, and 
may be particularly suited to the Washoe 
ores of California. 

By all the methods of reducing lead a 
great loss is incurred by the volatilization of 
a portion of the lead in white fumes, called 
lead ashes. These are carried up through 
the chimney of the furnace and fall upon 
the ground in the neighborhood, poisoning 
the vegetation and the water by the carbon- 
ate of lead which results from the fumes. 
Trees even are killed, and the dogs die off, 
and also the cattle. In Scotland the lead 
has been detected in chemical examinations 
of the bodies of animals thus killed, and it 
was particularly noticeable in the spleen. 
For the injury thus occasioned at the fur- 
naces of the United States no remedy was 
applied till recently, but at the great es- 
tablishments in Europe, where the loss of 
lead and the damage to the neighborhood 
is much more serious, attempts have been 
made to arrest the fumes, by causing them 
to pass through long flues in the chimney- 
stacks, in which the particles, on cooling, 
would settle down; and their cooling has 
been hastened by showers of water falling 
among the vapors. Flues have been ex- 
tended great distances beyond the works, 
and have been found much more efficient 
than any form of condensation by sudden 
cooling. Some of the works constructed 
for this purpose are very remarkable for 
their great extent and the saving they have 
effected, and similar ones have of late been 
constructed with great advantage at some of 
the smelting establishments in the United 
States. At the works of Mr. Beaumont, 
in Northumberland. England, horizontal 
or slightly inclined galleries have been 
completed in stone-work, eight feet high 
and six feet wide for an extent of 8,789 
yards (nearly five miles). . This is from 
one mill alone. The same proprietor has 
connected with other mills in the same dis- 
trict and in Durham four miles of galleries 
for the same purpose. The writer who 
gives the account of these in the recent 
edition of Ure's Dictionary, by Robert 
Hunt, remarks: "The value of the lead 
thus saved from being totally dissipated 
and dispersed, and obtained from what in 
common parlance might be called chimney 
sweepings, considerably exceeds £10,000 
sterling annually, and forms a striking illus- 
tration of the importance of economizing 



our waste products." Not only is lead lost 
in the fumes, but in the working of argen- 
tiferous lead ores, a portion of the silver 
too is carried off and deposited with them. 
The fumes collected at the works of the 
Duke of Buccleuch yield one-third their 
weight of lead, and five ounces of silver to 
the ton. The loss of silver is of less im- 
portance in this country, where this metal 
is obtained in such quantities in Nevada, 
Colorado, Idaho, Utah, New Mexico, and 
Arizona. 

In the smelting of argentiferous lead 
ores, the silver goes with the lead, being 
completely dissolved and diffused through- 
out its substance. The usual way of sepa- 
rating it is founded on the principle of the 
lead being a metal easily oxidized and con- 
verted into the substance called litharge, in 
which condition it lets go the silver, which 
has no affinity either for the new compound 
of oxygen and lead, or for the oxygen alone. 
The change is effected by melting the lead 
in the shallow basins called cupels, formed 
of a porous earthy material, as the pulver- 
ized ashes of burned bones, kneaded with 
water, and mixed in a framework of iron. 
When dried, these are set in a reverbera- 
tory furnace, and the pigs of lead are melted 
upon their surface. After being thoroughly 
heated, a current of air is made to draw 
through an opening in the side of the fur- 
nace directly upon the face of the melted 
metal. This oxidizes the lead, and the 
yellow litharge with more or less red oxide, 
called minium, collects in a thin film upon 
its surface, and floats off to the edge, sink- 
ing into and incrusting the cupol and fall- 
ing over its side into a receptacle placed to 
receive it. This process goes on. the lead 
gradually disappearing as the oxygen com- 
bines with it, till with the removal of the 
last films of oxide the melted silver sud- 
denly presents its briliant, perfectly unsul- 
lied face. The oxide of lead may be col- 
lected and sold for the purposes of litharge, 
as for a pigment, for use in the glass and nil >- 
ber manufactures; or it may be mixed with 
fine coal and converted back into lead, the 
carbon of the coal effecting this change by 
the greater affinity it has at a high heat 
for the oxygen, than the lead has to retain 
it. By this process, known as cupellation, 
lead is hardly worth treating for silver. 
unless it contain about ten ounces to the 
ton of the precious metal ; and it was 
therefore an important object to devise a 



470 



LEAD. 



method of saving with economy the silver 
lost in the large quantities of the poorer 
argentiferous leads. Such a method was 
accidentally discovered in 1829 by Mr. 
Pattinson, of Newcastle, and is now exten- 
sively in use in Europe for the poorer silver- 
leads, cupellation being preferred for the 
richer. He observed that when the lead 
containing silver forms crystals, as it is 
stirred while in a melted state, the crystals 
contain little or none of the silver, and may 
be removed, thus concentrating the silver 
in the portions left behind. This crystal- 
lizing process is applied in the large way as 
follows : Cast iron pots are set in brick- 
work side by side, capable of holding each 
one 4 or 5 tons of lead. The middle one 
is first charged, and when the lead is melted 
and stirred, the fire is removed under the 
next pot to the right ; and into this crystals 
of lead as they form are ladled by means of 
a sort of cullender, which lets the fluid lead 
fall back. This instrument is kept hotter 
than the lead by frequently dipping it in a 
pot of lead over a separate fire. When four- 
fifths of the lead have been transferred to 
the pot to the right, the remainder, which 
contains all the silver, is removed to the next 
pot to the left, and the middle pot is then 
charged with fresh lead, which is treated in 
the same manner. The process is repeated 
with each pot, as it becomes full, four-fifths 
of its contents going to the next pot to the 
right, and one-fifth to the next to the left, 
and thus the lead is finally discharged into 
moulds at one end, and the argentiferous 
alloy, concentrated to the richness of 300 
ounces of silver to the ton, is run into bars 
about 2 inches square. From these the 
silver is obtained by cupellation. At one 
establishment in England, that of Messrs. 
Walker, Parker & Co., the weekly product 
of silver is from 8,000 to 10,000 ounces. 
The great yield of argentiferous galena of 
various degrees of richness in silver, in 
Nevada and the other western states and 
territories, as well as the moderate percent- 
age of silver in some of the lead mines in 
Missouri has led to the establishment of 
smelting works, adopting these and other 
processes at many prominent points in Ne- 
vada, Utah, and Colorado, as well as at 
Omaha, Chicago, and St. Louis No lead 
is now sent abroad for smelting. 



Useful Applications of Lead. — A con- 
siderable part of the lead product of the world 
is converted into the carbonate, known as 
white lead, and used as a paint. The prin- 
cipal articles of metallic lead are sheet lead, 
lead pipe, and shot. Sheet lead is manu- 
factured in two ways. The melted lead is 
upset from a trough suspended over a per- 
fectly level table, covered with fine sand, and 
furnished with a raised margin ; and when 
the metal has spread over this, a couple of 
workmen, one on each side, carry along a 
bar supported upon the margin, pushing 
forward the excess of lead above that neces- 
sary for the required thickness, till it falls 
over the end of the table. By the other 
method, called milling, the lead is cast in a 
plate, 6 or 7 feet square, and 6 inches thick, 
and this being taken up by a crane, is placed 
upon a line of wooden rollers, which form 
a flooring for the length it may be of 70 or 
80 feet and a width of 8 feet. Across the mid- 
dle of this line are set the two heavy iron 
rolls by which the lead plate is compressed, 
as it is passed between them. The top of 
the lower roll is on a level with the top of 
the wooden rollers, and the upper roll is so 
arranged that it can be set nearer to or further 
from the lower one, as the thickness of the 
plate requires. 

Lead pipe was formerly made by turning 
up sheet lead and soldering the edges ; and 
is still prepared in this way for the large 
sizes, as those over six inches diameter. Af- 
ter this a method was contrived of casting 
the lead in a hollow cylindrical plug, its 
inner diameter of the bore required, and then 
drawing this down through slightly conical 
dies of decreasing diameter, a mandril or 
steel rod being inserted to retain the uniform 
diameter of the bore. Pipes made in this 
way were limited to 15 to 18 feet in length, 
and the metal was full of flaws. Many at- 
tempts have been made to cast long lengths 
of lead pipe, all of which have proved unsuc- 
cessful. In 1820 Thomas Burr, of England, 
first applied the hydraulic press to forcing 
lead, when beginning to solidify in cooling, 
through an annular space between a hollow 
ring and a solid core secured in its centre. 
He thus produced pipes of considerable 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATE8. 



471 



length. The method of forcing the liquid 
metal through dies to form pipes was, how- 
ever, first patented in 1 7 i » 7 by Bramah, who 
ased a pump for this purpose. The process 
was introduced into this country in 1S40-41 
by Messrs. Tatham & Brothers, now of New 
York, who invented and patented an impor- 
tant improvement in the method of secur- 
ing the die and core. In this operation the 
melted lead is made to flow from the furnace 
into a cylindrical cavity in a block of cast 
iron, which may be of 1800 lbs. weight, and 
from this, when cooled to the proper tem- 
perature, it is forced out through the die by 
a closely-fitting piston. By one process the 
piston, starting from the bottom of the cylin- 
drical cavity, moves upward, carrying with it 
the slender core or rod which determines the 
diameter of the bore of the pipe, and pushes 
the melted lead before it through the die 
fixed in the top of the cast iron block. The 
pipe as it is formed passes out from the top 
of the machine, and is coiled around a re- 
ceiving drum. By the machine contrived by 
Mr. Cornell of New York, the great iron 
block containing the lead rises by the press- 
ure of the hydraulic machine, and the piston 
which is fixed above it enters the cavity. 
The piston in this case is hollow and the die 
is set in its lower end. The core is secured 
in the bottom of the block, and is carried 
upward as this rises. The pressure applied 
in this operation amounts to 200 to 300 tons. 
Dies are used of a great variety of sizes, accord- 
ing to the kind of pipe required. Lead wire 
is made in tins way with a die of very small 
size without a core. It is used for securing 
vines and attaching tags to fruit trees and 
shrubs. The principal works in the United 
States engaged in the manufacture of sheet 
lead and lead pipe are in New York, Boston, 
Providence, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cincin- 
nati, St. Louis, and Omaha. 

Lead pipe is in general use as the most 
convenient conduit for water for domestic 
purposes. It is readily bent to any angle, 
and is made to adapt itself to any position. 
When water freezes within and bursts it, the 
damage is easily repaired; joints arc also 
made with little trouble. The lead is not 
liable to become rusty like iron, and is 
cheaper than tin or copper. These qualities 
give to it a preference over other kinds of 
pipe, notwithstanding the very serious objec- 
tion that the lead is often acted upon by the 
water, and produces poisonous salts of ;i very 
dangerous character. Some waters more than 



others have a tendency to promote the oxid- 
ation of the lead. This is particularly likely 
to occur with nearly all waters in pipes which 
are alternately exposed to the action of air 
and water, as when the water being drawn 
out, the air enters and takes its place. The 
oxide of lead is converted by carbonic acid 
gas, which is present in almost all water, into 
a carbonate of lead which is soluble to some 
extent in an excess of the gas, and is carried 
along, bearing no indication of its presence, 
while the lead pipe continues to be corroded 
until it may be in places eaten nearly through. 
The water used for drinking and for culinary 
purposes is thus continually introducing an 
insidious poison into the system, the effect 
of which is at last experienced in the disease 
known as the painters' colic, often followed 
by paralysis. As this occurs without a sus- 
picion being awakened of the real source of 
the disease, and is produced by quantities so 
small as from T \ to J„ of a grain in the gal- 
lon, the use of lead pipe is properly regard- 
ed by scientific men as always unsafe ; and 
some substitute for this metal in pipes and 
in sheets used for lining water cisterns, is 
highly desirable. It has been proposed to 
coat the pipe with some insoluble lining ; 
but such an application necessarily increases 
its cost, it may perhaps be removed by hot 
water flowing through the pipe, and the pur- 
chaser may have no confidence in the coating 
being faithfully applied, or as certain to be 
efficient during long-continued use. Block 
tin is perfectly safe, but it is expensive, and 
is moreover likely to be alloyed with the 
cheaper metal lead, which in this condition 
is thought to be equally dangerous as when 
used alone. As no popular substitute for 
lead is provided, it is a reasonable precaution 
for those employing it to be always watchful 
and on their guard against its evil effects — 
using as little of it as necessary, causing the 
water to be occasionally tested, and, when- 
ever opportunity offers, cutting open and ex- 
amining pieces of the pipe to see whether its 
internal surface is corroded, and every morn- 
ing before using the water that has st<>od in 
the pipes, to cause this to flow away to- 
gether with enough more to thoroughly wash 
out the pipes and remove any salts of lead 
that may have formed in them during the 
night. 

Large quantities of lead are consumed in 
the United States in the manufacture of shot 
ami bullets; and one ingenious method of 
producing shot is an American invention. 



472 



LEAD. 



The quality of the lead employed for this 
purpose is of little importance. The harder 
and inferior sorts, which would not answer 
for the white lead manufacture, are economi- 
cally diverted to this object. If too hrittle, 
from the iron and antimony combined with 
the lead, the metal is made to assume the right 
quality by mixing with it a small proportion 
of arsenic, which, for most kinds of lead, 
may amount to one per cent. To introduce 
this into the lead a large pot of the metal is 
melted, and powdered charcoal or ashes is 
laid around its edge. The arsenical com- 
pound, either of white arsenic or of orpi- 
ment (the sulphuret of arsenic), is then stir- 
red into the centre of the mass, and a cover 
is tightly luted over the pot. In the course 
of a few hours, the mixture being kept hot, 
the combination of the lead with the arsenic 
is completed, and a portion of litharge floats 
upon the surface. This is formed from the 
oxygen of the white arsenic uniting with 
some of the lead, and it retains a portion of 
the arsenic. The alloy is now tried by let- 
ting a small quantity of it fall from a mod- 
erate height through a strainer into water. 
From the appearance of the globules the 
quality of the mixture is judged of. If 
they are lens-shaped, too much arsenic has 
been used ; but if they are flattened on the 
side, or hollowed in the middle, or drag with 
a tail behind them, the proportion of arsenic 
is too small. When a proper mixture is ob- 
tained it is run into bars, and these are taken 
to the top of a tower, from 1U0 to 200 feet 
high, where the lead is melted and poured 
through cullenders, which are kept hot by 
being placed in a sort of chafing-dish con- 
taining burning charcoal. The lead is thus 
divided into drops that fall to the bottom, 
and are received in a vessel of water. Each 
cullender has holes all of the same size, which 
is considerably less than that of the shot 
produced by them. This is owing to the 
drop of melted lead first assuming ah elon- 
gated form, which is concentrated into the 
globular by the air impinging equally upon 
all sides in the course of its descent. When 
it reaches the water, it is important that it 
should have cooled throughout, so that no 
solid crust be suddenly formed over a fluid 
interior ; and hence, for large shot it is evi- 
dent the height of the fall must be greater 
than is required for small shot. The tem- 
perature of the lead also, when it is dropped, 
must vary according to the size of the shot; 
for the largest size being so low that a straw 



is hardly browned when thrust into it. A 
portion of the lead becomes oxidized and is 
caught in the cullender, the bottom of which 
it coats, and serves a useful purpose by 
checking the too rapid flow of the melted 
lead through the holes. The holes vary 
in size, from ~ of an inch for shot larger 



than No. 1, to 



of an inch for No. 9. 



The shot being taken out of the water and 
dried upon the surface of a long steam chest, 
are transferred to an iron cask suspended 
upon an axis passing through its ends, and 
a little plumbago being introduced with 
them, the cask is made to revolve until the 
shot are thoroughly cleaned and polished. 
The next operation is to separate the imper- 
fect ones from the good. This is done by 
rolling them all together down a succession 
of inclined platforms, separated by a narrow 
space between each. The good shot clear 
these spaces and are caught below, while the 
bad ones fall through upon the floor. The 
good are then introduced into the sifters for 
assorting them according to their sizes. 
Several sieves are arranged like drawers in a 
case ; the coarsest above, and finer ones suc- 
ceeding below. The upper tier of sieves be- 
ing charged, the case is set rocking, and the 
shot are soon assorted, and are then ready for 
packing in bags. Bullets and buck-shot are 
moulded by hand from a large pot of the 
metal into moulds with many receptacles. 

The American process of shot-making was 
invented in 1848 by David Smith, of the 
firm of T. 0. Leroy & Co., of New York, 
by whom it is exclusively used. Its object 
is to dispense with the use of the costly high 
towers, by substituting for them a lower fall 
against an ascending current of air. This 
current is produced by a fan-blower operat- 
ing at the base of an upright hollow shaft 
into which the shot are dropped from a 
moderate height. The power required to 
run the fan is not much more than that or- 
dinarily expended in raising the lead to the 
top of the high towers ; and it is found that 
the lead, in consequence of its being more 
rapidly and equally cooled in the short de- 
scent against the current of air, may be used 
at a higher temperature than is practicable 
with that dropped from high towers ; and 
thus it may not only be poured more rapidly, 
but it has not the tendency to burst in falling 
and form imperfect shot, as is the case with 
that dropped from high towers, to guard 
against which the lead is kept at a low tem- 
perature. 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



473 



There are in New York city, besides this 
operation, which is carried on by Messrs. 
Leroy, in Water street, three shot towers, 
and a fourth is nearly completed on Statcn 
Island. The ordinary capacity of these is 
from 3000 to 4000 tons of shot per annum. 
The annual shot production of St. Louis is 
about the same as that of New York, though 
there is now only one shot tower in use. 
There were formerly seven more on the river 
bluffs below the city, but these have hardly 
been used since 1847. In Baltimore is a 
tower the height of which, including ten 
feet constructed below the surface of the 
ground, is 256 feet, which exceeds by one 
foot the height of the famous tower in Vi- 
enna, described by Dr. Ure as the highest 
structure of the kind in the world, being 
249 feet above the surface of the ground. 
Its production is stated to be about 400 
tons per annum. In Philadelphia there is 
one tower which makes about 300 tons an- 
nually ; in Wythe county, Virginia, is one 
formed in one of the shafts of the mine, 
making about 200 tons ; and on the Wis- 
consin river, at Helena, is a small tower 
probably making about as much more. The 
actual production of the country in shot and 
bullets is supposed to be about 7000 tons, 
and to have made but little advance for 
many years past. 

White Lead. — Before the introduction 
of the oxide of zinc as a paint, one of the 
most important uses of lead was its conver- 
sion into the carbonate or white lead. The 
manufacture was originally carried on almost 
exclusively in Holland ; and it was not until 
near the close of the last century that it was 
introduced into England. In the United 
States it was unknown until after the war of 
1812, and being first undertaken in Philadel- 
phia, it was afterward extended to New York 
and Brooklyn, and in the latter city has pros- 
pered more than in any other part of the 
country. Various attempts have been made 
to introduce new methods of manufacture, but 
the old Dutch process has continued in gen- 
eral use; the modifications of it which have 
raised the manufacture in this country to a 
higher state of perfection than in any other 
part of the world being merely improve- 
ments in the details, by which ingenious 
machinery has been made to diminish the 
labor expended in the process. 

White lead is a combination of oxide of 
lead with carbonic acid, and is obtained in 
the form of a soft, very white, and heavy 
25 



powder. It mixes readily with oil, giving 
to it a drying property, spreads well under 
the brush, and perfectly covers the surfaces 
to which it is applied. It is not only em- 
ployed alone as the best sort of white paint, 
but is the general material or body of a great 
number of paints, the colors of which are 
produced by mixing suitable coloring mat- 
ters with the white lead. Besides its use as 
a paint it is also in demand to a considerable 
extent as an ingredient in the so-called vul- 
canized india-rubber. To prepare it, the 
purest pig lead, such as the refined foreign 
lead and the metal from the mines of the 
western states, is almost exclusively used. 
This was by the old methods made in thin 
sheets, and these into small rolls, to be sub- 
jected to the chemical treatment. But ac- 
cording to the American method devised by 
Mr. Augustus Graham of Brooklyn, and now 
generally adopted, the lead is cast into cir- 
cular gratings or "buckles," which closely 
resemble in form the large old-fashioned 
shoe-buckles, from which they receive their 
name. They are six or eight inches in di- 
ameter, and the lead hardly exceeds one 
sixth of an inch in thickness. Ingenious 
methods of casting them are in use in the 
American factories, by which the lead is run 
upon moulds directly from the furnace, and 
the buckles are separated from each other 
and delivered without handling into the 
vessels for receiving them. They are then 
packed in earthen pots shaped like flower- 
pots, each of which is provided with a 
ledge or three projecting points in the in- 
side, intended to keep the pieces above the 
bottom, in which is placed some strong vine- 
gar or acetic acid. It is recommended that 
on one side the pot should be partially open 
above the ledge, and if made full all round, 
it is well to knock out a piece in order to 
admit a freer circulation of vapors through 
the lead. In large establishments an im- 
mense supply of these pots is kept on hand, 
the number at the single manufactory of 
Messrs. Battelle& Ken wick, on the Hudson, 
being not less than 200;000. They con- 
tinue constantly in use till accidentally 
broken below the ledge. These are packed 
close together in rows upon a bed of spent 
tan, a foot to two feet thick, and thin sheets 
of lead are laid among and over the pots in 
several thicknesses, but always so as to leave 
open spaces among them. An area is thus 
covered, it may be twenty feet square or 
of less dimensions, and is enclosed by board 



474 



LEAD. 



partitions, which, upon suitable framework, 
can be carried up twenty-five feet high if 
required. When the pots and the inter- 
stices among them are well packed with 
lead, a flooring of boards is laid over them, 
and upon this is spread another layer of 
tan ; and in the same manner eight or ten 
courses are built up, containing in all, it may 
be, 12,000 pots and 50 or 60 tons of lead, 
all of which are buried beneath an upper 
layer of tan. As the process of conversion 
requires from eight to twelve weeks, the 
large factories have a succession of these 
stacks which are charged one after another, 
so that when the process is completed in 
one, and the pots and lead have been re- 
moved and the chamber is recharged, anoth- 
er is ready for the same operation. 

The conversion of metallic lead into car- 
bonate is induced by the fermenting action, 
which commences in the tan soon after the 
pile is completed. The heat thus generated 
evaporates the vinegar, and the vapors of 
water and acetic acid rising among the lead 
oxidize its surface and convert it externally 
into a subacetate of lead; at the same time 
carbonic acid evolved from the tan circulates 
among the lead and transforms the acetate 
into carbonate of the oxide, setting the 
acetic acid free to renew its office upon 
fresh surfaces of lead. When the tan ceases 
to ferment the process is at an end, and the 
stack may then be taken to pieces. The 
lead is found in its original forms, but of 
increased bulk and weight, and more or less 
completely converted into the white carbo- 
nate. The thoroughness of the operation 
depends upon a variety of circumstances; 
• even the weather and season of the year 
having an influence upon it. The pieces 
not entirely converted have a core of me- 
tallic or "blue" lead beneath the white car- 
bonate crust. The separation is made by 
beating oft' the white portion, and this being 
done upon perforated copper shelves set in 
large wooden tanks and covered with water, 
the escape of the fine metallic dust is entire- 
ly prevented and its noxious effect upon 
the health of the workmen is avoided. In 
Europe, rolling machines closely covered 
are applied to the same purpose, but less 
effectually. The white lead thus collected 
is next ground with water between mill- 
stones to a thin paste, and by repeated 
grindings and washings this is reduced to 
an impalpable consistency. The water is 
next to be removed, and, according to the 



European plan, the creamy mixture is next 
turned into earthen pots, and these are ex- 
posed upon shelves to a temperature not ex- 
ceeding 300° until perfectly dry. Instead 
of this laborious method, the plan is adopted 
in the American works of employing shal- 
low pans of sheet copper, provided with a 
false bottom, beneath which steam from the 
exhaust-pipe of the engine is admitted to 
promote evaporation. These pans or " dry- 
ing kilns" are sometimes 100 feet long and 
6 feet broad, and several are set in the build- 
ing one above another. The liquid lead 
paste is pumped up into large tanks, and tho 
heavier portion settling down, is drawn off" 
into the pans, while the thinner liquid from 
the surface is returned to be mixed with 
fresh portions of white lead. Beside pans, 
tile tables heated by flues in the masonry of 
which they are built, are also employed. 
From four to six days are required for thor- 
oughly drying the white lead. This is the 
finishing process, after which the lead is 
ready for packing in small casks for the 
market. 

The manufacture of white lead, which 
was formerly an unhealthy and even dan- 
gerous occupation, has been so much im- 
proved by the expedients for keeping the 
material wet and thus preventing the rising 
of the fine dust, that the peculiar lead dis- 
ease now rarely attacks the workmen. The 
business is conducted altogether upon a large 
scale, and gives employment to numerous 
extensive factories in different parts of tlv/ 
country. Some of these have arrangements 
for converting-stacks that extend under cover 
200 feet in length, and their facilities for 
grinding and drying are proportionally ex- 
tensive. These, and the time required for 
fully completing, the process and getting the 
white lead ready for market — which is from 
three to four months — involve the use of 
large capital and tend to keep the business 
in few hands. 

There is a vastly increasing demand for 
pure white lead, and the competition and 
watchfulness of the trade insure the gen- 
uineness of the article thus warranted by 
the manufacturers. A large class of cus- 
tomers are the grinders, who form a distinct 
trade, and use and mix the pure article with 
other substances and with coloring matters 
to suit their purposes. The mineral, sul- 
phate of barytes or heavy spar, is the chief 
article used to adulterate white lead, and for 
this purpose it is obtained from mines in 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



475 



Connecticut and other places, and is exten- 
sively ground in mills for this use alone. 
When perfectly pure, the powder is abso- 
lutely white; it has about the same weight 
as white lead, and is quite as indestructi- 
ble ; it is, indeed, less acted upon or discol- 
ored by noxious vapors. It lacks, however, 
the body of white lead, and is not so bril- 
liant; and whenever used in any pro- 
portion materially injures the paint in those 
good qualities. Oxide of zinc is also largely 
mixed with white lead, as will be noticed 
more particularly in the succeeding chapter. 
The principal white lead works, together 
with the probable amount of their annual 
production in the United States in 1870 
were as follows: — 



Location. 



Brooklyn. N.Y.,... 

New York City 

Staten Island, N. Y 
Saugerties, N. Y.,.. 

Buffalo, N. Y., 

Philadelphia, Pa., .. 

Pittsburgh, Pa., 

Baltimore, Md., 

Boston, Mass 

Salem, Mass 

Jersey City, N. J.,. 
Trenton N.J...... 

Cincinnati, Ohio,. . 
Cleveland, Ohio,. . . 
Springfield. Ohio,. . 

Canton, Ohio, 

Indianapolis, Ind., . 
Louisville, Ky.,. . . . 

Chicago, 111., 

St. Louis. Mo., 

All others, 

Total, 



No. of 
Works. 



75 



Amount of 
Production. 



$882,000 
685,000 
360,000 
220,000 
165,000 

2,479,408 

1,281,320 
640,000 

1,147,500 
490,000 
248,000 
105,800 
606.880 
244.400 
100,000 
150.000 
145.600 
265,500 
544,400 

2,083,000 
120,000 

$13,163,808 



In the last decade, this business has "in- 
creased immensely. Brooklyn, the first 
place on the list, reports in the census of 
1880, 28 establishments, producing white 
lead to the amount of $8,442,938, almost 
two-thirds of the entire production of 1870. 
There has been a great increase, also, in 
New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, 
Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis. 



CHAPTER V. 
ZINC. 

The production of the zinc mines has 
been steadily increasing since they were 
first worked about forty years since; and 
the metal is applied to some purposes for 
which lead has heretofore been almost ex- 
clusively used. The growing importance 
of this product in the United States will 
justify a reference to the zinc manufacture 
of Europe. 



The metal, as mentioned in the chapter 
on Copper, very curiously escaped the no- 
tice of the ancients, though they obtained it 
from its ores in preparing brass, an alloy of 
copper and zinc. In the metallurgical pro- 
cesses it is readily sublimed by heat, and 
when its fumes come in contact with the air 
they are immediately oxidized, burning with 
a greenish-white flame, and are then con- 
verted into the white oxide of zinc, a com- 
pound of one equivalent of the metal = 34, 
and one of oxygen = 8 ; which correspond 
respectively to 81 and 9 per cent. These 
fumes when collected are found to be a 
white flocculent powder, now known as the 
white oxide of zinc, or zinc paint. If the 
vapor of zinc be protected from contact 
of air and passed through pipes into water, 
it is condensed into metallic drops, and 
these may be melted in close vessels and 
poured into moulds. Cast zinc is a brittle 
metal of bluish white color and greater lus- 
ter than that of lead. By heating it to the 
temperature of 212° to 300° F. it entirely 
loses its brittleness, and is made malleable 
and ductile, so that it can be rolled out 
into sheets. Its melting point is 680°, 
while that of lead is 608.° 

A variety of ores are worked for this 
metal ; as the sulphide, called blende ; the 
carbonate, called smithsonite ; and the sili- 
cate of zinc, or calamine. The last two 
usually occur associated together. The 
red oxide is an important ore, but found 
only in New Jersey. Blende almost uni- 
versally accompanies galena, and in some 
lead mines is the prevailing ore. The 
miners call it black jack. "When pure, it 
consists of zinc 67, sulphur 33. Being 
more difficult to reduce than the other ores, 
it has been comparatively little used, 
though the Chinese are known to have 
been successful in their management of it. 
In the United States it lies valueless in im- 
mense quantities about many of the load 
mines; but it is not improbable the old 
refuse heaps will yet bo turned to profit. 
At the zinc works near Swansea, in Wales, 
it has been worked for many years; and in 
England it has for a few years past < 
into use. In 1855, it is reported that 
9,020 tons of this ore from various n 
were sold; while of the calamine ores, the 
produce of the Alston Moor mines. Bale 
only 182 tons were reported. More ores 
of each sort were no doubt smelted, but 
the proportion of each was probably not 



47G 



ZINC. 



very different from that stated. Dr. Ure, 
in his dictionary, speaks of this ore selling 
at Holywell for £3 per ton. In France 
there are now five establishments working 
"blende; while in 1840, all the zinc con- 
sumed in the country was imported. 
Smithsonite resembles some yellowish or 
whitish limestones, and usually accompa- 
nies these rocks, being irregularly bedded 
among their strata. In its best condition 
it is obtained in large blocks of botryoidal 
and reniform shapes, sometimes crystal- 
lized. But usually it is in porous crumbly 
masses, much mixed and stained with red- 
dish oxide of iron. The pure ore contains 
65 per cent, of oxide of zinc (which is equiv- 
alent to 52 of the metal) and 35 of carbonic 
acid. The silicate of zinc is found inter- 
mixed with the carbonate, which it resem- 
bles in appearance. It contains, when 
pure, silica 25.1, water 7.5, and oxide of 
zinc 67.4, corresponding to 54 per cent, of 
the metal. The red oxide is found only at 
Mine Hill and Stirling Hill, near Franklin, 
in the extreme northern county of New Jer- 
sey. The pure oxide, of which it is almost ex- 
clusively composed, contains 80.26 percent, 
of zinc, and 19.74 of oxygen. The bright 
red color is probably derived from the 
small quantity of oxide of manganese 
p resent. The ore is mixed with franklin - 
ite iron ore, each being in distinct grains, 
one red and the other black; and with 
these is associated a white crystalline lime- 
stone, either in disseminated grains with 
the ores, or forming the ground through 
which they are dispersed. Two beds, con- 
sisting of the zinc and iron ores, lie in con- 
tact with each other along the southeastern 
slope of the Stirling Hill, between the 
limestone of the valley and the gneiss of 
the ridge, dipping with the slope of these 
rocks about 40° toward the valley, and 
ranging northeast and southwest. The 
upper bed, varying from three to eight 
feet in thickness, consists of more than 50 
per cent, red oxide of zinc; and the lower 
bed, which is twelve feet thick, and in 
some places more than this, is chiefly 
franklinite, changing to limestone below, 
interspersed with imperfect crystals of 
franklinite. At Mine Hill, one and a half 
miles northeast from Stirling Hill, two dis- 
tinct beds are again found together, that 
containing the most zinc in this case being 
the under one of the two, lying next the 
gneiss. These localities have been well 



explored; the beds have been traced con- 
siderable distances along their line of out- 
crop; and at Stirling Hill the red oxide of 
zinc has been mined for more than ten 
years by the New Jersey Zinc Company. 
Their workings have reached to a depth of 
about 250 feet, and have afforded the finest 
specimens of zinc ore ever seen. A single 
mass of the red oxide was sent, in 1851, to 
the Great Exhibition, in London, which 
weighed 16,400 lbs., and attracted no little 
attention, from the purity, rarity, and ex- 
traordinary size of the specimen. The 
Passaic Mining and Manufacturing Compa- 
ny also have opened two beds of the same 
ore on their property at Stirling Hill, ad- 
joining that of the New Jersey Zinc Com- 
pany, and between 1854 and 1860 took 
out about 30,000 tons of rich and lean ores. 
At the depth of 178 feet, the principal bed 
is twenty-one feet wide, of which about 
two and a half feet is rich ore, and the rest 
limestone sufficiently interspersed with ox- 
ide of zinc to render it worth dressing. 
This company completed, in the year 1859, 
at the mines, very extensive works for 
dressing the lean ores before they were 
shipped to their furnaces at Jersey City. 
The principal supplies of their ores hitherto 
have been of the smithsonite and calamine 
from the mines in the Saucon valley, Le- 
high county, Pennsylvania, of which they 
mined about 5,000 tons in the first year. 
These ores are extensively worked to the 
north of Friedensville, both by this com- 
pany and the Pennsylvania and Lehigh 
Zinc Company, whose furnaces are at 
Bethlehem, in Lehigh county. The mines 
of the two companies, which are near to- 
gether, are known as the Saucon mine and 
the Lehigh Zinc Company's mine. They 
were first opened in 1853. The two kinds 
of ore are found together, as is common in 
the European mines, and more or less 
blende is interspersed among them. They 
form very large irregular beds in limestone 
of the lower Silurian period, and are pene- 
trated by veins of quartz which traverse 
both the ore and limestone. The deepest 
workings at the Saucon mine are about 700 
feet below the surface ; and from this depth 
galleries have been run in every direction, 
exposing to view many thousand tons of ore. 
The ores of best quality are found in the low- 
er workings. Since 1876 work on this mine 
has been stopped by watei*, the cost of re- 
moving which exceeded the value of the ore. 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



477 



About the same time that these mines 
were opened in Lehigh county, another, 
producing similar kinds of zinc ore, was 
discovered near Lancaster, in Pennsylvania; 
hut after being explored it was found to 
contain so much blende and galena, that it 
was abandoned as useless^ Subsequently 
it was worked with moderate success. 
Large deposits of the same varieties of 
zinc ore are known to exist in Tennessee; 
one locality at Mossy Creek, a few miles 
northeast of Knoxville, and another at 
Powell's river, a branch of the Clinch riv- 
er, in Campbell county, about forty miles 
north of Knoxville. These beds contained 
very large quantities of excellent ore. The 
former, being close to the East Tennessee 
and Virginia railroad, was very conven- 
iently situated; and the other was within 
half a mile of a river navigable at certain 
seasons by flat-boats. Below its junction 
with the Clinch river were beds of bitumi- 
nous coal, and the river was thence navi- 
gable by steamboats. At Kingston it was 
crossed by a railroad. 

Zinc, either in the form of blende, car- 
bonate^ or calamine, is found in all the 
states west of the Mississippi river, oftenest 
in combination with lead, but sometimes 
by itself, and more rarely with silver, gold, 
tellurium, arsenic, or antimony. In Arkan- 
sas, Missouri, Iowa, "Wisconsin, Kansas, 
Colorado, New Mexico, and perhaps in 
Utah and Texas, it is reduced (the much- 
despised blende or sulphide being under 
later processes utilized) either by itself or 
in the process of separation from silver 
and lead, as the white oxide of zinc. It is 
now produced so abundantly that the price 
is but little higher than that of lead ; zinc 
being quoted at $120 per ton, and lead at 
$100. The imports of zinc, which in 1869 
and 1870 were from $1,000,000 to $1,500,- 
000, are now only nominal, and are bal- 
anced by the exports. It is impossible to 
determine how far " zinc - white " — the 
white oxide of zinc — is taking the place of 
the white lead as a paint, because the man- 
ufacturers of the one are also manufactur- 
ers, or at least sellers, of the other, and re- 
port them together. Zinc-white is more 
easily produced than white lead, is said to 
give a more brilliant and equally durable 
color, and to be free from the tendency to 
poison the painters. Its cost is slightly 
greater, though there seems to be no good 
reason why it should be. 



METALLURGIC TREATMENT AND USES. 

Zinc ores are applied to practical pur- 
poses, not only to produce the metal, but 
also the white oxide of zinc, which is con- 
siderably used as a paint. The anci 
used an ore they called lapis cafamin- 
aris, to make brass, by melting it with 
copper in crucibles, not knowing that 
another metal was thus formed which pro- 
duced an alloy with the copper. Although 
the metal was discovered in the K.th cen- 
tury, the nature of its ores was little known 
before the middle of the last century. It 
is now prepared upon a large scale in Bel- 
gium and Silesia, and small quantities are 
produced in England, France, and differ- 
ent parts of Germany. The simple method 
of obtaining zinc from its ores, called dis- 
tillation per descensum, was introduced into 
England about the year 1740, and was de- 
rived from the Chinese, who appear to 
have been acquainted with the metal long 
before it was known to the Europeans. As 
now practiced in Great Britain, the ores 
are first calcined, the effect of which is to 
expel a portion of the water, carbonic acid, 
and sulphur they contain. They are then 
ground to powder, and mixed with fine 
charcoal, or mineral coal, and introduced 
into stationary earthern pots or crucibles. 
AVhen set in the furnace, an iron pipe, 
passing up through the bottom of the 
hearth, enters the crucible, and connects 
with an open vessel directly beneath. 
About six pots are set together under a 
low dome of brick-work, through which 
apertures are left for filling them. Each 
one has a cover, which is luted down with 
fire clay; and the iron tube in each is 
stopped with a wooden plug, which, as the 
operation goes on, becomes charred and 
porous, so as to admit through it the pas- 
sage of the zinc vapors. The tubes are 
prevented from being clogged with depos- 
itions of the condensed zinc, by occasion- 
ally running a rod through them from the 
lower end. The zinc collects in the dishes 
under the tubes, in the form of drops and 
powder, a portion of which is oxidized. 
The whole is transferred to melting-] 
and the oxide which swims upon the sir. - 
face of the melted metal is skimmed off and 
returned to the reducing crucibles, while 
the metal is run into molds. The ing 
are known in commerce as spelter. 

In the United States zinc was first made 



478 



ZIXC. 



by Mr. John Hitz, under the direction of 
Mr. Hassler, who, by order of Congress, 
was engaged about the year 1838 to manu- 
facture standard weights and measures for 
the custom-houses. The work was done at 
the U. S. arsenal at Washington, the ores 
used being the red oxide of New Jersey. 
The expense exceeded the value of the 
metal obtained, and it was generally sup- 
posed that we could not produce spelter so 
cheaply as it could be imported from Eu- 
rope. The next experiments were made 
at the works of the New Jersey Zinc Com- 
pany, 1850, on the Belgian plan. In these 
great difficulties were experienced for want 
of retorts of sufficiently refractory character 
to withstand the high temperature and the 
chemical action of the constitutents of the 
ore. The franklinite, which always accom- 
panies the red oxide ores, was particularly 
injurious, by reason of the oxide of iron 
forming a fusible silicate with the substance 
of the retorts. These trials consequently 
failed after the expenditure of large sums 
of money. The next important trial was 
made in 1856, by a Mr. Hoofstetter, who 
built a Silesian furnace of twenty muffles 
for the Pennsylvania and Lehigh Zinc 
Company at their mine near Friedensville. 
This proved a total failure, and seemed 
almost to establish the impracticability of 
producing spelter with the American ores, 
clays, and anthracite. About this time, 
Mr. Joseph "Wharton, the general manager 
of the Pennsylvania and Lehigh Zinc Com- 
pany, and Mr. Samuel Wetherill, of Beth- 
lehem, both hit upon the same plan of 
treating zinc ores in an open furnace, and 
leading the volatile products through in- 
candescent coal, in order to reduce the 
zinc oxide so formed, and draw only me- 
tallic and carbonaceous vapors into the 
condensing apparatus. Mr. Wharton con- 
structed his furnace in Philadelphia, and 
Mr. Wetherill his in Bethlehem. The for- 
mer having completed his trials, filed a 
caveat for the process, but soon after aban- 
doned it as economically impracticable. 
The latter continued his operations, pat- 
ented the method, and produced some zinc, 
eight or ten tons of which were sold to the 
U. S. Assay Office in New York. The 
manufacture was not, however, long con- 
tinued. In 1858, Mr. Wetherill recom- 
mended the production of zinc, adopting a 
plan of upright retorts, somewhat like that 
in use in Carinthia, in Austria, and that of 



the English patent of James Graham. Mr. 
Wetherill had succeeded in procuring good 
mixtures of fire clays, and his retorts made 
of these and holding each a charge of 400 
pounds of ore, proved sufficiently refractory 
for the operation. The works under his 
charge at Bethlehem, erected in 1858-59, 
and belonging to the owners of the Saucon 
mine, had a capacity of about two tons of 
metal daily. 

Mr. Wharton, after abandoning the 
method of reduction by incandescent coals, 
continued his experiments on different 
plans, and finally decided on the Belgian 
furnace as the best, after having actually 
made spelter from silicate of zinc, with an- 
thracite, in muffles of American clays, at a 
cost below its market value. These trials 
were made in the zinc oxide works of the 
Pennsylvania and Lehigh Zinc Company. 
Their success encouraged the company to 
construct a factory at Bethlehem for re- 
ducing zinc ores, and this was done under 
the direction of Mr. Wharton in 1860. 
The capacity of the works was about 2,000 
tons per annum, and their actual daily pro- 
duct in the first year was over three tons. 
Four stacks or blocks were constructed, 
each containing four furnaces. To each 
furnace there were 56 retorts, making in 
all 896, working two charges in twenty- 
four hours. Their total capacity was about 
five tons of metal. Besides the ordinary 
spelter of this manufacture, which, as will 
be seen by the remarks that follow, was 
remarkable for its freedom from injurious 
mixtures, and was the best commercial 
zinc in the world, Mr. Wharton also pre- 
pared from selected ores a pure zinc for 
the use of chemists, and for purposes in 
which a high degree of purity was essen- 
tial. This was cast in ingots of about nine 
pounds each, and was sold at the price of 
ten cents per pound. For the supply of 
chemists, and for the batteries employed 
by the telegraph companies, the American 
zinc of this manufacture was preferred to 
all others. The total annual consumption 
of crude spelter in the United states 
amounts to about $1,500,000; and the 
value of sheet zinc, nails, etc., is about as 
much more. 

The commercial zincs, it has long been 
known, are contaminated by various for- 
eign substances, the existence of some of 
which is indicated in the finely divided 
black substance which remains floating or 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



479 



sinking in the liquid, when the metal is 
dissolved in dilute acids. The impurities 
have been stated by different chemists to 
consist of a great variety of substances, 
such as lead, cadmium, arsenic, tin, iron, 
manganese, carbon, etc. They injuriously 
affect the quality of the metal for many of 
its uses; and the presence of one of them, 
arsenic, is fatal to the highly important use 
of zinc by chemists, as a reagent in the de- 
tection of arsenic in other substances. 
Arsenic in the form of a sulphuret often 
accompanies the native sulphurets of zinc, 
and its oxide, being volatile, is readily car- 
ried over with the zinc fumes in the metal- 
lurgic treatment of blende, and may thus 
be introduced into the spelter. It is evi- 
dently, therefore, a matter of consequence 
to know the qualities of the different zincs 
of commerce, and the exact nature of the 
impurities they contain. Very thorough 
investigations having these objects in view 
were made in 1860 in Cambridge, Mass., 
by Messrs. Charles W. Eliot and Frank 
H. Storer, of Boston, and the results of 
these, with a full description of their meth- 
ods of examination, were communicated to 
the American Academy of Arts and 
Sciences, and published in the eighth vol- 
ume of the new series of their Memoirs. 
Eleven varieties of zinc from different 
parts of Europe, and made from the ores 
of New Jersey, and of the Saucon valley, 
Pennsylvania, were experimented upon, of 
all of which large samples were at hand. 
These varieties were the following: 1, Sile- 
sian zinc; 2, Vieille Montagne zinc; 3, 
New Jersey zine; 4, Pennsylvania zinc, 
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; 5, Vieille Mon- 
tagne zinc, employed at the United States 
mint, Philadelphia; 6, zinc of MM. Rous- 
seau-Freres, Paris, labelled and sold as 
zinc pur ; 7, sheet zinc obtained in Berlin, 
Prussia; 8, zinc made near Wrexham, 
North Wales; 9, zinc from the Mines Royal, 
Neath, South Wales: 10, zinc from the 
works of Dillwyn & Co., Swansea, South 
Wales; 1 1, zinc from the works of Messrs. 
Vivian, Swansea. All of these, except the 
Pennsylvania zinc, furnished an insoluble 
residue, which was found to- consist chiefly 
of metallic lead, and this proved to be the 
principal impurity of all the samples exam- 
ined; "the carbon, tin, copper, iron, ar- 
senic, and other impurities found in the 
metal by previous observers, occur either 
in very minute quantities, or rarely, and 



doubtless accidentally." The proportions 
of lead present in 100 parts of each of the 
varieties examined were respectively as 
follows: in Mo. 1, 1.46; 2, 0.292; 3, 0.079; 
4, 0.000; 5, 0.494; 6, 0.106; 7, 1,297; 8, 
1.192; 9, 0.823; 10, 1.661; 11, 1,516. The 
New Jersey zinc was found to contain a 
sensible quantity of tin, copper amounting 
to 0.1298 per cent, iron 0.2088 per cent., 
and an unusually large amount of arsenic. 
Traces of this were also detected in the 
white oxide prepared from the ores of the 
New Jersey mines, and in the red oxide 
ore itself; but the same ore afforded no- 
clue as to the source whence the copper 
was derived, a metal of which not the 
slightest traces were discoverable in the 
other zincs. None of the samples con- 
tained sufficient arsenic to admit of its pro- 
portion being determined, and some were 
entirely free from it, as some of the Bel- 
gian and Pennsylvania spelter, but traces 
of it were met with in other samples from 
the same regions, indicating that the occa- 
sional use of inferior ores, such as blende, 
intermixed with the carbonates and sili- 
cates, might introduce this substance, or 
possibly it might come over only in the 
first part of the distillation, and the zinc 
collected in the latter part might be quite 
free from it. The Silesian zinc contained 
minute quantities of sulphur, and arsenic ; 
and the English zinc more arsenic than 
any other, except, perhaps, the New Jersey. 
The purest of all the samples was that 
from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, some of it 
yielding no impurity, except a trace of cad- 
mium. As the authors of the paper re- 
marked, there seemed to be no reason why 
zinc of uniform purity should not be ob- 
tained from the excellent ores of the Sau- 
con valley mines, and they are now ob- 
tained of equal excellence from the western 
mines. 

EUROPEAN MANUFACTURE. 

A large portion of the zinc and zinc 
paints used in the United States was fur- 
nished for many years by the works of the 
Vieille Montagne Company, established 
near the frontier of Belgium and Prussia, 
chiefly in the province of Liege, of the 
former country. Though we are now 
nearly independent of this source of 
supply, yet the processes adopted there 
for mining and reducing zinc ores may 
be of interest and importance to those 



480 



ZINC. 



who are engaged in its production here. 
A large number of mines are worked in this 
region, the most important of which is that 
of the Vieille Montagne or Altenberg, sit- 
uated in the village of Moresnet, between 
Aix-la-Chapelle and the town of Liege. It 
is said that the great body of carbonate of 
zinc found here was worked as long ago as 
the year 1435, and that for four centuries it 
was not known that the ore was of metallic 
character, but it was used as a peculiar earth 
adapted for converting copper into brass. 
The ore lies in a basin-like depression in 
strata of magnesian limestone, and is much 
mixed with beds of clay intercalated among 
its layers. The ore is chiefly carbonate 
mixed with the silicate and oxide of zinc. 
Some of it is red, from the oxide of iron in- 
termixed, and this produces only about 33 
per cent, of metal. The purer white ore 
yields about 46 per cent., and is moreover 
much preferred on account of its working 
better in the retorts. The furnaces em- 
ployed in the distillation of these ores are 
constructed upon a very large scale, and on 
a different plan from those in use in Great 
Britain. The general character of the oper- 
ations, however, is the same. The ores are 
first calcined, losing about one fifth of their 
weight. They are then ground in mills, and 
charges are made up of 1100 lbs. of the 
powdered ore mixed with 550 lbs. of fine 
coal. The mixture being well moistened 
with water, is introduced into cylindrical re- 
torts, which are three feet 8 inches long 
and 6 inches diameter inside, set inclining 
outward, to the number of 42 in a single 
furnace, and 4 such furnaces are constructed 
in one stack. The open end of each retort 
connects, by means of an iron adapter 16 
inches long, with a wrought-iron cone, the 
little end of which, projecting out from the 
furnace, is only an inch in diameter. After 
the charges have been sufficiently heated, 
the sublimed zinc condenses in the neck of 
the retort and in the adapter and cone. The 
last two are then removed, aud the zinc and 
oxide are collected from them, and the liq- 
uid metal in the neck of the retorts is 
drawn out and caught in a large ladle, from 
which it is poured into moulds. The zinc 
thus obtained is remelted before it is rolled. 
Two charges are run through in twenty-four 
hours, each furnace producing from 2200 lbs. 
of ore about 620 lbs. of metal, which is 
about 30 per cent. From a late report of 
these operations it appears that there are 



seven large smelting establishments belong- 
ing to' the Vieille Montagne Zinc Mining 
Company, on the borders of Belgium and 
Prussia, comprising 230 furnaces. The an- 
nual product of these is 29,000 tons of spel- 
ter, of which 23,000 tons are converted into 
sheet zinc, and about 7000 tons are rolled at 
mills not the property of the company. They 
also manufacture oxide of zinc in three es- 
tablishments devoted to this operation, to 
the amount of about 6000 tons annually. The 
company also purchases spelter very largely. 
The metallurgy of zinc has, within a few 
years past, become an important branch of 
industry in Upper Silesia on the borders of 
Poland, and not far from Cracow. In 1857 
there were no less than 47 zinc works in this 
part of Prussia, one of which, named Lydog- 
niahutte, at Konigshiitte, belonged to the 
government, and the remainder were owned 
by private companies and individuals. In 
that year their total production was 31,480 
tons of spelter, valued at about 17,660,000 
francs. Many of the establishments belong 
to the Silesian Company, which also owns 
several coal mines near their works, and a 
number of zinc mines. The government 
works are supplied with ores from their own 
mines, and also from all the others, being 
entitled to one twentieth of their product. 
From a description of the operations pub- 
lished in the sixteenth volume of the Aui.alcs 
dvs Mines, fifth series, 1859, it appears that 
the processes are the same which had been 
employed for full twenty years previously, 
and each establishment presents little else 
than a repetition of the works of the others. 
The furnace in use is a double stack, fur- 
nished along each side with horizontal ovens, 
into each of which three muffles or retorts 
are introduced. These are constructed of 
refractory fire clays, and are charged, like 
the retorts of gas furnaces, by conveying the 
material upon a long charger or spoon into 
the interior. Their dimensions are about 4 
feet long, 22 inches high, and 8h inches wide, 
and the weight of the charge introduced is 
only about 55 pounds. The ovens on each 
side of the stacks contain as many as 2<) and 
sometimes 30 retorts. The same stack con- 
tains besides, 1st, an oven in which the ores 
belonging to it are roasted for expelling the 
water and a portion of the carbonic acid they 
contain (a process in which they lose about 
i their weight) ; 2d, an oven for baking the 
retorts, each establishment making its own : 
and 3d, a furnace for remelting and purifying 



481 



the zinc obtained from the retorts. Sev- 
eral stacks are arranged in a large building 
with close walls and open along the top of 
the roof to allow the smoke to escape. 

The principal zinc mines are in the vicin- 
ity of Beuthen, and are found in the mag- 
nesian limestones of the new red sandstone 
formation. The ores lie in irregular de- 
posits, and it is found that their yield of 
zinc has been gradually falling off, so that 
it is now only about two-fifths of what it 
was formerly. This low yield involves a 
large consumption of fuel, which is twenty 
tons for one of zinc obtained. The coal 
employed in working the ores is of poor 
quality, burning without flame; but it 
leaves no cinder, and is procured from 
mines very near the works, and at the ex- 
traordinary low price of six to seven francs 
the 1,000 kilogrammes (about one ton). 
The retorts are charged every twe:ity-four 
hours with roasted ore reduced to the size 
of nuts, and mixed with oxide of zinc from 
previous operations, with the dross from 
the crucible employed in remelting, with 
the incrustations from the muffles, and 
their connections outside the furnaces, and, 
in fine, with cinders that have fallen 
through the grates, these last making 
about one-third the bulk of the charge. 
The workmen having discharged a muffle 
of the liquid zinc and oxide remaining 
from the previous operation by drawing 
them forward, so that they fall upon an 
iron shelf placed below to catch them, and 
having repaired any cracks and holes in 
the muffle, they introduce the new charge 
in small portions at a time, and immedi- 
ately adjust the outer connection, which is 
also of earthenware bent down at a right 
angle, and close up the openings in front. 
The zinc soon begins to distil over, and 
drops upon the iron shelf, and is mixed 
with oxide colored by the oxide of cad- 
mium. When run into molds, the spelter 
is stated to have the folio wing composition: 
zinc, 97.50; cadmium, 1.00; lead, 0.20; ar- 
senic, 0.84; sulphur, 0.05 ; together with 
traces of tin, iron, and carbon. 

Forty years ago the quantity of zinc 
used for roofing did not exceed 5,000 tons 
per annum, and no zinc was employed for 
sheathing ships, or lining packing cases. 
The stamped ornaments in this metal only 
came into use in 1852. In Germany zinc is 
now very generally used for roofing; and in 
Paris it has been employed for nearly every | 



roof constructed during the last twenty-five 
years. In laying the sheets great care is 
taken that the metal has sufficient room to 
expand and contract by change of tempera- 
ture; and especially that it is fastened with 
zinc nails, and is allowed to come nowhere 
in contact with iron — even with nail heads. 
The purer the metal the longer it lasts. 

Besides the uses named for this metal, it 
is employed for coating sheet iron, making 
what is called galvanized iron ; for pipes for 
conveying liquids; for baths, water-tanks, 
milk-pans and pails, plates for engraving; 
for galvanic batteries; for nails, spikes, and 
wire; for signs; music printing ; and for the 
cornices of buildings. It has also been cast 
into statues, in imitation of bronze. The 
Vieille Montague Company sent, to the Great 
Exhibition in London a statue of Queen Vic- 
toria, which with its pedestal of zinc was 
twenty-one feet high. By a process some- 
what like lithography, called Zincography, 
drawings, old engravings, and autograph let- 
ters are transferred to it, and after treatment 
with acids, printed from a raised surface. A 
modification of this process called Photozinc- 
ography, accomplishes the difficult task of 
printing from a photograph. Zinc is also an 
important reagent in chemical operations, 
and is employed with sulphuric acid to de- 
compose water for obtaining hydrogen gas. 

ZINC PAINT. 

White oxide of zinc was first recom- 
mended as a substitute for white lead by 
the celebrated Guyton de Morveau about 
the close of the last century, during his in- 
vestigations on the subject of lead poison- 
ing ; and to him it was suggested by Cour- 
tois, a manufacturer at Dijon. The high 
price of zinc at that time, and ignorance 
respecting the proper manner of using the 
oxide of zinc, prevented its introduction. 
It was many years after this that methods of 
producing it as cheaply as white lead were 
devised by M. Leclaire, a house-painter of 
Paris ; and he also first prepared to use with 
it a scries of yellow and green unchangeable 
colors, to replace those before in use having 
noxious bases of lead, copper, or arsenic ; 
and also a drying oil, prepared by boiling 
linseed oil with about five per cent, of oxide 
of manganese. His process, which is still 
the one in general use in Europe, is based 
on the treatment of the metal instead of the 
ore, as practised in this country, and scarcely 
any white oxide of zinc is there made by 



482 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



any other method. The furnaces employed 
are similar to those for producing the metal, 
or like those of the gas works. When the 
retorts set in these furnaces have become 
very hot, they are charged with the ingots 
of zinc. The metal soon melts, and its 
vapor passes off through the outlets of the 
retorts, where it meets a current of air, and 
both together are drawn on through the 
condensing apparatus either by the draught 
of a chimney, or by an exhausting fan at the 
further extremity of the apparatus. The 
metallic vapors become oxidized by mixing 
with the air, and are converted into a light, 
flakv, white powder, which is the oxide of 
zinc. The arrangements for condensing 
and collecting this are similar in principle 
to those employed for the same purposes in 
the American process. By making use of 
the metal in retorts, instead of subliming it 
from ores contaminated with their own im- 
purities, and mixed with the coal required 
for conducting the process, a much purer 
oxide of zinc is obtained ; and by selecting 
the purest sorts of spelter, the beautiful 
article, called by the French blanc de neige, 
or "snow-white," is produced, which is 
employed by painters in the place of the 
" silver-white." With the use of other zinc, 
the product is fit to be substituted for the 
best white lead. But if the metal has been 
made from ores containing cadmium or iron, 
or if old zinc has been introduced to which 
any solder adheres, according to the French 
chemists oxides of other metals are pro- 
duced, and are taken up in small quantities 
with the zinc vapors, imparting to the oxide 
a slightly yellow or greenish tint, which if 
not very decided may however disappear 
when the paint is mixed ; but the expe- 
rience of American manufacturers does not 
accord with this explanation. 

The manufacture of white oxide of zinc 
direct from the ore is a purely American 
process, established by the experiments of 
Mr. Richard Jones of Philadelphia in the 
year 1850. The great bodies of the rich 
ores of northern New Jersey had at various 
times, for the past two centuries, attracted 
the attention of many persons interested in 
metallurgical operations ; and of late years 
numerous attempts had been made to devise 
some method of converting them to useful 
purposes. Zinc, however, was a metal not 
much in demand, and nothing was known 
of the useful qualities of the white oxide. 
When the value of this had been demon- 



strated in Europe, and the practicability of 
producing it economically from the red 
oxide was shown, a company was organized 
in New York under the name of the New 
Jersey Zinc Company, for the purpose of 
carrying on this manufacture upon a large 
scale. This association was incorporated by 
the Legislature of New Jersey, February 
15, 1849, and the report of their, operations, 
made December 31, 1853, by their presi- 
dent, C. E. Detmold, Esq., showed a pro- 
duction, for 1852, of 2,425,506 lbs. of oxide ; 
and for 1853, of 4,043,415 lbs.; and the 
total production for 10 years, ending with 
18(50, has amounted to above 19,500 tons. 
Their works were established at Newark, 
N. J., to which place the ores were brought 
by the Morris and Essex canal ; and the an- 
thracite consumed in the manufacture was 
delivered both by railroad and canal. The 
company has forty furnaces, that may be 
kept in constant operation. The character 
of the process was the same as that given 
below, as conducted by the Passaic Mining 
and Manufacturing Company. 

The success of the enterprise of the New 
Jersey Zinc Company, and the discovery in 
1853 of the great beds of silicate and car- 
bonate of zinc in the Saucon valley, Penn- 
sylvania, led to the organization in that year 
of the Pennsylvania and Lehigh Zinc Com- 
pany, and the erection of furnaces for mak- 
ing the oxide at Bethlehem, on the Lehigh 
river. The operations were conducted by 
Samuel Wetherill, Esq., by a patented proc- 
ess of his own invention, and at a contract 
price of $50 per ton ; the ore being deliv- 
ered by the company at the works for $1.50 
per ton. About four tons were consumed to 
the ton of oxide. The company mined up 
to January. 1860, about 60,000 tons of ore, 
and at that time were manufacturing about 
320,000 lbs. of oxide of zinc per month. 

A third company was established in 18o5, 
called the Passaic Mining and Manufactur- 
ing Company, and their works, constructed 
at Comnmnipaw, on the Morris canal near 
Jersey City, went into operation in June of 
that year. They obtained their ores both 
from the mines of red oxide in Sus:-ex 
county, and from the Saucon valley mines in 
Pennsylvania. They employed 24 furnaces, 
built in 3 stacks, of 8 each, in which they 
were arranged like ovens, half of them open- 
ing on one side and half on the opposite 
side. Each one was about 6 feet in depth 
(from front to back), 4 feet in width, and 



ZINC. 



483 



about 3 j feet in height. The roof was arch- 
ed, with an opening through it for the pipe 
which conveyed away the vapor and products 
of combustion. The sole was formed of cast- 
iron plates, which were perforated full of small 
holes for admitting the blast to penetrate 
every portion of the charge, as the wind was 
driven by two large fan-blowers into the re- 
ceptacle under the furnace corresponding to 
the ash-pit. The ores were prepared by lirst 
crushing them to powder, which was done by 
passing them through two pairs of Cornish 
rolls, and then mixing them thoroughly with 
about half their weight of the dust of anthra- 
cite. Afire was kindled upon the grate-bars 
of 250 lbs. of pea coal, and when ignited to 
full whiteness the charge of 600 lbs. of ore, 
mixed with 300 of coal dust, was added, and 
when exhausted the charge was withdrawn, 
leaving only sufficient coal to ignite the next 
charge, thus working ott' 4 charges in every 
24 hours. The proportion of oxide obtained 
from the ore was variable, as the charge was 
not of uniform quality ; but it was usually 
between 30 and 40 per cent. As the coal 
rapidly consumed from the effect of the blast, 
the ores were decomposed, and metallic zinc 
sublimed. The vapor rose with the gaseous 
products of combustion, and all were carried 
up the pipe, which just above the roof of 
the stack terminate under an inverted fun- 
nel, the base of which covered the lower pipe 
like a hood, and the upper portion was a 
pipe like that below. A strong current of 
air was created by two exhausting fan- 
blowers, at the other extremity of the ap- 
paratus, and the vapors were drawn up to- 
gether with much air which flowed in around 
the open base of the funnel, and caused at 
this point a vivid combustion of the zinc 
vapors, which burned with a pale blue flame, 
and were thus converted into oxide. The 
a| i pea ranee presented by this combustion 
actively going on in full view under each 
hood was very striking, and was far from 
suggesting to an observer unacquainted with 
the process, the possibility that from the 
pale flames rushing up the pipes any valua- 
ble product could be recovered. The pipes 
connected above with a cylindrical sheet-iron 
receiver that extended over the three stacks, 
so as to secme the products of all the fur- 
naces. It was a huge pipe, 6| feet in diam- 
eter, and 130 feet long, and passed along 
under the roof, against a line of windows on 
each side, through which air was admitted 
for hastening the cooling of the products. 



The pipe discharged into a square tower in 
masonry, and in this the particles were 
washed and cooled by a continual falling 
sheet of water. The light flocculent oxide 
of zinc was not carried down by this to any 
great extent, but was drawn on by the ex- 
haust through 3 large pipes to a second tower 
with three divisions, in which the fans were 
placed that created the draught. From this 
the current, still propelled by the fans, moved 
on through other pipes that connected with 
the system of flannel bags, which in great 
numbers, and of extraordinary sizes, were sus- 
pended throughout the portion of the build- 
ing devoted to the final cooling of the oxide, 
and filtering it from the gaseous matters inter- 
mixed. Some of the bags extended the whole 
length of the rooms, which were 120 feet 
long by 64 wide, and the diameter of the larg- 
est of them was over 4 feet. They were ar- 
ranged near together, and some were carried 
vertically from the horizontal ones up to the 
roof. Through the pores of the flannel the 
gases escaped, and the oxide of zinc remained 
thoroughly purified. Nearly 200,000 square 
feet of flannel were worked into these bags ; 
and one person was almost constantly em- 
ployed with a sewing machine, and two others 
working by hand, in making and repairing 
them. Along the under side of the horizontal 
bags pipes of cotton cloth, ten or twelve inches 
in diameter, reached down nearly to the floor, 
and were kept tied around their lower ends. 
These were called the teats ; and the oxide of 
zinc was collected by lifting up the portions 
of the bags where it had settled, and shaking 
the-e so as to make it fall into the teats. The 
ends of these were then opened, and the 
white zinc was received in strong bags, 
which being tied up were laid upon a truck, 
and this was run by steam power back and 
forth under a compressing roller. The air 
dispersed through it, rendering it so light 
and bulky, was thus expelled, and the oxide 
was converted into a dense, heavy powder. 
The last process was to grind this with 
bleached linseed oil, which was done in the 
ordinary paint mills. The paint was then 
transferred into small kegs for the market. 

The residuum of the furnace charge, when 
of red oxide, consisted of some unsublimed 
zinc ore mixed with franklinite and more or 
less unconsumed coal. It was raked out in 
the form of slags, and accumulated in immense 
piles about the works. In 1853, Mr. Detmold 
succeeded in using this as an iron ore, and pro- 
duced excellent iron which proved to be also 



484 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



well adapted for the manufacture of steel. 
The iron manufacture has been continued, and 
has become a profitable branch of the opera- 
tions of the United States Zinc Company, pro- 
ducing about 20( i0 tons of zinc per annum. 
The franklinite itself bad been used a year ear- 
lier for the same purposes by Mr. Edwin Post, 
at Stanhope, and from this he obtained both 
iron and steel ; but when the manufacture 
was undertaken upon a large scale by the 
New Jersey Franklinite Company, at Frank- 
lin, New Jersey, it proved unsuccessful in 
practice. 

The product of the zinc works of the Pas- 
saic Company for the year 1856, was 2,327,- 
9_0 lbs. of oxide of zinc; and the monthly 
production for the year 1860 w r as about 
4UO.OU0 lbs. from 1 6 furnaces. With the 24 
in blast their monthly capacity was from 280 
to 300 tons of 2 000 lbs. to the ton. The 
total annual product of the three establish- 
ments was from G0O0 to 7000 tons of oxide. 

The rate of the importations of zinc, 
spelter, and manufactures of zinc, with 
the re-exports of the same at different 
dates from 1859 to 1880, both inclusive, 
were: 

Imported. Exported. 

1859, $1,333,112 $14,912 

1860, 804,358 26,383 

1862, 254,033 563 

1864, 675,931 3,973 

1866, 1,149,895 38,108 

1869, 1,197,682 4,022 

1870, 1,003,432 833 

1872, 1,386,618 27,674 

1874 447,844 27,872 

1876, 328,380 79,868 

1878, 129,183 300,606 

1879, 108,494 211,469 

1880, 653,390 163,866 

The importance of the application of white 
zinc to painting in the place of white lead 
appears to have been much more fully appre- 
ciated in France and the United States than in 
Great Britain. Soon after the discoveries of 
Leclaire that white oxide of zinc could be 
thus used, and produce, with the colored 
hascs he prepared of this and other innocu- 
ous oxides, all the tints required, the French 
government, recognizing the importance of 
his inventions, conferred upon him the cross 
of the Legion of Honor, and adopted the 
paints for the public buildings. By the year 



1849, over 6000 public and private build- 
ings had been painted with his prepara- 
tions, and the testimony was very strong in 
their favor. Not one of his workmen had 
been attacked by the painter's colic, though 
previously a dozen or more suffered every 
year from it. The colors were pronounced 
more solid and durable than the old, were 
made brighter by washing, and were not tar- 
nished by sulphuretted hydrogen, as occurs 
to white lead. The best white paint was 
moreover so pure and brilliant a white, that 
it made the best white lead paint by its side 
look disagreeably yellow and gray. No dif- 
ficulty was experienced in making the new 
colors, mixed with the prepared oil, dry 
rapidly without the use of the ordinary dryers 
of lead compound ; and used in equal weight 
with lead, the zinc was found to cover bet- 
ter, and was, consequently, more economical 
at equal prices per lb. The English, how- 
ever, found many objectionable qualities in 
the new paint. Its transparency, which is 
the cause of its brilliancy, by reflecting in- 
stead of absorbing the light, was regarded as 
a defect, and the painters complained that it 
had not the body or covering properties of 
the carbonate of lead. It would not dry 
rapidly for the second coat without the use 
of the patent dryers, which contain lead, and 
therefore it was no better than the lead. 
Messrs. Coates & Co., who now import into 
Great Britain about 1000 tons of oxide of 
zinc per annum, wrote to the editor of the 
Lancet in March, 1 860, that the consumption 
of white lead is still nearly 100 to 1 of white 
zinc, and that in 1856 the importation of the 
latter amounted to only 235 tons. They as- 
cribe the real cause of the larger consumption 
of white lead, to the almost entire exclusion of 
zinc, to the fact, that white lead can be adul- 
terated with barytes and other cheap ingre- 
dients without the adulteration being detected 
by the eye, thus securing large profits to the 
manufacturer and contractor, which cannot 
be realized in the use of zinc paint, for the 
reason that it has little affinity for foreign sub- 
stances. The experience of the manufacturers 
of the United States does not substantiate 
this statement as to the difficulty of using the 
oxide of zinc in mixture with other substances. 
It is employed not only alone, but mixed 
witli either barytes or white lead, or with 
both of them ; and large quantities are thus 
sold and give satisfaction to consumers, who 
would reject the paint, if they supposed it to 
be any thing else than white lead. As to it* 



PLATINUM. 



485 



covering quality, it is found that the oxide of 
zinc varies according to the manner in which 
it has been prepared. The light rlocculent 
oxide mixes readily with oil without grinding; 
but though pressed, it covers much less sur- 
face than the same oxide moulded when mois- 
tened with water, and dried by artificial heat. 
This preparation also causes any yellowish or 
greenish tints to disappear, and the article 
may be supplied to the consumer in cakes, 
which when ground with oil will cover more 
surface than the same weight of white lead. 
The body of the white zinc may be still fur- 
ther improved by calcination before grinding. 

The inferior colored sorts of oxide of zinc, 
such as are collected in the iron receivers 
near the furnaces, and that made from the 
pulverized ores of zinc, have been largely 
employed for painting iron surfaces, espec- 
ially on board of ships, the paint being found 
to possess a peculiar quality of protecting 
the iron it covers from rusting. 

Besides its use as a paint, oxide of zinc is 
applied to the preparation of the mastic for 
rendering metallic joints tight ; and to that of 
glazed papers and cards, for which white lead 
and carbonate of barytes have heretofore 
been used. The French use it in preparing 
the paste for artificial crystals instead of 
oxide of lead or other metallic oxides ; and 
they have also made with it some of the 
finest sorts of cut glass and especially lenses. 
In the Great Exhibition of 1851, an award 
was made to specimens of zinc glass which 
presented a very pleasing and white appear- 
ance, and were regarded as especially suited 
to achromatic purposes. It was remarkable 
for its being purer and more pellucid than 
lead glass, and also of greater specific gravity. 

A patent has been granted m the United 
States for the manufacture of flint glass with 
oxide of zinc, and specimens of glass pro- 
duced with it have been exhibited which 
were remarkable for their brilliancy and 
beautiful surface, or "skin," as it is called. 
The glass is more infusible than that made 
with oxide of lead, and there seems to be 
no good reason to prevent it from coming 
rapidly into use. 



CHAPTER VI. 

PLATINUM. 

Although this metal is not obtained in 
large quantity in the United States, it is 
found associated with the gold in many 



localities in California, Nevada, Oregon, and 
Colorado, and has been detected in Ruther- 
ford Co., N. C, and in traces in ores in Lan- 
caster Co., Penn. From the Pacific states it 
may yet be afforded as a commercial article. 
It is a metal of considerable interest, and is 
supplied to commerce from various sources, 
and finds its way into the United States in 
a great variety of forms, as in native grains 
found in washing the gold deposits of Ca- 
uca, on the western coast of South Amer- 
ica, of Brazil, California, and Oregon, and 
in manufactured articles imported from 
Europe, and chiefly from France. Russia 
produced between the years 1824 and 1845 
many times as much platinum as all the 
rest of the world, and introduced the mi tal 
into her coinage; but after 1845 it was no 
longer coined, and the yield of the deposits 
in the Ural has greatly dwindled. The 
supply from Borneo has been very large for 
some years, the whole product of the island 
sometimes amounting to 600 lbs. a year. 
It is found in small grains and lumps in 
the sands that are washed for gold; and 
pieces of several pounds have been met 
with in Siberia, the largest weighing over 
22 lbs. troy. The importation in 1880 
was about 2,140 lbs., valued at $248,600, 
and the home production perhaps one- 
third of that amount. 

The properties which give to the metal its 
great value, as its power of resisting the ef- 
fects of heat and many of the most powerful 
chemical agents, also render it exceed Lngly 
difficult to work and to convert into useful 
shapes. The crude grains are generally al- 
loyed to the amount of about 20 per cent, of 
their weight with the very refractory metal 
iridium, with osmium, rhodium, iron, ami 
sometimes other metals also. It is separated 
from the chief part of these and purified by 
dissolving the grains in aqua regia, a mixture 
of nitric and hydrochloric acid, ami causing 
the metal to be precipitated by sal-ammoniac. 
It falls in a yellowish powder, which is a 
compound of platinum, ammonia, and chlo- 
rine. To decompose this the compound is 
separated from the liquid, ami being well 
washed and dried, is heated red hot in a cast- 
iron crucible. This drives off the ammonia 
and chlorine, and the platinum remains in 
the crucible in a spongy condition. This is 
condensed into solid metal by repealed 
heatings and hammerings. It has always 
been a matter of great difficulty to raise 



PLATINUM. 



487 



sufficient heat to soften the platinum, even in 
quantities less than an ounce, so that it could 
be worked under the hammer. It used for- 
merly to be brought into a metallic cake by 
making a fusible alloy of it with arsenic, and 
then burning out the latter as much as pos- 
sible, and hammering or rolling the cake into 
sheets, but the arsenic remaining in the 
platinum always injures its quality. Dr. 
Robert Hare, of Philadelphia, was the first 
to fuse the metal for any practical purpose, 
and in May, 1838, he exhibited a cake of 
about 23 ounces, which was run together 
from grains and scraps by means of the in- 
tense heat produced by his oxy-hydrogen 
blowpipe. From a reservoir of oxygen, and 
from another of hydrogen, a gas-pipe con- 
veyed the gases into one tube, in which they 
were mixed just back of the igniting jets ; 
and in this the explosive mixture was kept 
cool by ice around the tube. Explosion was 
moreover guarded against by the extreme 
fineness of the apertures through which the 
gases were made to pass. 

This means of working platinum was 
applied by Dr. E. A. L. Roberts, formerly 
of Bond street, New York, in the prepara- 
tion of platinum plate and various articles 
in this metal employed by dentists, such as 
the plates and fastenings for sets of artificial 
teeth, and the little pins which secure each 
tooth in its setting. The annual consump- 
tion of these last, it is estimated, amounts 
throughout the United States to about 
$60,000 in value, which is nearly one-fifth 
of the annual supply of the metal. The ap- 
paratus consists of two cylindrical copper 
gas-holders, one for hydrogen, holding 220 
gallons, and one for oxygen, holding 80 gal- 
lons. The Croton water, with a pressure of 
about 60 lbs. upon the square inch, is ad- 
mitted into the bottom of these gas-receivers, 
for propelling the gases as they are required. 
The discharge pipes have each at their ex- 
tremity a short brass tube, which is full of 
pieces of wire of nearly the same length as 
the tube, jammed in very tightly. These 
unite in another brass tube which is packed 
in a similar way, and connects by a metallic 
pipe of only i inch bore, with the burner. 
This is a little platinum box, one end of 
which terminates in a disk of platinum or 
copper h. by \ inch in size, perforated with 
21 very minute holes in 3 rows. This box 
is buried in plaster of Paris mixed up with 
fibres of asbestus, forming a lump sufficiently 
large to contain around the box a receptacle 



into which, by means of flexible pipes, a cur- 
rent of water is admitted and discharged on 
the same principle that the water-tuveres 
of iron forges and furnaces arc constructed 
and kept cool while in use. The burner 
points downward, so that the jet is directed 
immediately upon the face of the metal held 
up beneath it. The method of using the 
apparatus is as follows : the platinum scraps 
being first consolidated by pressure in 
moulds into compact cakes of 10 to 20 
ounces each, these are placed upon a plate 
of fire-brick, and brought to a full white 
heat in a powerful wind furnace. The plate 
with the platinum is then removed from the 
furnace and set in a large tin pan thickly 
lined with asbestus and plaster of Paris, and 
is brought directly under the jet, which at 
the same time is ignited. The platinum im- 
mediately begins to melt upon the surface, 
and the pieces gradually run together into 
one mass as the different parts of the cakes 
are brought successively under the jet. 
Though the metal melts and flows upon 
itself, it cools too rapidly to be cast in a 
mould ; nor is this necessary or desirable 
for the uses to which it is applied. These 
require a soft and tough material, while the 
fused metal is hard and sonorous, and of 
crystalline texture, breaking like spelter. 
It is made malleable and tough by repeated 
heatings and hammerings. It is introduced 
into the muffle of the assay furnace con- 
structed by Dr. Roberts especially for pro- 
ducing the high heat required in these and 
similar operations, and is heated so intensely 
that when the door of the furnace is opened 
the cake of metal is too dazzlingly hot to be 
visible. It is then taken out with tongs 
plated with platinum, and hammered with a 
perfectly clean hammer upon a clean anvil, 
both of which should be as hot as possible 
without drawing the temper of the steel. If 
the process is one of welding, when the pla- 
tinum has cooled so as to be distinctly visi- 
ble, it should be heated again, for in this 
condition every blow tends to shatter and 
shake it to pieces. The lump is forged, by 
hammering it to a thickness of about 1 of an 
inch, and then being again heated very hot, 
is passed instantly through the rolls. It is 
thus obtained in sheets, which are easily con- 
verted into the various uses to which the 
metal is applied. 

Upon the opposite page, the apparatus 
employed and manner of conducting the 
operations are exhibited in the wood cut ; 



488 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



and the articles designated by the figures 
are thus explained : — 

1 . Reservoir for oxygen. 

2. " " hydrogen. 

3. Hydrogen generator. 

4. Oxygen " 

5. Blowpipe. 

6. Tuyere. 

7. Rolls for converting the metal into sheets. 

8. Gasometer. 

9. Water pipes. 

10. Pan. 

11. Moulds in which the loose pieces of metal are 

compressed. 

Crucibles for chemical use are prepared by 
the ingenious method called spinning. A 
disk of the metal is securely fixed against the 
end of the mandrel of a lathe, and, as it re- 
volves rapidly, a blunt point is pressed upon 
its surface, causing the plate to gradually 
bend over and assume the desired form. 
The large platinum retorts used in the man- 
ufacture of sulphuric acid arc imported from 
Paris. One of them of sufficient size for a 
five-ton still weighs from 60 to 65 lbs., and 
is worth from $6,200 to $6,800. The value 
of platinum imported into the United States 
for the year 1880 was $248,674. The na- 
tive product was certainly sufficient to 
bring the total amount considerably above 
$320,000 a year. 

IRIDIUM AND OSMIUM. 

An alloy of these metals in fine grains of 
excessive hardness is found very frequently 
with platinum and with the gold which is 
refined at the mints. It is of interest from 
the use to which it is applied in forming 
the nibs of gold pens; and for this pur- 
pose the small grains are purchased by the 
pen -makers, sometimes at the rate of $250 
an ounce. From this quantity they may 
select from 8,000 to 12,000 points of suit- 
able size and shape for use. The alloy is 
known as iridosmine, and is also very 
generally called iridium. At some seasons 
it has been quite abundant in the gold 
presented at the New York assay office; 
but recently it is more rare. As it does 
not fuse and alloy with the gold, it appears 
in specks upon the bars of this metal. The 
method of separating it is to melt the gold 
with a certain portion of silver, as in the 
usual refining process. The alloy thus 
obtained being less dense than the melted 
gold, the particles of iridium settle in the 
lower portions ; the upper is then ladled off, 
and the metals are parted. More of the 



impure gold is added, and the process thus 
goes on till a considerable amount of iridium 
is concentrated into the alloy of gold and 
silver, from which it is at last obtained by 
dissolving these metals. According to the 
statement of Dr. Thevenet published in the 
Annates des Mines (vol. xvi., 1859), irid- 
ium is collected at the gold-washings along 
the sea-coast of Oregon, and is sometimes 
quite equal in quantity to the gold. He 
describes it as white, glistening, very heavy, 
its specific gravity being 20 to 21, very hard, 
and resembling sand, its angles slightly flat- 
tened and rounded by friction. It is accom- 
panied by platinum and rhodium. After 
one of the storms that prevail along this 
coast, the miners at low tide collect the 
black sand and carry it to the washing and 
amalgamating apparatus, in which it is stirred 
with mercury and then treated upon the 
shaking tables. Though by their rude proc- 
esses they probably lose £ of the precious 
metals, they sometimes collect several ounces 
a day of gold to the man. Near Fort Or- 
ford, to the north of Rogue River, about 
1 5 per cent, of iridium is found with the 
gold. Still further north, between Cape 
Blanco and Coquille, the metals collected 
consist of about 45 per cent, iridium and 5 
per cent, platinum. Between Randolph and 
Cape Arago the metallic grains are very 
light and in extremely thin scales ; they con- 
sist of 70 per cent, iridium and 6 per cent, 
platinum. Further north, the iridium con- 
tinues almost as abundantly, but mostly in 
very fine particles. One piece was shown to 
Dr. Thevenet as a great curiosity which was 
as large as a grain of rice. In sifting more 
than 50 lbs. of iridium, he states that he had 
not seen a single specimen of one quarter 
this size. 



CHAPTER VII. 

MERCURY. 

This metal, which is extensively employed 
in the arts, especially in the treatment of gold 
and silver ores by amalgamation, in the com- 
bination of amalgams for coating mirrors, etc., 
in the construction of barometers and ther- 
mometers, and other philosophical instru- 
ments, in the manufacture of the paint called 
vermilion, for several medicinal preparations, 
and for a variety of other purposes, was not 
classed among the productions of the United 
States until after the acquisition of Califor- 



MERCURY. 



489 



nia, when mines of its principal ore were 
opened, which have been extensively worked, 
as will be described below. Mercury, which 
is the only fluid metal, is found both in a 
native state, dispersed in drops among the 
slates that contain the veins of its ores, and 
also occurs in combination with sulphur in the 
ore called cinnabar, a compound of one atom 
of mercury and one of sulphur, or of 86.2 
per cent, of the former, and 13.8 per cent, 
of the latter. Some other natural compounds 
are known, which are not, however, of much 
importance. Cinnabar is almost the exclu- 
sive source of the metal. This is a very 
heavy, brilliant ore of different shades of red; 
is readily volatilized at a red heat, giving off 
fumes, when exposed to the air, both mer- 
curial and sulphurous ; but in tight vessels it 
sublimes without decomposition, and if lime 
or iron be introduced with the ore into re- 
torts, the sulphur is retained in combination 
with the new element, and the mercury es- 
capes in vapor, which may be condensed 
and recovered in the metallic state. On 
this principle the process for collecting mer- 
cury is based. The ores of mercury are 
found in almost all the geological formations, 
but the productive mines are only in the 
metamorphic or lowest stratified rocks, and in 
the bituminous slates of the coal measures. 

In order to appreciate the importance of 
the mines of California, it is necessary to un- 
derstand the extent of the demand for this 
metal, and the sources which have supplied it. 
From the time of the ancient Greeks and Ro- 
mans, mercury has been held in high estima- 
tion, and has been furnished from the same 
mines, which have ever since produced the 
chief part of the product of the world. Pliny 
states that the Greeks imported red cinnabar 
from Almaden in Spain, 700 years before 
the Christian era, and in his own time it was 
brought to Rome from the same mines to 
the amount of 700,000 lbs. annually. In 
modern times the production amounts to 
2,700,000 to 3,456,000 lbs. per annum, and 
is chiefly obtained from two veins, one 
about 2 feet, and the other 14 feet thick, 
which, meeting in a hill about 125 feet high, 
spread out to a thickness of nearly 100 feet. 
The ores are of small percentage, yielding 
about j 1 ,, only of mercury. The greatest 
depth of the workings was only about 330 
yards several years ago. After the metal has 
been extracted from the ores, it is packed in 
iron bottles or flasks holding 76i lbs. each, 
and is taken to Cadiz for shipment. For 
26 



many years past, the lessees from the Span- 
ish government, in whom the title is vested, 
have been the Rothschilds and other bank- 
ers of Europe ; but their contracts with the 
government have varied from time to time, 
thus affecting the price at which the product 
was held.* 

The mines next in importance have been 
those of Idria in Cannula, belonging to the 
Austrian government. These, for some 
years previous to 1847, had produced an 
annual average of 358,281 lbs. of mercury, 
and since that time, the production has va- 
ried, sometimes reaching 600,000, and even 
over 1,000,000 lbs. per annum. The other 
mines of Europe do not probably produce 
200,000 lbs. On the American continent 
many localities of the ores have been worked 
to some extent ; but although the consump- 
tion is very great at the silver mines of 
Mexico, amounting, as estimated by Hum- 
boldt, to 16,000 quintals of 2U0 lbs. each, 
three fourths of the supply was then derived 
from the European mines. In 1782, mer- 
cury was even brought to South America 
from China, where it was formerly largely 
extracted in the province of Yunnan. Yet 
in the early years of the Spanish conquest 
Peru was a large producer of the metal, its 
most important mines being in the province 
of Huancavelica, where no less than 41 dif- 
ferent localities of the ore have been known ; 
but at present the whole product of the 
country is supposed not to exceed 200,000 
lbs. A large portion of this product is from 
the Santa Barbara, or the " Great Mine," 
which has been worked since 1566. The 
mines of Chili and the numerous localities at 
which the ores have been found in Mexico 
supply no metal of consequence. Dumas 
estimated, twenty-five years ago, the total 
annual production as follows: — 

Lbs. avoirdupois. 

Almaden, Spain, 2,700,000 to 3,456,000 

Idria 648,000 " 1,080,000 

Hungary and Transylvania, 75,(500 " 97,200 

Deux Ponts, 42,200 " 54.000 

Palatinate 19,400" 21,000 

Huancavelica " 824.000 

California "2,000,000 

Total, 7,032,800 

*In 1839 the royalty demanded by the government 
was $59 per quintal (If 100 pounds, to which it had reached 
by successive advances from $51.25; and in 1848 it had 
advanced to $82.60 per quintal. The Opening of the Cali- 
fornia mines soon caused this to be considerably reduced. 
In 1880, the price at which mercury is sold in small quan- 
tities is forty-two cents a pound, or $30 the iron flask of 
seventy-five pounds— only about one-half of the royalty 
demanded by the Spanish government in 1813. 



490 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



In California, the existence of large 
quantities of cinnabar was known long be- 
fore the real character of the ore was un- 
derstood. It was found along a range of 
hills on the southern side of the valley of 
San Josr, about sixty miles southeast from 
San Francisco. For an unknown period 
the Indians had frequented the locality, 
coming to it from distant places, even from 
the Columbia river, to obtain the bright 
vermilion paint with which to ornament 
their persons. "With rude implements, 
such as the stones they picked from the 
streams, they extracted the ore from the 
flinty slates and shales in which it was 
found, and in their search for it they exca- 
vated a passage into the mountain of about 
sixty feet in length. In 1824 the atten- 
tion of the whites began to be directed to 
this curious ore, and some of the Mexicans 
sought to extract from it gold or silver. 
Other trials made of it in 1845 resulted in 
the discovery of its true character, and oper- 
ations were thereupon commenced to work 
it by one Andres Castillero. Owing how- 
ever to the disturbed state of the country, 
little was done until 1850, when a company 
of Mexicans and English engaged vigor- 
ously in the extraction and metallurgical 
treatment of the ore, and established the 
mine which they called the New Almaden. 
In 1858, a stop was put upon their further 
proceedings by an injunction issued by the 
United States court on the question of de- 
fective title. From the testimony presented 
in the trial, it appeared that the company 
in the course of eight years had produced 
full 20,000,000 pounds of metal, and real- 
ized a profit of more than $1,000,000 an- 
nually. The Americans who claimed the 
mine directed their attention to the dis- 
covery of new localities of the ore, and 
succeeded in finding it upon the same 
range of hills, within less than a mile of 
the old workings. Here they opened a 
new mine in December, 1858, which they 
named the Enriquita, and in June, 1860, a 
company was formed in New York for 
working it under the name of the " Cali- 
fornia Quicksilver Mining Association." 

The litigation in regard to the New Al- 
maden mine extended to the Enriquita and 
the other mines of the vicinity, and for a 
period of nearly ten years the production 
was so much obstructed by these lawsuits 
that they were unable to demonstrate their 
full capacity. Eventually the Enriquita 



mine was merged in the group of New Al- 
maden mines, and has now no separate or 
independent existence. 

The operations at the Enriquita mine 
were carried on from the face of the hill, 
some five or six levels, one above another, 
being carried into the mountain up and 
down its slope. The most extensive of 
these. was the adit level at the base, which* 
is about 600 feet long. Shafts are sunk 
from this to the depth of about fifty feet; 
but the principal workings were in the up- 
per levels for 300 feet over the adit. 
These were exceedingly irregular, owing 
to the unequal distribution of the ore 
through the argillaceous slates. "With the 
cinnabar was intermixed some arsenical 
iron and copper pyrites, and the ore and 
slates were both traversed by veins of car- 
bonate of lime, some of which are retained 
in hand specimens of the cinnabar. 

On the same range of hills, at its west- 
ern extremity, the Santa Clara Mining 
Company, of Baltimore, opened a mine 
called the Guadalupe. 

The Redington and the San Juan Bau- 
tista mines, on the same range of hills, have 
also been very profitable; while the New 
Idria mine, in Fresno county, though for a 
long time embarrassed by litigation, has, 
since the lawsuits were terminated, in 
1865, yielded a larger amount of quicksil- 
ver than any other, except the New Alma- 
den mine. The production of the mines 
we have named, since the opening of the 
New Almaden mine, in June, 1850, to 
the present time (1882), has considerably 
exceeded one hundred million pounds. 
There are now about sixty quicksilver 
mines worked in California, as the whole 
central portion of the Coast Range is full 
of cinnabar; but many of these are of 
small capacity of production. There are 
seven or eight smelting works. The pres- 
ent annual production is not far from 12 
million pounds, of which our annual ex- 
ports, since 1876, have been about 3,500,- 
000 pounds, though the constant opening 
of new gold mines has greatly increased 
the home demand. Our present produc- 
tion is nearly double that of the world in 
1855, but the demand has likewise doubled. 
Should this great demand still increase in 
the same ratio, it will be found desirable 
to open quicksilver mines in Nevada, Ari- 
zona, and Utah, where there are known to 
be large deposits of cinnabar. 



492 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED 8TATE8. 



METALLURGIC TREATMENT. 

From cinnabar not contaminated with 
strange metals, the method of obtaining the 
fluid mercury is very simple. In the early 
workings of the New Almaden mine, the 
clean ores were placed in the common " try 
pots," such as are used by the whalers, and 
a cover being tightly luted on, a fire was 
started under them, and the mercurial vapors 
escaped through a tube inserted in the lid 
and were condensed in cold vessels. After- 
ward furnaces were constructed in brick-work 
upon a large scale, each one provided with a 
chamber or oven 7 feet long, 4 feet wide, and 
5 feet high, corresponding to the chamber 
of the reverberatory furnaces ; and into this 
was introduced a charge of 10,000 lbs. of 
clean ore separated from the poorer portions 
after the whole had been broken up. With 
the ore was mixed a portion of lime to com- 
bine with and retain the sulphur. A parti- 
tion of brick-work separated the oven from 
the fire-room, and the bricks in this partition 
were so laid as to leave open spaces for the 
flame from the burning wood to pass 
through. On the opposite side of the oven 
another partition separated this from a 
chamber of its own size, the only communi- 
cation between them being by a square hole 
in one of the corners close to the roof. 
This chamber connected with another by an 
opening in the opposite corner near the 
floor, and this arrangement was extended 
through eight chambers. Between the last 
one and the tall wooden flues through which 
the smoke and vapors finally passed out into 
the open air was placed a long wooden box 
provided with a showering apparatus. As 
the cinnabar was volatilized by the flame 
playing over the charge, the vapors were 
carried through the condensing chambers, 
depositing in each a portion of mercury, and 
in the showering box they underwent their 
final condensation. From the bottom of 
each chamber the metal flowed in gutters to 
the main conduit which led to the great iron 
reservoir sunk in the ground. From this it 
was poured into flasks through brushes 
which intercepted the scum of oxide of mer- 
cury. The method proved very wasteful, 
from the leakage of the vapors through the 
brick- work ; and it has been abandoned for 
an improved process, in which the pulverized 
ores mixed with quicklime are charged into 
large cast-iron retorts very similar in their 
form and setting to those employed at the 



gas-works. Three are set together in a 
bench of brick-work, and each one is fur- 
nished with an eduction pipe inserted in 
the end and leading down into water con- 
tained in a large cylindrical condenser of 
iron. This is placed along the front line of 
the furnace, so as to receive the vapors from 
all the retorts. The mercury, as it is con- 
densed, falls down to the bottom, and is let 
out through a pipe by a contrivance that pre- 
vents the water flowing with it from the con- 
denser. 

In conducting the furnaces, the work- 
men are seriously affected by inhaling the 
mercurial vapors. They are sometimes 
even salivated, and are often obliged to 
abandon the business for a time. The 
horses and mules also suffer from the nox- 
ious fumes, and many are lost in conse- 
quence. But no injurious effects are ex- 
perienced among those employed in the 
.mines, the cinnabar being always handled 
with impunity. 

USEFUL APPLICATIONS OF MERCURY. 

The principal uses to which mercury is 
applied have already been named. More 
than nineteen-twentieths of the w r hole pro- 
duct is consumed in the various processes 
for the reduction of gold and silver ores. 
The quicksilver is now applied in various 
ways, according to the character of the 
ores or placer deposits, and a larger pro- 
portion of it is saved than formerly. In 
the amalgamation, it often happens that 
the quicksilver becomes "floured," or di- 
vided into very minute globules, and in 
this condition it cannot regain its liquid or 
even its pasty form, from the fact that it 
has become combined with some of the 
baser metals, and it is carried off in the 
pulpy tailings and is lost. This loss in- 
volves more than the mere loss of the 
quicksilver, though that is considerable, 
for these minute globules are generally 
very fully charged with the precious met- 
als, which they have been taking up. The 
new methods of treating the tailings ena- 
ble the miners to regain a considerable 
portion of the quicksilver and the gold with 
which it has formed a union ; and this de- 
sirable result is greatly facilitated by add- 
ing a minute quantity of amalgam of sodi- 
um, which causes the quicksilver to resume 
its liquid form instantly. 

The principles of the amalgamating pro- 
cess are explained in the account of 
the treatment of gold ores. In the arts 



MERCURY. 



493 



amalgams are applied to many useful pur- 
poses, of which the most important is coat- 
ing the backs of looking-glass plates with 
tin amalgam. Silver was originally em- 
ployed instead of tin, and the process is 
still called "silvering." It is conducted at 
several establishments in the United States 
on the old Venetian plan, which has been 
in use for 300 years. The process is a 
simple one, but is attended with some 
difficulties arising from the imperfections 
which will sometimes appear upon the 
coating, notwithstanding the particular 
care taken to avoid them. The health of 
the workmen also suffers, so that they can- 
not pursue the business more than a few 
years. The only precaution taken to pro- 
tect them from the effects of the mercury 
is thorough ventilation. Frequent use of 
sulphur baths also is very beneficial. The 
method of silvering is as follows: tables 
are prepared of stone made perfectly 
smooth, with grooves sunk around 4 the 
edges. These are set horizontally, but can 
be raised a little at one end by a screw. 
Each table is covered with tinfoil carefully 
spread out over a larger surface than the 
plate will cover, and slips of glass being 
laid around three of the sides, the mercury 
is poured on till it covers the foil to the 
depth of about one-fourth of an inch. Its 
affinity for the tin, and, the slips of glass, 
prevent its flowing off. The glass plate 
rendered perfectly clean is then slidden 
along the open side, the advancing edge 
being kept in the mercury, so that no air 
or oxide of the metal can get between the 
plate and the amalgam. The plate, when 
in place, is secured and pressed down by 
weights laid upon it, and the table is raised 
a little to allow the excess of mercury to 
trickle off by the grooves and collect in a 
vessel placed on the floor to receive it. 
After remaining thus for several hours, the 
plate is taken off and turned over upon 
a frame. After several weeks the amal- 
gam becomes hard, and the glass may then 
be set on edge. 

The unpleasant effect of the mercurial 
vapors upon the workmen in this process 
have led many of the best manufacturers 
of mirrors to return to the old practice of 
coating the mirrors with silver, which by 
newly-devised processes they are able to 
do with great success, and produce much 
better effects than it was possible to do 
with quicksilver. 



Amalgams of the precious metals are 
used for what are called the water-gilding 
and water-silvering methods of gilding and 
silvering applied to buttons and various 
other metallic articles. These, being made 
chemically clean, are washed over with the 
amalgam contained in a large excess of 
mercury, and are then placed in a furnace 
and heated till the mercury is driven off 
by the heat, leaving a thin film of the pre- 
cious metal, which may then be burnished. 

Quicksilver, or mercury, is used in many 
medicinal preparations, though not as pro- 
fusely as formerly. The forms used in 
medicine are, for internal administration, 
the mercuric and the mercurous chlorides 
(corrosive sublimate and calomel), the for- 
mer in very small doses, and mainly for its 
alterative effect, the latter often in larger 
doses, and with a view to the production 
in a moderate degree of that form of gen- 
eral mercurialization known as salivation, 
in order to overcome some constitutional 
affection; "blue mass," or "blue pill," a 
subdivision of the mercury into very mi- 
nute particles by long-continued tritura- 
tion with confection of roses and liquorice 
root, and mercury with chalk, or "gray 
powder." These are mild in their effect, 
but are liable, if long continued, to pro- 
duce salivation. The mercuric iodide (red 
iodide of mercury), and the mercurous 
iodide (yellow iodide of mercury), are given 
more rarely, and both in small doses. The 
mercuric cyanide (cyanide of mercury) 
is also given, though rarely, and in minute 
doses. The preparations for external use 
are mercurial or blue ointment (metallic 
mercury rubbed very thoroughly with lard 
or suet); a solution of mercuric oxide in 
oleic acid is a more recent and elegant 
preparation to accomplish the same pur- 
pose. Mercuric oxide and ammoniated 
mercury (white precipitate), are used as 
gently irritant applications for sluggish 
sores, while cinnabar (red precipitate) is 
made up into an ointment, and is used, as 
is the mercurous oxide (black oxide) for 
"fumigation" in some diseases, to bring 
the patient more readily under the mercu- 
rial influence. Citrine ointment, contain- 
ing nitrate of mercury, is used for the same 
purpose as the white precipitate ointment. 
An acid solution of the mercuric nitrate is 
sometimes used as a powerful caustic; and 
the yellow sulphate (turpeth mineral) is a 
prompt and non-nauseating, but rather dan- 



494 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



gerous emetic. Poisoning from corrosive 
sublimate (mercuric chloride), whether 
accidental or intentional, should be treated 
at once by white of eggs, or milk in large 
quantities, and this followed by an active 
emetic of ipecac, lobelia, or whole mustard. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

SILVER— COBALT— NICKEL— CHRO- 
MIUM— TIN. 

The production of silver in the United 
States before 1859 had been very small; a 
few thousand dollars' worth had been ob- 
tained from the Washington mine, in Da- 
vidson county, North Carolina, and less 
than $500 from all the other mines east of 
the Mississippi river. Arizona had some 
silver mines, but there was so much trouble 
with the Indians and outlaws there, that 
very little of it reached the m,int, or the 
eastern cities. The California gold con- 
tained about an average of twelve per cent, 
of silver, but as the U. S. standard gold 
coin contained eight and a half per cent, 
silver there was comparatively little ex- 
tracted from that source. Aside from this 
silver parted from gold, it is doubtful if 
more than $100,000 of silver had been 
mined in this country from its first settle- 
ment. This is the more remarkable, since 
Mexico had produced vast quantities of sil- 
ver from its first discovery, and there is 
now abundant evidence that silver ores 
had been mined extensively in New Mexi- 
co, Arizona, and to some extent in Arizona 
and Utah before they became United 
States territories. 

The fact seems to have been that the 
early miners did not know silver ores when 
they saw them, and eagerly engaged in 
placer and quartz mining for gold. They 
regarded the heavy black stones which 
they found in their sluices as not only 
worthless, but as hindrances to successful 
mining. There are many stories on this 
subject, but perhaps the best, because the 
truest, is that in relation to the discovery 
of the Comstock Lode, the great silver de- 
posit of Nevada. It is vouched for by J. 
Ross Browne, at that time U. S. Mining 
Commissioner in the west, and by Henry 
Degroot, a western magazine writer : — 

The sides of the Virginia range of moun- 
tains in Nevada are furrowed by many 
deep ravines. Two of these, named re- 



spectively Gold and Six - Mile Canons, 
afforded, as early as 1849, a considerable 
amount of placer-mining. In the spring 
of 1858, the miners working in Six-Mile 
Canon found their rockers clogged with 
particles of a dark-colored mineral, which, 
on account of its weight, it was difficult to 
separate from the gold. This "black stuff " 
consisted of small pieces of rich sulphur- 
etted silver ore (sulphide of silver and lead) 
that had been detached from the Comstock 
Lode, which crossed the ravine a short dis- 
tance above. Being ignorant of its value, 
these men threw away this material with 
the tailings. Among these pioneer miners 
was an elderly man who called himself 
James Fennimore. His associates first 
contracted this into "Old Finny," and 
afterwards, as he hailed from Virginia, in- 
to "Old Virginny." This old man set 
about examining the croppings from which 
the canon below had been enriched. These, 
being much decomposed, were found to 
contain a good deal of free gold, and on 
the 22d of February, 1858, he proceeded to 
take up a '■ claim " along them. This claim 
covered a portion of what is now the Mex- 
ican and Ophir grounds, at one time the 
most productive section of the Comstock 
Lode. It was not, however, until the fol- 
lowing spring (1859) that the character of 
the deposits at this point became fully 
known. It was found that this stratum of 
decomposed ore was not only very rich, 
but that it extended to a considerable 
depth beneath the surface, and at once the 
belt of croppings on both sides of this spot 
were taken up for a long distance along the 
ledge. But even at this time it was the 
gold deposits they were after, and it was 
some little time before its value as a silver- 
bearing lode was known. 

Some other miners had recognized the 
presence of silver in that vicinity, but not 
being on the lode, had deemed it of less 
value than the gold. When it became cer- 
tain that there were silver ores of consid- 
erable value there, one of "Old Finny's" 
associates, Henry P. Comstock, offered to 
purchase his claim, tendering him, in part 
payment, an "old bob-tailed Indian pony," 
and the balance in whiskey. The old man 
accepted the offer, and made over to Com- 
stock a property which, a year later, sold 
for more than a million of dollars. But 
Comstock himself had no appreciation of 
its real value, and soon after disposed of 



SILVER COBALT NICKEL CHROMIUM TIN. 



495 



his interest in it for $5,000 or $6,000. In 
this second sale the claim was described as 
the " Comstock ground," and the name ad- 
hered to the whole lode. This Comstock 
lode is regarded by metallurgists as a sin- 
gle lode or true-fissure vein, though of ex- 
traordinary width and extent, but the ore 
bodies, or "bonanzas," as they are called, 
are so irregular in their occurrence that 
Professor LeConte, of California, describes 
it " as rather a broad metalliferous belt or 
ore-channel, carrying a congeries of subor- 
dinate lodes, bunches, and chimneys of ore, 
all reposing in as many distinct clefts, sep- 
arated by "horses"* and dikes of por- 
phyry, belts of quartz, seams of clay, making 
up a body of vein-matter unparalleled for 
magnitude and complexity in the history 
of mining." The geologists pronounce it a 
tertiary lode, of later geologic age than the 
Miocene epoch. 

The ores of this lode are various in char- 
acter, as they are anomalous in their modes 
of deposition. They consist principally of 
native gold, native silver, vitreous silver ore 
(argentite), stephanite, and argentiferous 
galena imbedded in a quartz gangue; but 
besides these there occur ruby silver, horn 
silver, polybasite, pyrargyrite, and sternber- 
gite; iron and copper pyrites, zinc blende, 
and several carbonates and sulphates. The 
carbonates of silver and lead seem some- 
what more plentiful in the lower levels of 
these mines, and in some of the other silver 
mines of Nevada they predominate. It 
has been a characteristic of the mines on 
this lode, that the greatest wealth of each 
mine was not found in the regular devel- 
opment of the vein, but in irregular masses, 
generally somewhat lenticular in form, but 
of uncertain extent and productiveness. 
These productive masses, variously desig- 
nated as bonanzas, ore-bodies, ore-cham- 
bers, chimneys, zones, etc., have been 
struck as often in mines which had pre- 
viously been apparently so barren as to be 
on the point of being abandoned, as in the 
more productive mines. There have been 
so many changes and vicissitudes, and it 
has been so often the case that a largely- 
productive mine has suddenly ceased to 
yield enough to pay expenses, or that an 
unproductive mine suddenly blossomed out 
into immense wealth, that, notwithstanding 



•"Horses," in the miner's phraseology, are masses of 
porphyry or hard slate, which completely stop and bar 
any progress in working a vein, till they are cut through. 
They »ay extend several feet or yards. 



the immense labor bestowed upon the lode, 
and the vast product obtained, it has 
seemed to be in many respects only a 
gigantic lottery. 

The Comstock lode has had its remark- 
able periods of depression and recovery; 
and these have alternated from its discov- 
ery to the present time. The product of 

1860 was about $100,000 in bullion, of 
which not quite one-half was silver; in 

1861 it had risen to $2,000,000; in 1862, 
to $6,000,000; in 1863, to $12,400,000; 
in 1864 and 1865, to $16,000,000 each 
year. In 1866 it began to fall off, and 
though the next year the new develop- 
ments in the Consolidated Virginia and 
California kept up the product to almost 
$14,000,000, it again fell away, touching 
$7,500,000 in 1869, and rising again grad- 
ually till 1873, when it rose suddenly to 
$23,250,000, and nearly the same in 1874; 
to nearly $25,000,000 in 1875, and to 
$37,000,000 in 1876. In 1877, the amount 
was a little over $37,000,000, but in 1878 
it fell to $21,295,030; and in 1879 to 
$8,830,562. In 1880, the yield was $5,- 
312,502, and in 1881 it did not exceed 
$2,000,000. 

Some of these mines are very deep, the 
lowest levels being 3,000 feet or more be- 
low the surface. As there has been un- 
questionably in the past some volcanic 
action in connection with the depositing of 
the precious metals in these lodes, there 
are still, as Clarence King, the learned 
chief of the Geographical and Geologic 
Bureau, declares, unquestionably the lin- 
gering traces of solfataric action in these 
mines; the temperature at the extreme 
depths is 156° F., and the water which 
pours into the lower levels is heated almost 
to boiling; the miners, though wearing the 
smallest minimum of clothing, cannot con- 
tinue operations more than fifteen or twenty 
minutes at a time without cooling off be- 
fore resuming work. Great efforts have 
been made to improve the ventilation, and 
with some success. The Sutro tunnel, 
which helps to ventilate and to drain the 
upper levels, enters the mines at a point 
too high to drain the lower levels, without 
extensive and costly pumping. It will, 
however, reduce the expenses of further 
mining in some degree. It remains to be 
decided whether these lower levels of the 
mines, which seem to yield richer ores than 
those immediately above them, must be 



496 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNIT1 D STATES. 



abandoned because of the enormous ex- 
pense of time, labor, and money involved 
in working them, the vast amount of waste 
rock and of dead weight which must be 
hoisted from 2,700 to 3,000 feet daily — 
computed to be not less than 20,000 tons — 
the 10,000 tons of water which must be 
pumped up every day, and the very short 
hours which are necessary to preserve the 
lives of the miners. The total bullion pro- 
duction of the mines on this lode, from 
1859 to the close of 1881, is about $310,- 
000,000, of which $189,500,000 was silver, 
and $120,500,000 gold. 

But there are other productive silver 
mines in Nevada besides those of the Corn- 
stock lode. Of the 125 millions of bullion 
output from the mines of the state, outside 
of Storey county, more than one-half has 
been silver — generally reduced from argen- 
tiferous galena, though in some of the 
mines there is a predominance of the car- 
bonates, and in some zinc and copper take 
the place of lead. The silver ores of Neva- 
da do not seem to be difficult of reduction. 

Of the other states and territories which 
produce silver, Colorado is now taking the 
lead, though prior to 1871 she had sent to 
market less than one million dollars of 
silver. In the eleven years to the close of 
1881 she had mined and reduced over 63 
millions of silver and about 46 millions of 
gold. The most remarkable of her silver 
districts is Leadville, in Lake county, 
known for a long time as "the Carbonate 
Camp." This region had been worked for 
a long time for placer gold deposits, and 
some quartz veins had also been explored 
and taken up, but it was not till 1877, that 
discoveries were made which indicated that 
the superficial deposits of carbonate of lead 
and silver were more wonderful than any- 
thing yet brought to light in the history of 
mining. The ore was of a new kind, a 
carbonate of lead, rich in silver, and re- 
quired new processes, though not difficult 
ones, for its reduction ; but there was some- 
thing more remarkable than this; the first 
discoverers thought they had surely dis- 
covered a true fissure-vein of extraoi'dinary 
width and richness; but when other miners 
staked their claims right by their side, and 
all of them found the same quality of ore 
extending over their claims, it began to be 
evident that this was not a true fissure-vein. 
What then was it ? — not a placer, for there 
were strata of rock above and probably 



below. For want of a better name, they 
called the new formation a contact luck; it 
was really a blanket of lead-silver ore lying 
between two conformable strata. It was 
tolerably thick, but, though the dip of the 
strata was considerable, they could and did 
reach the underlying rock. Was there a 
repetition of these ore-blankets between 
the strata below ? In some instances there 
seems to have been. Nearly forty millions 
of silver have been sent to market from 
Lake county in the five years 1877-81, 
and the next county north (Summit) has 
two mining districts of similar formations, 
which are already yielding silver in large 
quantities. But Colorado is a land of won- 
ders to the miner. He finds his old notions 
in regard to mining all exploded ; the sil- 
ver ores are new and strange, and their 
conditions are without precedent. The 
silver is found native as horn silver (a 
chloride), as ruby silver (a red translucent 
ore), as carbonate, oxide, telluride, sul- 
phide, in combination with gold, lead, zinc, 
copper, tellurium, iron, or tin ; it forms the 
crust of boulders, or is infiltrated in the 
boulder itself; it requires as many differ- 
ent processes for its reduction as there are 
ores. Two-thirds of the counties of the 
state produce either silver or gold, or both, 
and new discoveries are constantly being 
made. The western counties seem to be 
about equally productive of gold and sil- 
ver; the proportion of the two metals in 
the state is now about twelve of silver to 
nine of gold. 

Utah comes next in silver production; 
most of the mines of southern Utah being 
silver, and her gold product being very 
moderate. There are mines and mining 
companies in nearly every county of the 
territory, and the entire mining product 
has been over fifty millions, and is increas- 
ing. In 1880, it was $6,450,953, and in 
1881, $7,311,288. Of this product, cer- 
tainly forty-eight millions were silver. 
Arizona and Montana are about equal in 
their silver production, though Montana 
has produced ten times as much gold as 
silver, and Arizona only half as much. 
"With a firmer government and fewer Indian 
troubles, Arizona is increasing her produc- 
tion, the bullion yield of 1881 being double 
that of 1880. Montana is also increasing, 
but not rapidly. The silver product of 
Arizona, from the first, has been probably 
not far from thirty millions, and that of 



SILVEB COBALT NICKEL CHROMIUM TIN. 



497 



Montana about twenty-two millions. New 
Mexico has only recently begun to develope 
her mines, which are mostly silver, though 
gold mines are not wanting in this territory 
so abundant in mineral wealth. ■ Her pres- 
ent bullion product does not quite reach a 
million a year, but it will in a few years 
rival some of the older territories and 
states. She has probably contributed since 
her connection with the U. S. about fifteen 
millions to the silver stock. The produc- 
tion of silver in California is increasing. 
A number of the new mines in southern 
California are silver,- and while her gold 
product hardly holds its own, the silver 
product is doubling. Michigan produces 
very little gold, but her copper and lead 
mines have yielded considerable silver, sep- 
arated from the baser metals. The gross 
product of silver, from the first, probably 
exceeds five millions. Idaho, whose gold 
mines have yielded very freely, is now in- 
creasing her silver production, several very 
rich silver mines having been opened the 
past year. Oregon and Washington, as 
well as Dakota, produce but little silver, 
though some new silver mines in the Black 
Hills promise very fairly. 

The total silver product of the United 
States to the close of 1881 may be stated 
in round numbers at $556,000,000. The 
product of 1881 was $45,077,828, an 
amount only exceeded in 1877, when it 
reached a little more than $47,000,000. 
A much greater weight of silver is used in 
the arts than of gold; it is largely in de- 
mand for solid silver plate, electro-plate, 
watches, and other articles of use or orna- 
ment. The Director of the Mint, in his 
report for 1881, estimates the annual con- 
sumption of silver for these purposes at 
$3,388,421, but his estimate is, we think, 
considerably below the truth. 

COBALT. 

The ores of this metal are of rather rare 
occurrence, and are applied to practical 
purposes not to furnish the metal but its 
oxide, which is of value for its property of 
giving a beautiful blue color to glass with 
which it is melted, and of producing other 
fine colors when mixed with some other 
substances. The ores are sought for all 
over the world for the supply of the Brit- 
ish and American manufactories of porce- 
lain, stained glass, etc. They are chiefly 
combinations of cobalt with arsenic, sul- 



phur, and sometimes with nickel and iron. 
The compound known as smaltine, or ar- 
senical cobalt, was obtained at Chatham, 
Conn., as far back as 1787, and the mine 
has been worked for cobalt, at different 
times, in the present century. The cobalt 
in the ore is associated with about an equal 
amount of nickel, and its proportion is said 
to have been less than two per cent. Co- 
baltine, which is a compound of sulphur 
19.3 per cent., arsenic 45.2, and cobalt 
35.5, is the most productive ore of this 
metal, but it is not met with in this coun- 
try. Varieties of pyritous cobalt have 
been found in Maryland in quantities too 
small for working; and also at Mine la 
Motte, in Missouri, associated with a black 
earthy oxide of cobalt and black oxide of 
manganese. It is produced now, also, at 
the Gap mine, in Pennsylvania. In other 
places, also, oxide of cobalt, in small quan- 
tity, is a frequent accompaniment of man- 
ganese ores. Mine la Motte has furnished 
a considerable amount of the cobalt oxide, 
but the beds in which it is found are not 
of permanent character, and are so far ex- 
hausted as to be no longer worked with 
profit. A similar ore, accompanied with 
nickel, appears to be very abundantly dis- 
tributed among the talcose and quartzose 
slates in Gaston and Lincoln counties, 
North Carolina. It is thrown out with a 
variety of other ores, as galena, blende, 
titaniferous iron, etc., in working the gold 
mines of this region; and it is mixed 
among the great beds of hematite, found 
in the same district, which are the product 
of the decomposition of beds of pyritous 
iron. In some places it is so abundant 
that the strata containing it are conspicu- 
ous where the roads pass over them, by the 
blackness of the gossan (decomposed ore) 
or wad. Prof. H. Wurtz, who describes 
these localities (see "American Journal of 
Science," 2d series, vol xxvii., p. 24), is of 
the opinion that the earthy oxide of cobalt 
is the gossan of the sulphuret of this metal, 
existing unaltered in the rocks below. Co- 
balt is also found in moderate quantities 
in the Lake Superior mines. 

Oxide of cobalt, obtained in a crude 
state from the washed arsenical ores, is 
known as zaff re or safflower, and in this con- 
dition it is a commercial article. It is re- 
fined by separating the arsenic, iron, and 
other foreign substances, by precipitating 
them from the solution in hydrochloric 



498 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



acid; and the oxide is finally obtained by- 
precipitating with chloride of lime, and 
heating the product to redness. Smalt is 
a preparation of cobalt largely used in the 
arts as a coloring material, and consists of 
silicate of potash and cobalt. It is in fact 
a potash glass colored by silicate of cobalt, 
and is prepared as follows : Zaff re is melted 
in pots, with suitable proportions of pure 
sand and potash and a little saltpetre. The 
other metals combine together and sink in 
a metallic mass, which is called speiss. 
The glass containing the oxide of cobalt is 
ladled out and poured into water to granu- 
late it, and is then ground to powder. 
This being introduced into vats of water, 
the colored glass subsides in deposits, which 
gradually diminish in their proportions of 
oxide of cobalt. The first are of the deep- 
est blue, and are called azure ; but of this, 
and of the succeeding fainter shades, there 
are many varieties, distinguished by pecul- 
iar names. When finely powdered, smalt 
is applied to coloring wall papers, and blu- 
ing linen, besides being incorporated with 
porcelain to impart to it permanent blue 
shades. The great value of oxide of co- 
balt, amounting to $7.75 per pound, ren- 
ders it an important object to fully develop 
the resources of the country in its ores, as 
well for export as for domestic use. In 
1856 there were imported into Great Brit- 
ain 428 tons of cobalt ore, and 34 tons of 
oxide of cobalt. 

NICKEL. 

Nickel is a metal of some commercial 
importance, and is employed chiefly for 
producing, with copper and zinc, the alloy 
known as German silver. The proportions 
of these metals are not constant, but the 
most common in use are eight parts of cop- 
per to three each of nickel and zinc. The 
larger the proportion of copper, the more 
easily the plates are rolled; but if more is 
used than the relative amounts named, the 
copper soon becomes apparent in use. The 
new cent contains 12 parts of nickel to 88 
of copper, and the manufacture of this 
adds somewhat to the demand. The metal 
has been mined at Chatham, Conn., and is 
met with at Mine la Motte, and other local- 
ities where cobalt is found. It occurs in 
greatest abundance at an old mine in Lan- 
caster county. Penn., where it is associated 
with copper ores. The mine was originally 
worked for copper, it is said, more than 



one hundred and thirty years ago, and was 
reopened for supplying nickel for the U. S. 
Mint, on the introduction of the new cent 
in 1857. The sulphuret of nickel, contain- 
ing, when pure, 64.9 per cent, of nickel, 
and 35.1 per cent, of sulphur, is in very 
large quantity, in two veins of great size, 
one of which has been traced over 600 feet, 
and the other over 900 feet in length. In 
1859 it was producing at the rate of two 
hundred tons of nickel ore and ten tons of 
copper ore per month. A pyritous variety 
of nickel ore, called siegenite, is found at 
Mine la Motte, Missouri, and in Carroll 
county, Maryland. In Gaston and Lincoln 
counties, North Carolina, similar ore was 
found by Prof. Wurtz, as noticed in the 
remarks on cobalt, above. It has also been 
found recently in iron mines in Connecti- 
cut, and in combination with other metals 
in the west. It has recently come largely 
into demand for plating purposes, and a 
new discovery has been made by which it 
is rendered as malleable as silver. (See 
chapter on Electro-plating.) 

CHROME OR CHROMIUM. 

The ore of this metal, known as chromic 
iron or chromate of iron, has been mined 
for many years in the United States, both 
for exportation and domestic use. It is 
the source whence the chrome colors are 
obtained that are largely used in the arts, 
especially in dyeing and calico printing. 
The name of the metal, from a Greek 
word meaning color, was given in conse- 
quence of the fine colors of its compounds. 
It usually consists of the sesquioxide of 
chromium in proportion varying from 36 
to 60 per cent., protoxide of iron from 20 
to 37 per cent., alumina sometimes exceed- 
ing 20 per cent., and more or less silica, 
and sometimes magnesia. Its value con- 
sists only in the first-named ingredient. 
The localities of the ore are in the serpen- 
tine rocks of different parts of the United 
States, as in the Bare Hills, near Baltimore, 
and near the Maryland state line on the 
southern edge of Chester and Lancaster 
counties, Pennsylvania. In small quanti- 
ties the ore is met with at Hoboken, Staten 
Island, and other places near New York 
city. It is found in several towns in A'er- 
mont, but the largest veins of it are in Jay, 
in the northern part of the state. The 
composition of this ore was found by Mr. 
T. S. Hunt to be 49.9 of green oxide or 



SILVER COBALT NICKEL CHROMIUM TIN. 



499 



sesquioxide of chromium, 48.96 of protox- 
ide of iron,»and 4.14 per cent, of alumina, 
silica, and magnesia. Though the quantity 
of the ore in this region is reported to be 
large, the principal supplies of the country 
have been obtained in Maryland, and from 
the mines just over the state line in Penn- 
sylvania. The ore, as recently as 1854, 
was found in loose fragments among the 
disintegrated materials of the serpentine 
upon the tracts called the barrens, and was 
gathered up from the valleys and ravines, 
and dug out in sinking shallow pits and 
trenches over the surface. The ore thus 
obtained was called "sand chrome," and 
for a time it had been worth $45 per ton, 
and thousands of tons had been collected 
and shipped, principally to Baltimore. At 
the period named these superficial deposits 
were mostly exhausted, and the value of 
the ore was only about $25 per ton. This, 
however, was sufficient to sustain regular 
mining operations, which were then carried 
on upon the veins found in the serpentine, 
a little west of the east branch of the Octo- 
rara Creek. Wood's ohrome mine, near the 
Horseshoe Ford, was at that time about 
150 feet deep, and the workings had been 
extended northeast and southwest about 
300 feet, upon an irregular vein of chrome 
ore, which lay at an inclination of about 
45° with the horizon toward the northwest. 
The ore, in places, formed bunches, which 
attained a width of twenty feet, and then 
thinned away to nothing. Four men ob- 
tained from the mine seven or eight tons 
of excellent ore a day, the best of which 
was directly placed in barrels for the for- 
eign market, and the poorer was dressed 
and washed for the Baltimore and other 
home markets. The state line mine, in the 
same vicinity, worked to about the same 
depth, had produced several thousand tons. 
The supplies of this ore are always of un- 
certain continuance. The metal chromium 
is rarely obtained pure, and is worth about 
$58 per pound — about three times the 
value of silver. 

Useful Applications. — Chromate of 
iron is used chiefly in the production of 
chromate of potash, and from this the 
other useful chromatic salts are obtained. 
The object in view in the chemical treat- 
ment of the ore is to convert the sesquiox- 
ide of chromium into the peroxide or 
chromic acid, and cause this to combine 
with potash. This may be effected by 



various methods, as by exposing a mixture 
of the pulverized ore and of saltpetre 
(nitrate of potash) to a strong heat for 
some hours. The chrome is peroxidized at 
the expense of the oxygen of the nitric 
acid of the saltpetre, and the chromic acid 
combines with the potash; or if the ore is 
mixed with carbonate of potash and cal- 
cined, the peroxidation of the chrome is 
effected by admission of air into the fur- 
nace, and the same product is obtained as 
in the employment of saltpetre. The intro- 
duction of lime hastens the operation. 
Other mixtures also are used for the same 
purpose. When the calcined matter, hav- 
ing been drawn out from the furnace, is 
lixiviated with water, the chromate of pot- 
ash is dissolved and washed out, and is 
afterward recovered in the form of yellow 
crystals on evaporating the water. From 
chromate of potash the other salts are read- 
ily produced. Chrome yellow, used as a 
paint, is prepared by mixing chromate of 
potash with a soluble salt of lead, and col- 
lecting the yellow precipitate of chromate 
of lead which falls. A bright red precipi- 
tate is obtained by thus employing a salt 
of mercury, and a deep red with salts of 
silver. Chrome green is produced by mix- 
ing Prussian blue with chrome yellow. 
Some new and very interesting compounds 
of the sesquioxide of chromium with differ- 
ent bases were obtained Borne years since 
by Prof. A. K. Eaton, of New York, and 
in consequence of their decided colors and 
the extraordinary permanency of these 
against powerful reagents applied to re- 
move them, the salts were employed for 
printing bank notes. Though they proved 
to be all that was required as to the colors 
themselves, the steel plates were so rapidly 
cut by the excessively sharp and hard pow- 
ders, however finely they were ground, 
that it was found necessary to abandon 
their use. The new salts were chromites 
— that of iron having a dark purple color; 
of manganese, a lighter shade of the same; 
of copper, a rich bluish black; of zinc, a 
golden brown; of alumina, a green, some- 
what paler than that of the sesquioxide. 

MANGANESE. 

Though this is a metal of no value of it- 
self one of its ores, called pyrolusite, is a 
mineral of some commercial importance, 
chiefly on account of the large proportion 
of oxygen it contains, part of which it can 



500 



MINING INDUSTRY OF TIIE UNITED STATES. 



Be easily made to give up when simply 
heated in an iron retort. The composition 
of pyrolusite, or black oxide of manganese, 
is 63.4 per cent, of manganese, and 36.6 
per cent, of oxygen. It is a hard, steel- 
gray ore, resembling some of the magnetic 
iron ores, and is often found accompany- 
ing iron ores, especially the hematites. In 
the United States it is met with in various 
localities along the range of the hematites, 
from Canada to Alabama, and has been 
mined to considerable extent at Chittenden 
and Bennington, Vermont; West Stock- 
bridge and Sheffield, Mass. ; on the Dela- 
ware river, and near Kutztown, Berks Co., 
Penn.; and abounds in different parts of 
the gold region in North Carolina and 
South Carolina, and in most of the gold 
and silver mines of the western states and 
territories. Usually the ore is found in 
loose pieces among the clays which fill the 
irregular cavities between the limestone 
strata; its quantity is, of course, very un- 
certain, and its mines are far from being 
of a permanent character. Oxide of iron 
is commonly mixed with the manganese 
ore, reducing its richness, and at the same 
time seriously injuring it for some of the 
purposes to which it is applied. As ob- 
tained from the mines, the assorted ore is 
packed in barrels and sent to the chemical 
establishments, where it is employed prin- 
cipally in the manufacture of chloride of 
lime or bleaching powder. For this pur- 
pose the pulverized black oxide of manga- 
nese is introduced into hydrochloric acid, 
and this being heated a double decompo- 
sition takes place, a portion of its chlorine 
is expelled, and the hydrogen that was 
combined with it unites with a part of the 
oxygen of the pyrolusite. The chlorine, 
which it was the object of the process to 
obtain, is then brought in contact with hy- 
drate of lime, and uniting with the calcium 
base forms the bleaching powder. A simi- 
lar result is obtained by mixing the oxide 
of manganese with chloride of sodium 
(common salt), and adding sulphuric acid. 
By these operations a weight of oxygen 
equal to about one-third that of the pure 
ore may be obtained, and this may be ap 
plied to any of the purposes for which ox- 
ygen not absolutely pure is required. Black 
oxide of manganese is also used to decolor- 
ize glass stained green by the presence of 
the protoxide of iron. Its own amethystine 
tint is supposed to neutralize the optical 



effect of the greenish hue of the iron. 
Pure pyrolusite, free from iron, might be 
shipped with profit to Liverpool, where it is 
worth $35 to $40 per ton, but inferior ore 
would involve bills of cost. The chemi- 
cally prepared permanganate of potassa 
has come into extensive use as an anti- 
septic, of late years. Manganese is also 
used in the manufacture of some of the 
compounds of steel. 

TIN. 

The very useful metal, tin, is not pro- 
duced in any considerable quantities in this 
country, and though it has been found in 
moderate quantity in Maine, California, 
and some of the other western states, it is 
hardly probable that it will be extensively 
mined here. Tin is imported chiefly from 
the mines of Cornwall, England, and from 
Banca, and other islands of the Malay ar- 
chipelago. The United States is one of 
the largest consumers of tin, sheet tin hav- 
ing been applied, through the ingenuity of 
the workers of this article in Connecticut, 
to the manufacture of a variety of useful 
utensils. "What is called sheet tin is really 
sheet iron coated with a very thin layer of 
tin. The sheets are prepared in England 
by dipping the brightened iron sheets into 
a bath of melted tin. The process has 
been applied to coating articles made of 
iron, which are thus protected from rust- 
ing; and zinc is also used for similar pur- 
poses. Such are stirrups, bridle-bits, etc. 
Cast-iron pots and saucepans are tinned on 
the inside by melted tin being poured in 
and made to flow over the surface, which 
has been made chemically clean to receive 
the metal. The surface is then rubbed 
with cloth or tow. Tin is imported in 
blocks or ingots, and the metal is applied 
to the preparation of various alloys, as 
bronze or bell-metal, composed of copper 
and tin in variable proportions, commonly 
of 78 parts of copper, and 22 of tin; gun- 
metal, copper 90, and tin 10; pewter, of 
various proportions of tin and lead, or 
when designed for pewter plates, of tin 
100, antimony 8, bismuth 2, and copper 2; 
and soft solder, consisting of tin and lead, 
usually of two parts of the former to one 
of the latter. Bismuth is sometimes added 
to increase the fusibility of the alloy. 



COAL. 



501 



CHAPTER IX. 

COAL. 

To the early settlers of the American 
colonies the beds of mineral coal they met 
with were of no interest. In the abun- 
dance of the forests around them, and with 
no manufacturing operations that involved 
large consumption of fuel, they attached 
no value to the black stony coal, the real 
importance of which was not in fact appre- 
ciated even in Europe until after the inven- 
tion of the steam engine. The earliest use 
of mineral coal was probably of the an- 
thracite of the Lehigh region, though it 
may be that the James river bituminous 
coal mines, twelve miles above Richmond, 
were worked at an earlier period than the 
Pennsylvania anthracites. .The region con- 
taining the latter belonged to the tribes of 
the Six Nations, until their title was extin- 
guished and the proprietary government 
obtained possession, in 1749, of a territory 
of 3.750 square miles, including the south- 
ern and middle of the three anthracite coal- 
fields. In 1768 possession was acquired of 
the northern coal-field, and at the same 
time of the great bituminous region west 
of the Alleghany mountains. The exis- 
tence of coal in the anthracite region could 
not have escaped the notice of the whites 
who had explored the country, for its great 
beds were exposed in many of the natural 
sections of the river banks and precipitous 
hills, and down the mountain streams 
pieces of coal, washed out from the beds, 
were abundantly scattered. The oldest 
maps now known dating as far back as 
1770, and compiled from still older ones, 
designate in this region localities of "coal;" 
but these were probably not regarded as 
giving any additional value to the terri- 
tory. The first recorded notice of its use 
was in the northern basin by some black- 
smiths in 1770, only two years after the 
whites came in possession; and in 1775 a 
boat load of it was sent down from Wilkes- 
barre to the Continental armory at Car- 
lisle. This was two years after the laying 
out of the borough of Wilkesbarre by the 
Susquehanna Land Company, of Connecti- 
cut. From this time the coal continued to 
be used for mechanical operations by 
smiths, distillers, etc.; and according to 
numerous certificates from these, published 
in 1815, in a pamphlet by Mr. Zachariah 
Cist, of Wilkesbarre, they had found it 



very much better for their purposes, and 
more economical to use than Virginia bitu- 
minous coal, though at the enormous price 
of ninety cents a bushel. Gunsmiths found 
it very convenient for their small fires, and 
one of them, dating his certificate Dec. 9, 
1814, stated that he had used it for twenty 
years, consuming about a peck a day to a 
fire, which was sufficient for manufactur- 
ing eight musket-barrels, each barrel thus 
requiring a quart of coal. Oliver Evans, 
the inventor of the steam engine, certifies 
in the same pamphlet to his having used it 
for raising steam, for which it possessed 
properties superior to those of any other 
fuel. Judge Fell, of Wilkesbarre, applied 
it to warming houses in 1808, and con- 
trived suitable grates for this use of it; but 
the cheapness of wood and the greater con- 
venience of a fuel which every one under- 
stood how to use, long prevented its gen- 
eral adoption. In the first volume of the 
"Memoirs of the Historical Society of 
Pennsylvania," T. C. James, M.D., gives 
"a brief account of the discovery of an- 
thracite coal on the Lehigh," in which he 
describes a visit he made to the Mauch 
Chunk mountain in 1804, where he saw 
the immense body of anthracite, into which 
several small pits had been sunk, and 
which was afterward worked, as it is still, 
as an open quarry. He states that he com- 
menced to burn the coal that year, and had 
continued to use it to the time of making 
this communication, in 1826. The discov- 
ery of this famous mass of coal was made 
in 1791, and in 1793 the "Lehigh Coal 
Mine Company" was formed to work it. 
But as there were no facilities for trans- 
porting the coal down the valley of the 
Lehigh, nothing was done until 1814, when, 
at great lal or and expense, twenty tons 
were got down the river and were deliv- 
ered in Philadelphia. Two years before 
this a few wagon loads had been received 
there from the Schuylkill mines; but the 
regular trade can hardly be said to have 
commenced until 1820, when the receipts 
in Philadelphia amounted to 365 tons. 
Such was the commencement of the great 
anthracite trade of Pennsylvania, which in 
the course of sixty years has been steadily 
increasing, till it had reached the amount 
of 37,315,858 tons for the year 1880. of 
which, however, 9,382,086 was "culm." or 
waste, and sustained numerous branches of 
metallurgical and mechanical industry, the 



502 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



dependence of which upon this fuel and 
source of power was not dreamed of when 
its mines were first opened. 

The existence of bituminous coal west of 
the Alleghanies was probably known as 
early as was that of anthracite in the east- 
ern part of Pennsylvania; and on the west- 
ern rivers it could not fail to have been 
noticed by the early missionaries, voy- 
ageurs, and hunters. In the old maps of 
1770 and 1777 the occurrence of coal is 
noted at several points on the Ohio. A 
track of coal land was taken up in 1785 
near the present town of Clearfield, on the 
head-waters of the west branch of the Sus- 
quehanna, by Mr. S. Boyd, and in 1804 he 
sent an ark load of the coal down the Sus- 
quehanna to Columbia, Lancaster county, 
which, he states, caused much surprise to 
the inhabitants, that " an article with which 
they were wholly unacquainted should be 
thus brought to their own doors." This 
was the commencement of a trade which 
has since been prosecuted to some extent 
by running rafts of timber loaded with 
coal, and sometimes with pig iron also, 
from the head-waters to the lower portion 
of the Susquehanna. The bituminous coal 
mines on the James river, twelve miles 
above Richmond, in Virginia, were also 
worked during the last century, but at how 
early a period we are ignorant. In an ac- 
count of them in the first volume of the 
" American Journal of Science," published 
in 1818, they are spoken of as already hav- 
ing been worked thirty years. 

VARIETIES OP COAL. 

The mineral coals are found of various 
sorts, which are distinguished by peculiari- 
ties of appearance, composition, and prop- 
erties. Derived from vegetable matters, 
they exhibit in their varieties the successive 
changes which these have undergone from 
the condition of peaty beds or deposits of 
ligneous materials — first into the variety 
known as brown coal or lignite, in which 
the bituminous property appears, while the 
fiber and structure of the original woody 
masses is fully retained ; next into beds of 
bituminous coal comprised between strata 
of shales, fire-clay, and sandstones; and 
thence through several gradations of 
diminishing proportions of bitumen to the 
hard stony anthracite, the composition of 
which is nearly pure carbon; and last of 
all in this series of steps attending the con- 



version of wood into rock, the vegetable 
carbon is locked up in the mineral graphite 
or plumbago. These steps are clearly 
traceable in nature, and in all of them the 
strata which include the carbonaceous beds 
have undergone corresponding changes. 
The clayey substratum that supports the 
peat appears under the beds of mineral coal 
in the stony material called fire-clay (used 
when ground to make fire-brick) ; the mud- 
dy sediments such as are found over some 
of the great modern peat deposits, appear 
in the form of black shales or slates, which, 
when pulverized, return to their muddy 
consistency; the beds of sand, such as are 
met with in some of the peat districts of 
Europe interstratified with different peat 
beds, are seen in the coal measures in beds 
of sandstones; and the limestones which 
also occur in the same group of strata, rep- 
resent ancient beds of calcareous marls. 
The slow progression of these changes is 
indicated by the different ages of the geo- 
logical formations in which the several 
varieties occur. Beds of peat are of com- 
paratively recent formation, though some 
of them are stiil so old that they are found 
at different depths, one below another, sep- 
arated by layers of sand, clay, and earth. 
Brown coal, or lignite, is commonly in- 
cluded among the strata of the tertiary 
period ; the bituminous coals are in the sec- 
ondary formations; and the anthracites, 
though contained in the same geological 
group with the great bituminous coal for- 
mations, are in localities where the strata 
have all been subjected to the action of 
powerful agents which have more or less 
metamorphosed them and expelled the vol- 
atile bitumen from the coal. The graphite 
or plumbago is in still older groups, or in 
those which have been still more metamor- 
phosed by heat. 

Each of these processes is attended with 
loss of some of the original constituents 
of the vegetable tissue or wood which goes 
through the successive stages of distillation, 
terminating in graphite, better known as 
plumbago or black lead. Chemists have 
formulated these changes as follows: 

Vegetable tissues. Constituents. Loss. Peat. 

Carbon 49.1 21.50 27.6 

Hydrogen, 6.3 3.50 2.8 

Oxygen 44.6 29.10 15.5 

Wood. Constituents. Loss. Lignite. 

Carbon 49. 1 18.65 30.45 

Hydrogen, 6.3 3.25 3.05 

Oxygen, 44.6 24.40 20.30 




BALTIMORE COMPANY^ MINE, WILKESBARRE, PA. 




MAP OF THE ANTHRACITE /?£<?»" 



Copied by permission fro ^PI 




e - American Cyclopedia. 




THE GREAT OPEN QUARRY OF THE LKHIOH. 



Tn working this great quarry of anthracite at the Summit mine, above Mauch Chunk, blocks of coal 
were occasionally left Btanding for a time, one of which, surmounted by the soil of the original surface and 
the relics of the vegetation, is represented in the above cut. In this block arc discerned the lines of strati- 
fication of the coal; and an idea of its extraordinary thickness and extent is conveyed by the appearance of 
the cliffs upon the further side of the excavated area. Upon the floor of the quarry are seen the mining 
wagons used for conveying away upon temporary tracks the coal and rubbish of the excavations. 



COAL. 



507 



Under a heavy pressure, caused usually 
by ages of successive deposits, or perhaps 
by upheaval of mountain chains, the dis- 
tilling process goes on, and the lignite or 
peat is transformed into bituminous coal. 
The varying pressure produces an almost 
infinite variety of bituminous coals, and 
other substances are often combined with 
the carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. 

Lignite. Constituents. Loss. Bitn ™J£ 0nB 

Carbon 30.45 12.35 18. 10 

Hydrogen, 3.05 1.85 1.20 

Oxygen, 20.30 18.13 2.07 

The process of distillation goes on, aided, 
perhaps, by volcanic action, and the bitu- 
minous coal becomes anthracite. 

Bituminous coal. Constituents. Loss. Anthracite. 

Carbon, 18.10 3.57 14.53 

Hydrogen, 1.20 0.93 0.27 

Oxygen, 2.07 1.32 0.75 

And with still higher heat and pressure 
this becomes graphite. 

Anthracite. Constituents. Loss. Graphite. 

Carbon, 14 53 1.42 13.11 

Hydrogen 0.27 0.14 0.13 

Oxygen, 0.75 0.75 0.00 

These are only average proportions of 
each class of coals. 

All these varieties of fossil fuel are found 
in the United States. Peat beds of small 
extent are common in the northern portion 
of the country, and in some parts of New 
England are used "for fuel, and the muck, 
or decomposed peat, as a fertilizer to the 
soil. In the great swamps of southern 
Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, veg- 
etable deposits of similar nature are found 
upon a scale more commensurate with the 
extent of the ancient coal-beds. Lignite 
of excellent quality is found in workable 
beds at the west, as in some parts of Ger- 
many and England, and in scattered de- 
posits of small extent among the tertiary 
clays, near the coast of New Jersey, Dela- 
ware, and Maryland. The distribution of 
the true coal formations will be pointed 
out after designating more particularly the 
characters of the different coals. All of 
these consist of the elements carbon, hydro- 
gen, oxygen, and often nitrogen; the car- 
bon being in part free, and in part com- 
bined with the other elements to form the 
volatile compounds that exist to some ex- 
tent in all coals. Earthy matters which 
form the ash of coals are always intermixed 
in some proportion with the combustible 



ingredients, and water, also, is present. 
When coals are analyzed for the purpose 
of indicating their heating quality by their 
composition, it is enough to determine the 
proportions of fixed carbon, of volatile mat- 
ter, and of ash which they contain. How 
the combined carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, 
and the little nitrogen in their composition, 
may be distributed in the forms of carbu- 
retted hydrogen, ammonia, the bituminous 
oils, etc., cannot be ascertained by analysis, 
as the means employed to separate most of 
these compounds cause their elements to 
form other combinations among them- 
selves; the determination of the ultimate 
proportions of all the elements would serve 
no practical purpose. So, if it be required 
to prove the fitness of any coal for afford- 
ing illuminating gas, or the coal oils, it 
must be submitted to experiments having 
such objects only in view; and even their 
capacity for generating heat is better deter- 
mined by comparative experiments in evap- 
orating water, than by any other mode. 
The bituminous coals are characterized by 
their large proportion of volatile matter, 
which, when they are heated, is expelled 
in various inflammable compounds, that 
take fire and burn, accompanied by a dense, 
black smoke, and a peculiar odor known as 
bituminous. If the operation is conducted 
without access of air, as in a closed plati- 
num crucible, the fixed carbon remains 
behind in the form of coke ; and by remov- 
ing the cover to admit air, this may next 
be consumed, and the residuum of ash be 
obtained. By several weighings the pro- 
portions are indicated. Coals containing 
18 per cent, or more of volatile matter are 
classed among the bituminous varieties; 
but as the proportion of this may amount 
to 70 per cent, or more, there is necessarily 
a considerable difference in the characters 
of these coals, though their most marked 
peculiarities are not always owing to the 
different amounts of volatile matter they 
contain. Thus, some sorts, called the " fat 
bituminous," and "caking coals," that melt 
and run together in burning, and ai*e espe- 
cially suitable for making coke, contain 
about the same proportion of volatile mat- 
ter with the "dry coals," as some of the 
cannel and other varieties which burn 
without melting, and do not make good 
coke. Other varieties are especially dis- 
tinguished for their large proportion of 
volatile ingredients; such are the best can- 



508 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



nels, and those light coals which have some- 
times been mistaken for asphaltum, as the 
Albert coal of the province of New Bruns- 
wick. These varieties are eminently qual- 
ified for producing gas or the coal oils ; but 
have little fixed carbon, and consequently 
can produce little coke. Coals that contain 
from 11 to 18 per cent, volatile matter, are 
known as semi-bituminous, and partake 
both of the qualities of the true bituminous 
coals, in igniting and burning freely, and 
of the anthracite in the condensed and 
long-continued heat they produce. The 
Maryland coals, and the Lykens valley coal 
of Pennsylvania, are of this character. The 
true anthracites contain from 2 to 6 per 
cent, of gaseous matters, which by heat are 
evolved in carburetted hydrogen and water, 
even when the coal has been first freed 
from the water mechanically held. Their 
greatest proportion of solid carbon is about 
95 per cent. There remains a class which 
has been designated as semi-anthracite, con- 
taining from 6 to 1 1 per cent, of combusti- 
ble volatile matter. These coals burn with a 
yellowish flame, until the gas derived from 
the combination of its elements is consumed. 
The earthy ingredients in coals, forming 
their ash, are derived from the original 
wood and from foreign substances intro- 
duced among the collections of ligneous 
matters that make up the coal-beds. The 
ash is unimportant, excepting as the mate 
rial which produces it takes the place of so 
much combustible matter. In some coals, 
especially those of the Schuylkill region, it 
is red, from the presence of oxide of 
iron, and in others it is gray, as in the Le- 
high coals. This distinction is used to des- 
ignate some of the varieties of anthracite; 
but the quality of these coals is more de- 
pendent on the quantity of the ash than on 
its color. From numerous analyses of the 
Schuylkill red ash coals an average of 7.29 
per cent, of ash was obtained, and of the 
white ash anthracite, 4.62 percent. Coals 
producing red ash are more likely to clinker 
in burning than those containing an equal 
amount of white ash. In some varieties of 
coal the proportion of earthy matter is so 
great that the substance approaches the 
character of the bituminous shales, and 
may be called indifferently either shale or 
coal. Though such materials make but 
poor fuel, some of them have proved very 
valuable from the large amount of gas and 
of oily matters they afford. The most re- 



markable of this class is that known as the 
Boghead cannel. This is largely mined 
near Glasgow, in Scotland, and is imported 
into New York to^be used in the manufac- 
ture of coal oil. It is a dull black, stony- 
looking substance, having but little resem- 
blance to the ordinary kinds of coal. Some 
of the cannel and gas-producing coals of 
Kentucky. West Virginia, Ohio, and Illi- 
nois closely compare with the Boghead can- 
nel, as do also the Nova Scotia cannels, 
and they are now largely used for the pro- 
duction of gas. 

The writers on coal, such as Professors 
Walter R. Johnson, Taylor, Daddow, New- 
berry, and McFarlane, specify many other 
features affecting the qualities of the coals, 
and their adaptation to special uses. Some 
of these are — 1, their capacity for raising 
steam quickly; 2, for raising it abundantly 
for the quantity used; 3, freedom from 
dense smoke in their combustion; 4, free- 
dom from tendency to crumble in handling; 
5, capacity, by reason of their density, and 
the shapes assumed by their fragments, of 
close stowage; and 6, freedom from sul- 
phur. The last is an important considera- 
tion, affecting the value of coals proposed 
for use in the iron manufacture, sulphur, 
which is often present in coal in the form 
of sulphuret of iron, having a very injuri- 
ous effect upon the iron with which it is 
brought in contact when heated. It is 
again to be cautiously guarded against in 
selecting bituminous coals to be employed 
in steam navigation; for by the heat gen- 
erated by spontaneous decomposition of 
the iron pyrites, the easily ignited bitumi- 
nous coals may be readily set on fire. This 
phenomenon is of frequent occurrence in 
the waste heaps about coal mines, and 
large bodies of coal stored in yards and on 
board ships have been thus inflamed, in- 
volving the most disastrous consequences. 
In stowage capacity coals differ greatly, 
and this should be attended to in selecting 
them for use in long voyages. Tendency 
to crumble involves waste. Dense smoke 
in consuming is objectionable in coals re- 
quired for vessels-of-war in actual service, 
as it must expose their position when it 
may be important to conceal it. 

The general results of experience in use, 
as well as of special trials systematically 
conducted upon a large scale, agree in these 
particulars — that while the bituminous 
coals are valuable for the greater variety of 



COAL. 



509 



uses to which they arc applicable, and es- 
pecially for all purposes requiring flame 
and a diffusive heat, as under large boilers ; 
and while they are quickly brought into a 
state of combustion, rendering the heat 
they produce more readily available; the 
anthracites afford a more condensed and 
lasting heat, and are to be preferred in 
many metallurgical operations, especially 
where great intensity of temperature is re- 
quired. And for many purposes, the free- 
burning, semi-bituminous coals, which com- 
bine the useful properties of both varieties, 
are found most economical in use. 

GEOLOGICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL DIS- 
TRIBUTION. 

The United States is supplied with coal 
from at least ten coal-fields belonging 
either to the true coal-measures, or carbon- 
iferous group, a series of strata sometimes 
amounting, in aggregate thickness, to 2,000 
and even 3,000 feet, and whether found in 
this country or in Europe, readily recog- 
nized by the resemblance in the various 
members of its formation, its fossil organic 
remains, its mineral accompaniments, and 
by its position relative to the other groups 
of rocks which overlie and underlie it; or 
to the tertiary period, which includes lig- 
nites, bituminous, and some anthracite. 
The first of these fields or basins is that 
known as the Appalachian, which, com- 
mencing in the northeastern part of Penn- 
sylvania, stretches over nearly all the state 
west of the main Alleghany ridge, and 
takes in the eastern portion of Ohio, parts 
of Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, 
Tennessee, the northwest corner of Geor- 
gia, and extends into Alabama as far as 
Tuscaloosa. Its total area, including a 
number of neighboring basins, as those of 
the anthracite region to the east of the 
Alleghany ridge, which were originally a 
part of the same great field, is estimated 
at about 70.000 square miles. A second 
great basin is that known as the Triassic 
field, in Virginia and North Carolina, 
which covers perhaps 5,000 square miles. 

Notwithstanding the limited area of the 
Triassic coal-field in Virginia and North 
Carolina, it has produced for more than 
sixty years past large quantities of coal 
chiefly for the supply of iron manufactur- 
ing establishments, and the gas-works 
along the seaboard to the north. The strata 
of these coal-measures occupy a deep de- 



pression in the granitic rocks of this region, 
attaining in the center of the basin a thick- 
ness of nearly 2,000 feet. They consist in 
great part of a micaceous sandstone, and 
the two or three coal-beds are contained in 
the lower 150 feet. A great bed at the 
bottom, which in some places exceeds 40 
feet in thickness, and in others dwindles 
away to four or five feet only, appears to 
have been deposited upon the uneven gran- 
itic floor, from which it is separated by 
only a few inches of slate. Shafts have 
been sunk near the east border of the coal-- 
field to the depth of nearly 900 feet. The 
amount of coal obtained in 1880 was only 
46,246 tons. A singular phenomenon is ob- 
served at one point in this district, where a 
coal-bed is penetrated and overlaid by a 
body of trap-rock. The coal near this rock 
is converted into a mass of coke, resembling 
that artificially produced, except that it is • 
more compact and of a duller lustre. 

A third great field includes the larger part 
of Illinois, most of Indiana, and a portion of 
Kentucky. Its area is estimated at 50, 000 
square miles. The coal is bituminous and ; 
largely charged with oil. A fourth coal- 
field is the anthracite district in Pennsyl- 
vania, comprising part of eight counties of 
that state — the principal, though not the 
only source of supply of anthracite in the 
United States. A fifth is the small tract 
in Rhode Island, which is the only region 
yielding a graphite anthracite in the Uni- 
ted States. A sixth coal-field occupies the 
central poi'tion of the southern peninsula 
of Michigan, its area being about 13.350 
square miles. Several beds of bituminous 
coal are worked in this district, and pro- 
duced in 18S0, 100,000 tons. 

The seventh coal-field is that known as the 
Missouri, which extends from Iowa, where it 
covers a large area through Missouri, east- 
ern Nebraska and Kansas, Arkansas, the 
eastern portion of the Indian Territory. 
and eastern Texas. This coal-field is reck- 
oned as covering 47,138 square miles. The 
coal is bituminous, from the middle coal- 
measures of the carboniferous system, and 
is in many places of excellent quality, be- 
longing to the class of coking coals, which 
are valuable for heating and smelting 
purposes. The eighth field begins in Brit- 
ish America, near the Saskatchewan river, 
and passes southward through western Da- 
kota, southeastern Montana, eastern Wy- 
oming, western Nebraska and Kansas, 



510 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



through Colorado, east of the Rocky Moun- 
tains, northeastern New Mexico, and central 
and western Texas. It covers about 40,000 
square miles, is a lignite of the cretaceous 
period, a very fair heating coal, yielding 
some gas, but not coking. At some points 
it assumes the characteristics of a cannel 
coal. It cannot be considered of the first 
quality. The ninth coal-field is a very re- 
markable one. Beginning like the preced- 
ing in British America, it passes through 
western Montana and Idaho, through west- 
ern Wyoming and Utah, western Colorado 
and New Mexico, and perhaps eastern Ne- 
vada, through Arizona and northwestern 
Texas, into Mexico. This is a lignite, but 
of the tertiary period, being found at the 
north only in the miocene, but in Texas 
principally in the eocene strata. In west- 
ern Colorado, in U'ah, and in New Mexico, 
near Santa F6, volcanic action has changed 
it into an anthracite coal, that in New Mex- 
ico and Colorado being of a quality nearly 
equal to that of the Pennsylvania mines. 
At other places, as in parts of Utah, it has 
been changed by a less intense volcanic 
action into a semi-bituminous coal, some 
beds of which coke and give evidence of 
being a good smelting coal. The extent 
of this coal-field cannot be less than 50,000 
square miles. The tenth is in reality two 
coal fields which interlock ; the one, lignites 
of the tertiary, which pass through eastern 
Washington and Oregon, and in California 
appear on both sides of the Coast Range; 
the other, coming from Alaska, through 
British Columbia, and sending out a branch 
to Queen Charlotte Islands, through Van- 
couver Island, and the Straits of San Juan 
de Fuca, along the coasts of Puget Sound* 
and of Washington and Oregon, growing 
• constantly poorer and more charged with 
sulphur till, in California, it interlaces with 
'tin tertiary lignite. Its composition seems 
to vary. It see ns to be a cretaceous lig- 
nite, as the interlocking coal-field is a ter- 
tiary, but in Alaska, in Queen Charlotte 
Islands, and on Vancouver Island it has 
been changed by volcanic action to an an- 
thracite or a semi-anthracite of fine quality; 
at Bellingham Bay, into a bituminous coal, 
regarded as the best on the Pacific coast; 
and in the Monte Diablo mines, in Califor- 
nia, into a fine quality of bituminous coal, 
though with rather too much sulphur. The 
area of this coal-field is nearly 60,000 
square miles. The whole area of these 



coal-fields is not much less than 850,000 
square miles. The product of the mines 
on these coal-fields in 1880 (and it is con- 
stantly and rapidly increasing, especially in 
the west), was 80,449,662 tons — about five- 
ninths of the product of the English and 
Welsh mines the same year. 

A large amount of bituminous coal has 
been brought to Boston and New York, 
for many years past, from a coal-field be- 
longing to the true coal-measures, in Nova 
Scotia and Cape Breton. The same forma- 
tion extends into New Brunswick and 
ranges along the western part of New- 
foundland, and has been estimated as com- 
prising in all an area of 9,000 square miles. 
The productive portions, however, are lim- 
ited to a few localities upon the coast of 
Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, and at these, 
beds of great thickness have been opened, 
and worked to the depth of from 200 to 
450 feet. At the Pictou mines, opposite 
the southern point of Prince Edward's 
Island, one bed is twenty-nine feet thick. 
Another bed, at the Albion mines, eight 
and a half miles from Pictou, affords twen- 
ty-four feet of good coal, and twelve more 
of inferior quality; and in Sydney, Cape 
Breton, are beds of eleven feet, nine feet, 
and six feet, besides at least eleven others 
of less thickness. At the South Joggins 
cliffs, in Nova Scotia, the total thickness 
of all the strata of the coal-measures was 
found by Mr. Logan to amount to 14,571 
feet, very much exceeding the thickness of 
the formation as observed in other places 
on the American continent. 

The strata which make up the coal for- 
mation, the principal varieties of which 
have already been named, are regularly 
laid one upon another in no particular 
order, and amount in aggregate thickness 
to several thousand feet, rarely exceeding 
in the United States 3,000 feet. Their 
thickness is ascertained by sections meas- 
ured at different localities, some giving one 
part of the column, and others other por- 
ions. In western Pennsylvania, at Pitts- 
burg, the hills opposite the city afford a 
section of three hundred or four hun- 
dred feet, and the marked stratum is 
here the great coal-bed, which up the 
Alleghany river toward the north rises to 
higher and higher levels in the hills, and 
toward the south, up the Monongahela, 
sinks to lower levels, till it passes beneath 
the bed of the stream. By extending these 



COAL. 



511 



observations over the coal-field, it is found 
that the whole series of strata maintain 
their general arrangement, and the princi- 
pal members of the group, such as an im- 
portant coal-bed, a peculiar bed of lime- 
stone, etc., may be identified over areas of 
thousands of square miles. It is thus the 
sections have been prepared at manv local- 
ities to complete the series, as presented on 
the opposite page, of the bituminous coal- 
measures of the extreme western part of 
Pennsylvania. The coal beds introduced 
are those which are persistent over the 
greatest areas. Others occasionally appear 
in different parts of the column, and vari- 
ous other local differences may be detected, 
owing to the irregularities in the stratifica- 
tion; thus sandstones and slates often thin 
out, and even gradually pass from one into 
the other. By their thinning out beds of 
coal separated by them in one locality may 
come together in another, and form one 
large bed ; and again, large coal-beds may 
be split by hardly perceptible divisional 
seams of slate or shale, which may gradu- 
ally increase till they become thick strata, 
separating what was one coal-bed into two 
or more. The limestones, though gener- 
ally thin, maintain their peculiar characters 
much better than the great beds of sand- 
stone or shale, and are consequently the 
best guides for designating in the columns 
the position of the strata which accompany 
them, above and below. The fire-clay is 
almost universally the underlying stratum 
of the coal-beds. In the sections it is not 
distinguished from the shale-beds. The 
total thickness of all the measures is from 
2,000 to 2,500 feet. In the west, the can- 
ons of the large rivers afford an infallible 
guide to the location of coal-beds in partic 
ular strata. Prof. Powell states that in the 
canons of the Colorado and its constituent 
streams, strata aggregating a thickness of 
25,000 feet are laid bare in their order of 
position, and it is easy thus to trace coal- 
beds, which might otherwise have escaped 
discovery. 

Such is the general system of the coal- 
bearing formation west of the Alleghanies. 
Every farm and every hill in the coal-field 
is likely to contain one or more beds of 
coal, of limestone, of good sandstone for 
building purposes, of fire-clay, and some 
iron ore; and below the surface, the series 
is continued down to the group of conglom- 
erates and sandstones, which come up 



around the margins of the coal-fields and 
define their limits. At Pittsburg this 
group (it is found by boring, as well as by 
the measurements of the strata in the hills 
toward the north) is about 600 feet below 
the level of the river. The coal-measuros 
in this portion of the country are the liig.hr 
est rock formation; but in the western ter- 
ritories beyond the Mississippi they pass 
under later geological groups, as the creta- 
ceous and the tertiary. All the coals are 
bituminous, and the strata in which they 
are found are little moved from the hori- 
zontal position in which they were origi- 
nally deposited. They have been uplifted 
with the continent itself, and have not been 
subjected to any local disturbances, such 
as m other regions have disarranged and 
metamorphosed the strata. 

East of the Alleghanies, in the narrow, 
elongated coal-fields of the anthracite re- 
gion, a marked difference is perceived in 
the position assumed by the strata, and 
also in the character of the individual beds. 
They evidently belong to the same geolog- 
ical series as the bituminous coal-measures, 
and the same succession of conglomerates, 
sandstones, and red shales, is recognizi d 
below them ; but the strata have been tilted 
at various angles from their original hori- 
zontal position, and the formation is broken 
up and distributed in a number of basins, 
or canal-shaped troughs, separated from 
each other by the lower rocks, which, 
rising to the surface, form long narrow 
ridges outside of and around each coal- 
field. Those on each side being composed 
of the same rocks, similarly arranged, and 
all having been subjected to similar denud- 
ing action, a striking resemblance is ob- 
served, even on the map, in their outlines ; 
and in the ridges themselves this is so re- 
markable that their shapes alone correctly 
suggest at once to those familiar with the 
geology of the country, the rocks of which 
they are composed. Upon the accom- 
panying map, these basins are represented 
by the shaded portions, and the king, nar- 
row ridges which surround the basins, and 
meet in a sharp curve at their ends, are in- 
dicated by the groups of four parallel lines. 
Within the marginal hills the strata of the 
coal-measures, and of the underlying t< r- 
mations, while retaining their arrange- 
ment in parallel sheets, are raised upon 
their edges and thrown into undulating 
lines and sharp flexures; and the extrac- 



512 



THE BITUMINOUS COAL-FIELDS OF WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 



3.6 Limestone. 
20 Buff shales. 
0.9 Coal. 
20 Sandstone. 
~ 4 Shale. 



56 Shales, sand- 
stones & lime- 
stones. 



-s ssaa 4 Blue friable shale. 



6 Waynesburg coaL 
5 Soft* shale. 



35 Gray sandstone. 



20 Flaggy sandstone. 



18 Slaty sandstone. 
8 Black calcareous 

^^ 1 slate. 

16 Limestone. 



25 Gray slaty sand- 
stone. 




35 Brown shale. 
14 Pittsburg coal. 



60 Shales, calcareous 
and arenaceous. 



3 Limestone. 



60 to 70 Calcareous and 
shaly beds, slaty 
sandstone, &c 



Green and olive shale. 



150 to 200 Greenlsk. 
slate & sandstone. 








3.6 Up*r Freeport coaL 
4 to 7 Limestone. 



^30 to 40 Slate and 
slaty sandstone. 



3 Lower Freeport coal 



ofte 



§?V 










50 to 60 Massive sand, 
stone. 



75 Slate, shale, or sand, 
stone. 



3 to 4 Kittanning coal 

30 Slate, shale, ci 

saudstone. 
0.4 to 6 Iron ore. 
15 Ferriferous lime. 

stone. 
30 Slate and shale. 

3 to 4 Clnrion coaL 
25 Slate and shale. 
1 to 2 Brookville coal. 
5 to 15 Shale. 



2 to 25 Brown & black 

shale. 
1 to4 

15 Shalo and sand 



15 Shale a 
stone. 

15 Shale 
stoni 



1 to 5 Limestone. 



40 to 80 Sandstone & 
green shale. 




20 Slaty sandstone. 
1 to 4 Sharon coaL 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



513 



Big. l 



LccuslMb 




tion of the coal, instead of being con- 
ducted by levels driven into the side 
of the hills, is effected by means of 
inclined shafts following down the 
course of the beds from the surface, 
or by vertical slopes sunk so as to 
cut them at considerable depths. The 
arrangement of the strata in its gen- 
eral features is represented in the ac- 
companying wood cuts. Fig. 1 is a 
section from Sharp Mountain, on the 
south side of the Mauch Chunk sum- 
mit mine, across this great body of 
coal, and the higher coal-beds of the 
formation repeatedly brought to the 
surface by their changes of dip, to 
Locust Mountain, which bounds the 
basin on the north. Fig. 2 is a sec- 
tion across the same basin at Ta- 
maqua, six miles west from Mauch 
Chunk mine. In this section it is 
seen how the coal-measures are sepa- 
rated into basins by the lower rocks 
coming up to the surface and forming 
anticlinal axes. Fig. 3 represents the 
position of single beds, as they occur 
among the slates and sandstones, and 
the manner in which they are some- 
times reached by means of a tunnel 
driven in from the base of the hill. 
The curved portion of the coal at 
the top is formed by the coal-beds 
at their outcrop becoming disinte- 
grated, and their fragments and de- 
composed smut being spread down 
the slope of the hill. The Roman 
numerals, "IX," "X," "XI," "XII," 
in fig. 2, designate the lower forma- 
tions of rock, known respectively as 
the red sandstones (corresponding to 
the "Old Red Sandstone"); a series of 
gray sandstones ; one of red shales ; and 
lastly, the conglomerate. The dotted lines 
above and below the section mark the con- 
tinuity of the conglomerate beneath the base 
of the section and its original course above 
the present surface before this portion had 
been removed by diluvial action. The other 




formations obviously accompany the con- 
glomerate with similar flexures. 

The same cause, that threw the strata into 
their inclined and contorted positions, no 
doubt changed the character of the coal by 
dispelling its volatile portions, converting 
it in fact into coke, while the pressure 
of the superincumbent beds of rock pre- 



514 



vented the swelling up of the material, as 
occurs in the ordinary process of producing 
coke from bituminous coal, and caused it to 
assume the dense and compact structure of 
anthracite. As the anthracite basins are 
traced westward, it is observed that the 
coals in those districts which have been less 
disturbed, retain somewhat of the bitumin- 
ous character; and if the continuity were 
uninterrupted between the anthracite and 
the bituminous coal-fields, there is no doubt 
that a gradual passage would be observed 
from the one kind of coal to the other, and 
that this would be accompanied by an amount 
of disturbance in the strata corresponding 
to the degree in which the coal is deficient 
in bitumen. 

AMOUNT OF AVAILABLE COAL. 

In estimating the quantities of workable 
coal in any district, several points are to be 
taken into consideration besides the amount 
of surface covered by the coal-measures and 
the aggregate thickness of all the beds they 
contain. Out of the total number of coal- 
beds, there are more or less of them that 
must be excluded from the estimate, on ac- 
count of their being too thin to work. The 
great depth at which the lower beds in the 
central parts of the Appalachian coal-field 
lie must probably prevent their ever being 
worked ; but for this no allowance is ever 
made in the estimates of quantities of coal. 

The most careful and complete computa- 
tions of this nature which have been made 
are those of Professor H. D. Rogers, and of 
Mr. Bannan in the Coal Statistical Register 
for 1871. From these sources we obtain 
the following estimates : 

EXTENT OF COAL-FIELD IN THE SEVERAL STATES 
POSSESSING THE COAL FORMATION. 

Sq. miles. 

Massachusetts and Rhode Island 100 

Pennsylvania 12,656 

Ohio 7,100 

Maryland 550 



Virginia 15,900 

Kentucky 13,700 

Tennessee 3,700 

Alabama 6,1 30 

Georgia 1 70 

Indiana 6,700 

Illinois 40,000 

Michigan 13,350 

Iowa 24,000 

Missouri 21,329 

Nebraska 84,000 

Kansas 80,000 

Arkansas 12,597 

Indian Territory 40,000 

Texas 30,000 

New Mexico 20,000 

Wyoming 20,000 

Colorado 20,000 

Montana 74,000 

Remainder of the West^ 100,000 



Total 650,862 

In the anthracite basins of Pennsylvania 
the number of workable beds varies from 2 
or 3 to 25, according to the depth of the 
basin ; the average number is supposed to be 
10 or 12. The maximum thickness of coal 
is in the Pottsville basin, and amounts to 
207 feet. Rejecting the thin seams, the 
average thickness in the south anthracite 
field is reckoned at 100 feet; in the middle 
or north field at about 60 feet ; and the gen- 
eral average of the whole, 70 feet. 

The maximum thickness of the 15 or 16 
coal-beds of the central part of the Appala- 
chian coal-field is about 40 feet, but the 
average of the whole basin is considered 
to be 25 feet. 

The basin extending over Illinois and 
into Indiana and Kentucky, contains in the 
last-named state 16 or 17 workable beds, 
with a maximum thickness of about 50 feet. 
The average over the whole area is supposed 
to be 20 or 25 feet. 

The following estimates of the British 
coal-fields are introduced for comparison. 
Extending these computations to Belgium 
and France also, the result of calculations of 
available coal supply, in 1870, are as follows : 



RELATIVE AMOUNT OF COAL IN THE SEVERAL GREAT COAL-FIELDS OF EUROPE AND AMERICA. 

Tons. Ratio. 
Belgium (assuming an average thickness of about 60 feet of coal) contains 

about 36,000,000,000 1 

France (with same thickness) contains about 59,000,000,000 1 64 

The British Islands (averaging 35 feet thickness) contain nearly 190,000,000,000 5.28 

Pennsylvania (averaging 25 feet thickness) contains 316,400,000,000 8.8 

The great Appalachian coal-field (including Pennsylvania, averaging 25 feet) . 1 ,387,500,000,000 38.5 

Coal-field of Indiana, Illinois, and western Kentucky (average thickness 25 ft). 1,277, 500,000,000 35.5 

The Rocky Mountain basin (averaging 30 feet) 3,739,000,000,000 10.29 

All the productive coal-fields of North America (with an assumed thickness 

of 20 feet of coal, and a produc ingarea of 200,000 sq. miles) 6,720,400,000,000 186. 

All the coal-fields of Europe 8.75 

The following table, though probably not I imation as is attainable of the coal produc- 
absolutely accurate, gives as near an approx- 1 tion of the United States, from the begin- 




'■- i^iafc-sir. 




MOUNT PISGAH PLANE, MAUCH CHUNK, PA. 




COLLIERY SLOPE AND BREAKER AT TU8CARORA, PA. 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



517 



ning in 1819 to 1881. It is from official 
sources: — 

ANTHRACITE COAL IN TONS OP 2,210 POUNDS. 
Calendar Years, 1819-1881. 

Tons. 

From all the regions in Penn., 509,287,439 

Anthracite elsewhere, 180,000 

Bituminous, semi-bituminous, and 

semi-anthracite in Penn., 154,068,550 

Bituminous elsewhere, 244,700,000 

908,235,989 

Of this great product, that of 1880 

was: 
Anthracite coal including culm, . . . 38,029,081 
Bituminous coal east and west, .... 42,420,581 

Production of coal, all kinds, 1880, 80,449,662 

So that, at the present rate of produc- 
tion, there would be raised in eleven years 
an amount equal to that of the last sixty- 
two years. 

TRANSPORTATION OF COAL TO MARKET. 

The first anthracite from the Schuylkill 
mines was brought to Philadelphia in 
wagons. The navigation of the river and 
canal was hardly practicable for boats pre- 
vious to the year 1822; and though from 
that year anthracite was conveyed to Phil- 
adelphia and the trade continued to in- 
crease, it was not until 1825 that a large 
amount of coal could be transported by 
this route. The effect of these improve- 
ments was experienced in the transporta- 
tion of 6,500 tons in 1825; in 1826 it in- 
creased to 16,763. As for successive years 
the trade steadily and rapidly increased in 
importance, the capacity of the canal 
proved at last insufficient for it, and the 
Reading railroad was laid out for its accom- 
modation, and constructed with a uniform 
descending grade from the mining region 
at Pottsville to the Delaware river. It was 
opened in 1841, and proved a formidable 
competitor to the Schuylkill canal, but the 
increasing trade has surpassed the capacity 
of both these routes. Other lines have 
been constructed, till now there are more 
than twenty railroads engaged almost ex- 
clusively in the transportation of the an- 
thracite and semi-anthracite coals from the 
mines. 

As seen by the table, the first shipments 
of anthracite were from the Lehigh region, 
two years before any were sent from the 
Schuylkill. The transportation was effected 
by arks or large boxes built of plank, and 
run down the rapid and shoal river with 



no little risk. To return with them was 
impracticable, nor was this desired, for the 
arks themselves were constructed of the 
product of the forests, which in this form 
was most conveniently got to market. As 
the coal trade increased in importance, the 
Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, to 
insure greater facility in running the arks, 
constructed dams across the shoaler places 
in the river, by which the water was held 
back, thus increasing the depth above. As 
the arks coming down the river reached 
one of these dams, the sluice-gates were 
opened, and the boats descended to the 
next dam below. At first two arks were 
connected together by hinges at the ends; 
subsequently more were thus joined to- 
gether, till they reached nearly two hun- 
dred feet in length. In 1831 the slack- 
water navigation of the Lehigh was so far 
perfected, that it was used by canal boats 
ascending and descending through regular 
locks. 

Up to the year 1827 the transportation 
of anthracite to Mauch Chunk, nine miles 
from the mines, was by wagons. The 
Mauch Chunk road, completed in May, 
1827, was made with a descending grade, 
averaging about 100 feet to the mile, sc 
that the loaded cars ran down by gravity. 
Each train carried down with it in cars 
appropriated to this use the mules for draw- 
ing the empty cars back; and it is stated 
that after the animals once became accus- 
tomed to the routine of their duties they 
could never be made to travel down the 
road if accidentally left behind. The trade 
before many years outgrew these increased 
facilities of transporting the coal, and it 
was found essential to return the empty 
cars by some more economical method. On 
account of the heavy up-grade, locomotives, 
it was concluded, could not be advanta- 
geously employed, and hence a system of 
inclined planes and gravity roads was de- 
vised, by which the cars hoisted by station- 
ary power to the summit of the planes and 
thence descending the gravity roads might 
be returned to the mines. In the accom- 
panying sketches a part of this arrangement 
of roads is exhibited. 

The high hill called Mount Pisgah, above 
the village of Mauch Chunk, is the termi- 
nating point at the Lehigh river of the long 
ridge called Sharp Mountain. The lowei 
road seen in the sketch is called the loaded 
track. The cars come by this from the 



518 



COAL. 



mines, and being let down the inclined 
plane at its terminus, their loads are dis- 
charged into the great bins over the edge 
of the river. They are then hauled a short 
distance to the foot of the long plane that 
reaches to the summit of Mount Pisgah, 
and by the stationary steam engine are 
drawn up in about six minutes to an eleva- 
tion 850 feet above that at the foot. 
The length of this plane is 2,250 feet. 
From its summit the empty cars run down 
the inclined road constructed along the 
south side of the ridge, and at the distance 
of six miles, having descended about 300 
feet, they reach the foot of another inclined 
plane at Mount Jefferson. This plane is 
2,070 feet long, rising 462 feet. The ascent 
is accomplished in three minutes, and from 
the top another gravity road extends about 
a mile, descending 44 feet to the Summit 
Hill Village. From this point branch roads 
lead to the different mines in Panther 
Creek valley, and all meet again in the 
loaded track road by which the cars return 
to Mauch Chunk. 

The transportation of coal from Mauch 
Chunk was conducted by the river and 
canal exclusively until the partial construc- 
tion of the Lehigh Valley railroad.in 1846. 
This road was completed in 1855, and its 
rival, the Lehigh and Susquehanna, a few 
years later, and the two have proved im- 
portant outlets for this coal region, and 
have rendered the canal trade compara- 
tively unprofitable. 

A considerable amount of anthracite 
finds a market on the borders of Chesa- 
peake Bay, being transported from the 
mines near the Susquehanna river by the 
Susquehanna tide-water canal, and by the 
Northern Central railroad. Its consump- 
tion is extending in this region by its use 
in the blast furnaces in the place of char- 
coal, for smelting iron ores, and the re- 
ceipts of this fuel in the city of Baltimore 
are about one-third of those of the semi- 
bituminous coals of the Cumberland region, 
which are brought to the city by the Balti- 
more & Ohio railroad and the canal. 

The principal outlet of the Northern 
coal field had been, from 1829 to 1850, by 
the Delaware and Hudson canal. Begin- 
ning with 440,000 tons in 1847, the amount 
of coal transported to the Hudson river had 
reached 565,460 tons in 1855; 1,206,314 
tons in 1869, and in 1880 about 1,800,000 
tons. The Canal Company own or lease 



several railroad lines, and connect with 
three or four trunk roads. Their coal 
freight over these is at least four times that 
of the canal itself. The various railroads 
and canals which have been constructed 
with especial reference to the transporta- 
tion of anthracite, are very numerous, and 
their aggregate cost exceeds $550,000,000. 

COAL MINING. 

Coal-beds are discovered and worked by 
different methods, varying according to the 
circumstances under which they occur. In 
regions where they lie among the piles of 
strata horizontally arranged, and passing 
with the other members of the group upon 
a level or nearly so through the hills, their 
exact position is often detected by their 
exposure in the precipitous walls of rock 
along the rivers; or it is indicated by 
peculiar indent tions, known as " benches." 
around their line of outcrop, caused by 
their crumbling and wearing away more 
rapidly than the harder strata above and 
below them; and again by the recurrence 
of springs of water and wet places at the 
foot of the benches, which point to an in - 
pervious stratum within the hill that pre- 
vents the water percolating any further 
down ; and lastly, in the little gorges worn 
by the "runs," the beds are often uncov- 
ered, and loose pieces of coal washed down 
lead to their original source above. How- 
ever discovered, the method of working 
them is simple. A convenient place is se- 
lected upon the side of a hill, and an exca 
vation called a drift, usually about four feet 
wide, is made into the coal-bed. The height 
of the drift is governed by the thickness of 
the coal-bed and the nature of the overly- 
ing slate. Miners sometimes work in drifts 
only 24; feet high. Coal-beds three or 
four feet thick are very common, and are 




undermining ooal. — Seepage 141. 




BREAKING OFF AND LOADING COAL. 




DRAWING (tlT COAL WHERE [HERE IS HOT SUFFICIENT DEPTH OF VEIN TO ADMI 

MULE TEAMS. 






COAL. 



525 



worked without the necessity of removing the 
overhanging slate, unless it is too unsound 
to serve as a roof. Beds of ten feet thick- 
ness or more require much additional care 
over tho^e of smaller size, both in removing 
the coal and supporting the roof; and in 
many cases it is found expedient to leave a 
portion of the bed, either at the top or bot- 
tom, untouched, especially if the upper lay- 
ers contain, as they often do, sound sheets of 
slate. At the entrance of the mines, and in 
general in all places where the cover is not 
sound, the materials overhead are prevented 
from falling by timbers across the top of the 
drifts, rudely framed into posts set up against 
the walls on each side ; and where the strata 
are very loose, slabs are driven in over the 
cross timbers and behind the posts. In such 
ground the coal cannot be excavated over 
large areas without leaving frequent pillars 
of coal and introducing great numbers of 
posts or props. But previous to abandon- 
ing the mine the pillars may be removed, 
commencing with those furthest in, and all 
the strata above are thus allowed to settle 
gradually down. When drifts or gangways 
have been extended into the coal-beds far 
enough to be under good cover, branches 
are commenced at right angles, and a system 
of chambers is laid out for excavation, leav- 
ing sufficient blocks or pillars of coal to pro- 
vide for the support of the overlying strata. 
Thus the work is carried on, ventilation be- 
ing secured by connections made within the 
hill with gangways passing out in different 
directions, and sometimes also by shafts 
sunk from the surface above, or, when these 
means are not practicable, by ventilating 
fans worked by hand, and thus forcing air 
through long wooden boxes which lead into 
the interior of the mine. Drainage is often 
a serious trouble, and unless the strata slope 
toward the outlet of the mine, it can be ef- 
fected only by a channel cut to the required 
depth for the water to flow out, or else by 
the use of pumping machinery. When the 
strata lie nearly upon a horizontal plane, it 
is very common for a slight descent to be 
found from the exterior of a hill toward its 
centre, as if the beds of rook had been com- 
pressed and settled by their greater weight 
in the middle of the hill. In such positions 
the coal is extracted with much expense for 
drainage, and it is therefore an important 
consideration in judging of the value of coal- 
beds to ascertain whether or no the water 
will flow freely out from the excavations. 



West Virginia and the bituminous coal- 
measures on the west side of the Appala- 
chian range generally, the coal-beds are 
usually far up the sides of the ravines or 
canons, and shutes can be built so as to 
slide the coal directly from the mine into 
the cars of the railroad without its being 
handled at all. It does not pay to work 
bituminous coal mines below water level. 

It is rare that bituminous coal is obtained 
by open quarrying. Where the beds lie 
near the surface, so that they might be un- 
covered, the coal is almost invariably in a 
rotten condition and worthless. Conse- 
quently one of the first points to be assured 
of in judging of the value of a coal-bed is 
that it has sufficient rock cover. After this 
may be considered the quality of the coal, 
its freedom from sulphur, etc., the sound- 
ness of its roof, and the facilities offered for 
drainage and ventilation. The quality of a 
coal bed undergoes little or no change after 
it is once reached under good cover beyond 
atmospheric influences ; and hence no en- 
couragement can be given to continue to 
work a poor bed in hopes of its improving. 

Coal is excavated chiefly by light, slender 
picks. With one of these a miner makes a 
shallow, horizontal cut as far as he can reach 
under the wall of coal before him, stretching 
himself out upon the floor to do this work, 
and then he proceeds to make a vertical cut 
extending from each end of that along the 
floor. up to the roof. By another horizontal 
cut along the roof, a cubical block of coal is 
thus entirely separated from the bed, except 
on the back side which cannot be reached' 
The separation is completed by wedges 
driven into the upper crevice, or sometimes 
by small charges of powder. By this means 
blocks of coal are thrown down amounting 
to 70 or 80 tons in weight, and with the 
least possible loss by the reduction of por- 
tions of it to dust and fine coal. 

The cost of mining and delivering coal at 
the mouth of the mines, varies with the size 
and character of the beds. Under the most 
favorable conditions the horizontal beds of 
bituminous coal, as' those in the hills oppo- 
site Pittsburg, have been worked ami the 
coal delivered outside for H cents a bushel, 
or45 cents a ton ; but in general the total 
expenses are nearly double this rate. In es- 
timating the capacity of production of coal- 
beds it is usual to allow a ton of coal to 
every cubic yard, and a bed of coal a yard 
thick should consequently contain a ton to 



526 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



every square yard, or 4840 tons to the acre : 
but the actual product that can be depended 
on, after the loss by fine coal, by pillars left 
standing, etc., may not safely be reckoned at 
more than 3000 tons, or for every foot thick- 
ness of the bed lOOl) tons. 

In the anthracite region, and in other coal 
districts where the beds are of large size and 
lie at various degrees of inclination with the 
horizon, the methods of mining differ more 
or less from those described. The anthra- 
cite beds frequently extend in parallel lay- 
ers longitudinally through the long ridges, 
dipping, it may be, nearly with the out- 
er slope, and descending to great depths 
below the surface. In such positions they 
are conveniently reached at the ends of the 
ridges and in the gaps across these," by a 
level driven on the course of the bed, and 
rising just enough for the water to drain 
freely. A level or gangway of this sort is 
the great road of the mine, by which all the 
coal is to be brought out in case other sim- 
ilar gangways are not driven into the same 
bed at points further up or down its slope. 
Unless the dip is very gentle, one at the 
lowest point should be sufficient. At dif- 
ferent points along its extension passage- 
ways are cut in the coal, directed at right 
angles up the slope of the bed, and as soon 
as one of them can be brought through to 
the surface, a ventilating current of air is 
established, which may afterward be divert- 
ed through all the workings. The passage- 
ways together with other levels above divide 
the coal-bed into great blocks, and also serve 
as shutes by which the coal excavated above 
is sent down to the main gangway. At the 
bottom of each shute a bin is constructed 
for arresting the coal and discharging it, as 
required, into the wagons which are run in 
beneath on the tracks laid for this purpose. 
Coal-beds in this position are also worked 
from the gangway by broad excavations car- 
ried up the " breast" or face of the bed, suf- 
ficient pillars of coal from 12 to 25 feet long 
being left in either case to support the roof. 
These pillars usually occupy the most room 
just above the gangways, and on passing up 
between them, the chambers are made to 
widen out till they attain a breadth of about 
40 feet, and thus the breast is extended up 
to the next level. Props are introduced 
wherever required to support the roof, and 
the rubbish, slates, etc., are stacked up for 
the same purpose, as well as to get them out 
of the way. 



It often occurs that coal beds within the 
ridges can be reached only by a tunnel 
driven in from the side of the mountain 
across their line of bearing. Tunnels of this 
kind are sometimes extended till they cut 
two or more parallel coal-beds. Each one 
may then be worked by gangways leaving 
the tunnel at right angles and following 1 the 
coal-beds, and the tunnel continues to be 
the main outlet of them all. 

When it is desirable to obtain the coal 
from the portion of the bed below the level 
of the gangway, preparations must first be 
made for raising the water, which may be 
done for a time by bucket and windlass, and 
as the slope is carried down and the flow of 
water increases, then by mining pumps 
worked by horse or steam power. The 
slope may commence from the exterior sur- 
face or from the lower gangway of a mine 
already in operation, and is made large 
enough to admit wagons, which ascend and 
descend upon two tracks extending down its 
floor. At the depth of 200 or 300 feet 
a gangway is driven at right angles with 
the slope in each direction on the course of 
the bed, and from this the workings are car- 
ried up the breast as already described. 
Other gangways are started at lower levels 
of 100 feet or more each, dividing the 
mine into so many stories or floors. The 
coal above each gangway is sent down to 
its level and is received into wagons. By 
these it is conveyed to the slope, and here 
running upon a turn-table, each wagon is 
set upon the track in the slope and is imme- 
diately taken by the steam engine to the sur- 
face, another car at the same tim« coming 
down on the other track. Reservoirs are 
constructed upon the different levels to ar- 
rest the water, that it may not all have to 
be raised up from the bottom, and the 
pumps are constructed so as to lift the wa- 
ter from the lower into the higher reservoirs 
and thence to the surface. Many mines of 
this character are opened from the surface, 
one of which is represented in the cut of the 
" Colliery Slope and Breaker, at Tuscarora, 
Pennsylvania." An empty wagon is seen in 
this cut descending the track from the en- 
gine house down into the mouth of the pit, 
and through the end of the building pass- 
es the pump rod which by means of a vi- 
brating " bob" is turned down the pit and 
works by the side of the track. The men 
pass down into the mines of this character, 
sometimes by the wagons, and sometimes by 



COAL. 



527 



ladders or steps arranged for the purpose 
between the two tracks. Though the open- 
ing, as represented, appears insignificant for 
an important mine, such a slope may extend 
several hundred feet in depth, and many 
gangways may branch off from it to the 
right and left, extending several miles un- 
der ground in nearly straight lines along the 
course of the bed. These, however, to se- 
cure ventilation, must have other slopes com- 
ing out to the surface, and at these may be 
other arrangements for discharging the coal 
and water. In extensive mines the gang- 
ways are made wide and capacious for the 
continual passing back and forth of the wag- 
ons drawn by mules. These animals once 
lowered into the mine are kept constantly 
under ground, where they are provided with 
convenient stables excavated from the coal 
and rock. The men continue at work from 
eight to ten hours, and in well-ventilated 
mines the employment is neither very labo- 
rious, hazardous, nor disagreeable. The pur- 
suit has, however, little attraction for Ameri- 
cans, and is mostly monopolized by Welsh, 
English, Irish, and German miners. 

In the anthracite region there have been 
some remarkable instances of open quarries 
of coal. That of the Summit mine of the 
Lehigh is unsurpassed in the history of coal 
mining, for the enormous body of coal ex- 
posed to view. The great coal-bed, which 
appears to have been formed by a num- 
ber of beds coming together through the 
thinning out of the slates that separated 
them, arches over the ridge, forming the up- 
permost layers of rock, and dipping down 
the sides at a steeper angle than their in- 
clination. It thus passes beneath the higher 
strata. On the summit a thin soil, formed 
chiefly of the decomposed coal itself, covered 
the beds and supported a growth of forest 
trees. For several feet down the coal was 
loose and broken before the solid anthracite 
was reached. As the excavations were com- 
menced and carried on from this point, it 
appeared as if the whole mountain was coal. 
Shafts were sunk into it and penetrated re- 
peated layers of anthracite, separated by thin 
6eams of slate, to the depth, in some places, 
of more than 55 feet. The work of strip- 
ping off and removing the covering of yellow 
and greenish sandstones and refuse coal was 
carried on, till the quarry had extended over 
about 50 acres, and on the north side the 
overlying sandstone, which had been steadily 
increasing in thickness, presented a wall of 



30 to 40 feet in height. Over this area rail 
tracks were laid for removing the waste 
northward to the slope of the hill toward 
the Panther Creek valley ; and when the 
piles thus formed had grown into huge hills, 
the rubbish was deposited in the spaces left 
after the coal had been removed. During the 
progress of this work the scenes presented 
were of the most picturesque and novel char- 
acter. The area laid bare was irregularly 
excavated into steps, upon which temporary 
rail tracks were laid in every direction. Up- 
on these the wagons were kept busily run- 
ning, some carrying off the coal, some load- 
ed with slates and waste, and others return- 
ing empty for their loads. Here and there 
stood huge isolated masses of anthracite, 
with their covering of sandstone, soil, and 
the relics of the original forest growth, reach- 
ing to the height of 50 or 60 feet, monu- 
ments of the vast amount of excavation that 
had been carried on, and presenting in their 
naked, vertical walls, fine representations of 
the extraordinary thickness of the bed and 
of the alternating layers of slate and coal of 
which it was composed. In the accompa- 
nying cut of the great open quarry of the 
Lehigh is represented one of these blocks. 
Gradually these masses disappeared as the 
miners continued their operations ; but in 
the boundary walls of the quarry there are 
still to be seen black cliffs of solid coal more 
than 50 feet high, and overtopped by a wall 
of yellow sandstone of nearly equal addi- 
tional height. Under these walls opera- 
tions have been carried on by the regular 
system of underground mining. From ten 
acres of the quarry it has been estimated 
that 850,000 tons of coal have been sent 
away, the value of which in the ground at 
the usual rate of 30 cents per ton, would be 
$255,000, or $25,500 per acre. Estimating 
the average working thickness of the coal 
in this part of the coal-rield, from the Lit- 
tle Schuylkill to Nesquehoning, at 40 feet, 
which according to the report of the state 
geologist is not exaggerated, every availa- 
ble acre contains not less than 05,000 tons. 
The expense of extracting and preparing 
the coal from the great bed for market, is 
stated by the same authority to be 37^ 
cents per ton for mining and delivering 
ready for breaking and cleaning. For this 
operation 12^ cents; and for raising it to 
the summit and running it to Mauch Chunk 
25 cents. 

Another locality where coal has been 



528 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



worked by open quarrying is at the mines 
of the Baltimore Company, near Wilkes- 
barre. Here, too, an immense bed of coal 
was found so close to the surface that it 
was easily uncovered over a considerable 
area. As the overlying slates and sand- 
stone increased in thickness, it was found 
at last more economical to follow the coal 
under cover; and it was then worked after 
the manner of mining the bituminous coal- 
beds west of the Alleghany Mountains. 
Horizontal drifts twenty-five feet high, 
which was the thickness of the bed, were 
carried in from the abrupt wall, several of 
them near together, and separated by great 
pillars of coal left to support the roof. The 
gangways were so broad and spacious that 
a locomotive and train of cars might have 
been run into the mine. Within they were 
crossed by a succession of other levels, and 
through the wide spaces thus left open the 
light of day penetrated far into the interior 
of the hill, gradually disappearing among 
the forest of black pillars by which it was 
obstructed and absorbed. This mine has, 
we believe, now been abandoned in conse- 
quence of the accumulation of water. 

In the anthracite region, several coal- 
beds of workable dimensions are often 
found in close proximity, so that wheadip- 
ping at a high angle they are penetrated in 
succession by a tunnel driven across their 
line of bearing. Larger quantities of coal 
are thus concentrated in the same area than 
are ever met with in the bituminous coal- 
field. In the northern coal-fields, between 
Scranton and Carbondale, tracts have 
brought $800 or more per acre, and 
single tracts of 650 to 700 acres are re- 
ported upon by competent mining engi- 
neers as containing five workable beds, 
estimated to yield as follows — each one 
over nearly the whole area: one bed, work- 
ing seven feet, 11,200 tons per acre; a sec- 
ond, working eight feet, 12,800 tons per 
acre; a third, six feet, 9,600 tons per acre; 
a fourth the same; and a fifth, three feet, 
4,800 tons — altogether equalling a produc- 
tion of 48,000 tons per acre, from which 20 
per cent, should be deducted for mine 
waste, pillars, etc. 

The anthracite as usually brought out 
from the mine is mostly in large lumps of 
inconvenient size to handle. In this shape 
it was originally sent to market, and when 
sold to consumers a man was sent with the 
coal to break it up in small pieces with a 



hammer. At present every mine is sup- 
plied with an apparatus called a coal- 
breaker, which is run by steam power, and 
which crushes the large pieces of coal into 
fragments. It consists of two rollers of 
cast-iron, one solid, with its surface armed 
with powerful teeth, and the other of open 
basket-work structure. These revolve near 
together, and the coal, fed from a hopper 
above, is broken between them, and the 
pieces discharged below into another hop- 
per are delivered into the upper end of a 
revolving cylindrical screen, made of stout 
iron wire, and set on a gentle incline. The 
meshes of this screen are of four or more 
degrees of coarseness. At the upper end 
the finer particles only drop through; pass- 
ing this portion of the screen, the coarser 
meshes which succeed let through the stove 
coal sizes, next the "egg coal," and next 
the "broken coal," while the coarsest pieces 
of all, called "lump coal," are discharged 
through the lower end of the screen. Un- 
der the screen are bins or shutes, separated 
by partitions, so as to keep each size by it- 
self. Their floor slopes down to the rail- 
way track, and each bin at its lower end is 
provided with a trap-door, through which 
the coal is delivered as required into the 
wagons. The general plan of this arrange- 
ment is seen in the preceding wood-cut of 
the Colliery Slope and Breaker at Tusca- 
rora. The coal wagons are here run from 
the mine up into the top of the engine 
house, and thence through the building to 
the breaker at the upper end of the slope 
over the shutes. As the coal falls from 
the screen into these, boys are employed, 
one in each bin, to pick out and throw 
away the pieces of slate and stone that may 
be mixed with the coal. This they soon 
learn to do very thoroughly and with great 
activity; and upon the faithfulness with 
which their work is done depends in no 
small measure the reputation of the coal. 

The processes of mining bituminous coals 
in the great coal-fields of Ohio, Michigan, 
Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, 
Arkansas, and the states and territories 
farther west, differ materially according to 
the location of the coal -veins and the region 
in which they occur. On the prairies in 
Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Kansas, and to 
some extent in Michigan and Missouri, 
they are pits or shafts sunk sometimes 
through several successive strata of coal, 
from which levels or adits are run, sus- 



ILLUMINATING GAS. 



529 



tained by the intervening strata of slate or 
limestone. In more mountainous regions, 
as in southern Colorado, New Mexico, 
Washington Territory, California, etc., the 
coal strata are often found in strata inclin- 
ing upward, and so are very easily mined 
and drained. 



CHAPTER X. 

ILLUMINATING GAS. 

The supply of artificial light in abun- 
dance, and at little cost, is one of the most 
important benefits which science and me- 
chanics can confer. It contributes not 
merely to physical comfort and luxurious 
living, but supplies the means to multitudes 
of obtaining instruction during those hours 
after the cessation of their daily labors, 
which are not required for sleep, and 
which among the poor have in a great 
measure been spent in darkness, on account 
of the expense of artificial light. A few 
years ago. it was not unusual, in the less 
cultivated portions of the country, to see a 
farmer's family at night gathered around a 
blazing fire, and some among them seeking 
by its fi tf ul light to extract the news from 
a public journal, or perhaps conning their 
school tasks, and making some attempts at 
writing or ciphering; and when the hour 
to retire had come, the younger members 
disappeared in the dark, and the more hon- 
ored were favored with a home-made tallow 
candle, just sufficient for this use, and en- 
durable only to those who were unaccus- 
tomed to a more cleanly and efficient 
method of illumination. With the advance 
of cultivation and learning, the demand 
for better light has increased more rapidly 
than it has been met. The seas were almost 
exhausted of whales for furnishing supplies 
of oil. The pork of the west was largely 
converted by new chemical processes into 
lard oil and the hard stearine for candles; 
and numerous preparations of spirits of 
turpentine, under the name of camphene 
and burning fluid, were devised and largely 
introduced with ingenious lamps contrived 
to secure the excellent light they furnished 
with the least possible risk of the awful 
explosions, to which these fluids were liable 



when their vapor comes in contact with fire. 
The bituminous coals were made to give 
up their volatile portions — by one process 
to afford an illuminating gas, and by another 
to produce burning oils; and the earth it- 
self was bored by deep wells to exhaust the 
newly-found supplies of oil gathered be- 
neath the surface at unknown "periods by 
natural processes of distillation. The res- 
inous products of the pine tree were applied 
to the production of oil and gas for the 
same purposes; and peat, wood, and other 
combustible bodies — even water itself — 
were all resorted to as sources from which 
the cry for " more light " might be satisfied. 
The distillation of carbonaceous and bitu- 
minous substances to obtain an illuminating 
gas is a process, the practical application of 
which hardly dates back of the present 
century. The escape of inflammable gases 
from the earth, in different parts of the 
world, had been observed, and the phenom- 
enon had been applied to superstitious cere- 
monials, especially at Baku, on the shores 
of the Caspian. The Chinese are said to 
have applied such natural jets of gas to 
purposes of both illumination and heating; 
but the first attempts to light buildings by 
gas distilled from bituminous coal were 
made about the year 1798 by Mr. Murdock 
in the manufactory of Messrs. Boulton & 
Watt, at Soho, England, and about the 
same time in France by a Frenchman 
named Le Bow. The London and West- 
minster Chartered Gas Light and Coke 
Company was incorporated in 1810, and 
Westminster bridge was lighted with gas, 
Dec. 31, 18 1 3. The process was introduced 
into this country about the year 1821. 
Some attempts had been made at an earlier 
date, as in Baltimore, according to some 
statements, in 181 G, and in New York four 
years before this. In the New York News 
of August 15, 1859, is an account of the 
efforts made by Mr. David Melville of that 
city to establish the use of coal gas in IS 1 2. 
He lighted his own house with it. and then 
a factory at Fawtucket. He also succeeded 
in having it applied to one of the light- 
houses on the coast of Rhode Island,, and 
for one year its use was continued with 
success. But on account of the disturbed 
state of the times and the prejudices against 
the use of a new material, the enterprise 
fell through. In 1822 the manufacture of 
gas was undertaken in Boston; and the 
next year the New York Gas Light Com- 



530 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



pany was incorporated with a capital of 
$1,000,000. The works, however, were 
not completed and in operation until 1827. 
Another company, called the Manhattan 
Gas Light Company, was incorporated in 
1830 with a capital of $500,000, which has 
since been increased to $4,000,000. Such 
were the beginnings of this branch of man- 
ufacture, which has since rapidly extended 
itself throughout all the cities and many of 
t'le town? of the United States, having 
works in operation requiring a large capital. 
Within the last thirty -five years the use 
of gas has increased with great rapidity 
throughout the cities and towns of the 
United States. In 1860, the number of 
companies manufacturing gas was, accord- 
ing to the statements of the American Gas 
Light Journal, 433, representing a capital 
of about $59,000,000. In 1870, the num- 
ber of companies had increased to some- 
what more than 800, and the capital repre- 
sented to over $112,000,000, and in 1880 
exceeded $200,000,000. The capital of 
the gas companies of the state of New 
York was stated by Mr. Wells in his Ee- 
port on Local Taxation to have been $20,- 
000,000 in 1870, and in this estimate many 
of the smaller companies were overlooked. 
The capital of the gas companies of New 
York and Brooklyn in 1880 was over $26,- 
000,000. There are certainly seven and 
probably eight companies whose annual 
production exceeds 1,000,000,000 cubic 
feet, and several others are approximating 
to that amount. The price per thousand 
feet has varied greatly in different sections, 
and has fluctuated in all cases with the 
price of coal and the methods of distillation. 
In New York City and Brooklyn it has 
ranged from $2.00 to $4.50. In Philadel- 
phia, where the city manufactures for its 
citizens, it is now not far from $2.00, but 
it is alleged that there are great frauds in 
the management. In Pittsburg it has been 
as low as $1.50. In the smaller cities it 
ranges from $3 00 to $6.00 per thousand 
feet. On the Pacific coast, owing to the 
high price of gas-producing coals, it has 
been as high as from $8.00 to $14.00 per 
thousand feet. As some of the Rocky 
Mountain coals have proved to be of good 
quality for the production of gas, the cost 
will be materially lessened. Notwithstand- 
ing the consumption of petroleum oils, 
there has been an increase in the demand 
for illuminating gas, and the plans proposed 



for its production from other hydrocarbons, 
or by new processes, have generally failed, 
so that there seems to be a probability of 
the continued production of gas from coals, 
though a modification of the water-gas pro- 
cess is moderately successful, and within a 
few years past some processes of condensing 
the gas into a liquid, and perhaps a solid, 
for transportation, have been attempted 
with a measure of success. 

The preparation of illuminating gas from 
bituminous coal, wood, rosin, and other 
bodies of organic nature is a chemical pro- 
cess, too complicated to be very fully 
treated in this place. When such bodies 
are introduced into a retort and subjected 
to strong heat, the elements of which they 
consist, as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and 
nitrogen, resolve themselves into a great 
variety of compounds, and escape (with 
the exception of a fixed carbonaceous resi- 
due of charcoal or of coke) through the 
neck of the retort in the form of gas or 
vapors, some of the latter of which con- 
dense on cooling into liquids and solids. 
These compounds are rendered more com- 
plicated by appropriating the elements of 
air and moisture that may be present in 
the retort or in the crude material, and 
also of the foreign substances or impurities 
contained in the latter. In processes of 
this kind, the products vary greatly in their 
character and relative proportions accord- 
ing to the degree of heat employed, and 
the rapidity with which the operation is 
conducted. The object in this special dis- 
tillation is to obtain the largest proportion 
of the gases richest in carbon, particularly 
that known as defiant gas, which consists 
of 86 parts by weight of carbon and 14 of 
hydrogen, represented by the formula C t 
H 4 . This and some other gaseous hydro- 
carbons of similar composition, or even con- 
taining a much larger amount of carbon in 
the same volume, and hence having a cor- 
respondingly greater illuminating capacity, 
it is found, are produced most freely from 
carbonaceous substances which contain a 
large proportion of hydrogen compared 
with that of oxygen. Many of the common 
bituminous coals contain about 5.5 per cent, 
each of hydrogen and oxygen, the rest be- 
ing carbon. Boghead cannel of Scotland 
contains 11 per cent, of hydrogen and 6.7 
of oxygen; rosin 10 per cent, hydrogen and 
10.6 oxygen; wood 5.5 hydrogen and 44.5 
oxygen. Of such compounds the cannel 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



531 



yields the richest gas and in largest quan- 
tity. Still, as will be more fully explained 
hereafter, the process may be so conducted 
as to obtain chiefly liquid instead of gaseous 
products. With the olefiant gas and the 
others of similar composition, a number of 
other gases also appear, some of which seem 
to be essential for producing the effect re- 
quired in illuminating gas, though they do 
not themselves afford light by their combus- 
tion. Their part is rather like that of nitro- 
gen in the atmosphere, to moderate the in- 
tensity of the more active agent of the mix- 
ture. Such are the light carburetted hydro- 
gen, carbonic oxide, and hydrogen, all of 
which are inflammable, but possess little or 
no illuminating power. The first named 
contains in an equal volume only half as 
much carbon as olefiant gas, its composition 
being represented by the formula C 2 H 4 , 
and if its proportion is too great for the 
purpose it serves as a diluent, the quality of 
the gas is impaired, and must be corrected 
by the use of richer material or increased 
care in the process. 

The light produced by the combustion 
of gas is variable, not only according to the 
quality of the gas, but also according to the 
manner in which it is burned. If its ele- 
ments undergo the chemical changes which 
constitute combustion simultaneously, the 
hydrogen combining with the oxygen of the 
air to form aqueous vapor, and the carbon 
with oxygen to produce carbonic acid, no 
yellow flame appears, but instead of this, a 
pale blue flame like that of hydrogen alone. 
Such an effect is produced when air is 
thoroughly intermixed with the gas as it 
passes through a tube to the jet where it is 
ignited. But if the conditions of the com- 
bustion are such that the hydrogen burns 
first and appropriates the oxygen in contact 
with the gas, the particles of carbon are 
brought to an incandescent state and pro- 
duce the yellow light before they reach the 
oxygen with which they combine. The 
particles may even be arrested while in trans- 
itu and be deposited upon a cold surface in 
the form of soot. The greatest heat is pro- 
duced with the most thorough mode of 
combustion and the appearance of the pale 
blue flame ; and lamps designed to give 
great heat are now in general use among 
chemists, in which gas is burned in this 
manner. When the air is impelled by a 
bellows they even produce an intensity of 
heat sufficient for many crucible operations. 



If too much carbon be present a part of 
it escapes unconsumed and produces a 
smoky flame, hence the necessity of the di- 
luents or gases deficient in carbon fur neu- 
tralizing the too large proportion of those 
gases richest in carbon. The noxious com- 
pounds in illuminating gas, and which 
should be as far as possible extracted from 
it before it is delivered for consumption, are 
the sulphurous ingredients formed by the 
combination of the sulphur of the iron 
pyrites commonly present in bituminous 
coals with the carbon, and with the hvdro- 
gen and the ammoniacal products. They 
are the highly offensive sulphurets of carbon, 
the sulphuretted hydrogen, etc. Carbonic 
acid, nitrogen, oxygen, carbonate of ammo- 
nia and aqueous vapors are to be regarded 
as foreign substances, though always present 
to some extent in the gas. 

The liquids generated by the distillation 
mostly condense in two layers on cooling, 
the upper an aqueous fluid, rendered strong- 
ly alkaline by the ammoniacal compounds in 
solution; and the lower a black tarry mix- 
ture commonly known as coal tar, which is 
composed of more than a dozen different 
oily hydrocarbons, as benzole, tuluole, etc., 
and contain in solution the solid oily com- 
pounds of carbon and hydrogen, as naph- 
thaline, para-naphthaline, and several others. 
Many of these are likely to prove of con- 
siderable practical importance. Benzole is 
a highly volatile fluid, a powerful solvent of 
the resins, india-rubber, gutta percha, greasy 
matters, etc. A most beautiful light is pro- 
duced by the flame of benzole mixed with 
due proportions of common air, and the 
mixture is effected by passing a current of 
air through the fluid, the vapor of which it 
takes up and carries along with it. The 
difficulty attending this application is the 
condensation of the benzole and its separa- 
tion from the air at temperatures below 50°. 
Above 70° too much vapor is taken up, 
and the effect is a smoky flame. In Europe 
much attention has been directed to the 
separation of the more hidden products of 
coal tar ; and among these the following are 
enumerated in a statement exemplifying the 
rapid increase in the value of these prod- 
ucts as they are obtained by more extend- 
ed researches. Benzole worth about 25 
cents a pound; nitre-benzole, a substance 
having the odor and taste of bitter almonds 
and used as a flavoring, worth, crude, 70 
cents, or refined, 81.50 per pound. The or- 



532 



ILLUMINATING GAS. 



dinary aniline dye for producing the mauve 
color, $4.50 to $8 per pound, and the pure 
aniline violet in powder, $240 to $325 per 
pound, or about its weight in gold. Be- 
sides these, the coal-tar products used in 
chemistry, the arts, and in medicine are 
stated at more than seventy, and their num- 
ber and value is constantly increasing. 

Gas works established in cities and towns 
are commonly built in places where the 
property and buildings around are least 
likely to be injured by the escape of the 
products, and rather upon a low than a 
high level, for the reason that the gas on 
account of its lightness compared with the 
atmospheric air ascends more freely than 
it descends to its points of communication 
with the external air. The works consist 
of the apparatus for distilling the coal and 
receiving the products of the distillation, 
that for purifying the gas, and that for 
conveying it to the places where it is con- 
sumed, and there measuring the quantity 
supplied to each customer. The retorts in 
general use are either of cast-iron or fire- 
clay. The latter are a late improvement 
highly recommended, and introduced at 
the present time into a few of the gas 
works. Various forms have been tried; 
the most approved are of Q shape, seven 
to nine feet long, one or two feet wide, and 
twelve or fifteen inches high. They are 
set in the furnace stacks, commonly two on 
the same horizontal plane, two or more 
over these, and a fifth at the top. A sin- 
gle furnace fire below is sufficient for heat- 
ing them, and the capacity of the works is 
increased by multiplying these fires along 
the length of the stacks. Sometimes the 
stacks are made double, so as to take two 
retorts set end to end, each opening on 
opposite sides of the stack. In place of 
two retorts a single long one has been sub- 
stituted, passing entirely through and hav- 
ing at each end an opening for charging 
and discharging. In large establishments 
as many as 600 or more retorts may be set, 
all of which may be kept employed in the 
winter season, when the consumption of 
gas is largest. The outer end of each re 
tort projects a little way in front of the 
wall of the furnace, and is provided with a 
movable mouth-piece covering the entire 
end, which may be readily removed for ad- 
mitting the charge of coal. Upon the top 
of this projecting end or neck stands the 
cast-iron pipe of about four inches in diam- 



eter, called the stand-pipe, through which 
the volatile products pass from the retort. 
It rises a few feet, then curves over back, 
and passes down into a long horizontal pipe 
of large diameter, which is laid upon the 
outer edge of the brick-work, and extends 
the whole length of the furnace stacks. 
This is called the hydraulic main, and into 
it all the volatile products from the retorts 
beneath are discharged. It is kept about 
half filled with water or the liquid tarry 
matters, and the dip pipes terminate about 
three inches below this fluid surface. By 
this arrangement the retorts are kept en- 
tirely independent of each other, while 
their products all meet in one receptacle. 

In manufacturing gas it is found neces- 
sary to introduce the charge into the re- 
torts already at a full red heat, and bring 
it as rapidly as possible to the high temper- 
ature required for producing the richest 
gaseous hydrocarbons. A low and slowly- 
increasing heat causes the ingredients of 
the charge to form a large proportion of 
liquid and oily substances, and little gas. 
It is only while the coal is approaching a 
vivid red heat that the best gaseous mix- 
tures are obtained; and even these are de- 
teriorated by change in the composition of 
the olefiant and other rich gases of which 
they are in part composed, if the mixture 
is exposed to too high temperature, or re- 
mains in contact with red hot surfaces of 
iron. The duration of the charge used 
formerly to be from eight to ten hours; but 
from the observations of the qualities of 
the gases, evolved at different stages of the 
process, it has gradually been reduced to 
four to six hours, varying according to the 
character of the coal employed. The rich- 
est gases are obtained in the first hour, and 
after this the proportional quantity per 
hour steadily diminishes at the same time 
that the quality gradually deteriorates. The 
temptation, however, to obtain the largest 
amount of a commodity which is sold only 
by measure, and to consumers who have 
no means of assuring themselves of its real 
quality, no doubt often leads to extending 
the operation to the separation of gaseous 
mixtures having very little illuminating 
power. The manufacturers knowing their 
materials, and checking their operations by 
regular photometrical tests, can control the 
quality of the product as they see fit. 

In order that the least loss may be in- 
curred in bringing the charge up to the 



MINING INDUSTRY CF THE UNITED STAPES. 



53? 



proper temperature, the retorts are kept at 
a full red heat; and when ready for a new 
charge the mouth -piece is paitially re- 
moved, and the gas that escapes is ignited. 
When the danger of explosion by sudden 
admission of air has passed, the lid is re- 
moved, and the red hot coke is raked out 
and quenched with water. The new charge 
is then introduced by means of a long iron 
scoop bent up at the sides, which is pushed 
into the retort, and being turned over, dis- 
charges its contents. The mouth-piece is 
then replaced, and tightly secured with a 
luting of clay or lime. It is obvious that 
the more perfectly the coal is freed from 
moisture, the better must be the gas; and 
if it were also first somewhat heated, the 
result would be still more satisfactory. 
The coals employed at the different gas 
works of the United States are generally 
mixtures of the caking coals of the interior, 
or of those of Richmond, Virginia, and of 
Nova Scotia, with cannel coal, which for 
the cities near the coast is imported from 
Great Britain, and for those in the interior 
is obtained from the mines of this coal in 
western Virginia and Kentucky. The 
larger the proportion of cannel, the better 
should he the gas, under the same method 
of manufacture. In the works in New 
York city, the proportion of cannel is gen- 
erally from one-third to one-fourth of the 
whole. Other establishments generally use 
a less proportion of it. The amount of gas 
it may produce varies with the kind of can- 
nel from 9.500 cubic feet to the ton to 15,- 
000 cubic feet. The last is the yield of the 
Boghead cannel. In general, the greater 
the yield the better also is the quality of 
the gas, as is indicated by its increased 
specific gravity, that of the cannel last 
named being .752, while the gas from other 
cannels yielding about 10,000 cubic feet 
may not exceed .500. The best Newcastle 
coals are not inferior, either in the amount 
or quality of the gas they afford, to most 
of the cannels. They produce about 12,000 
cubic feet of gas to the ton, and of specific 
gravity sometimes exceeding .550 or even 
.600. Of late years much of the gas man- 
ufactured in our Atlantic cities is produced 
from cannels from Nova Scotia and New 
Brunswick. These are nearly equal to the 
Boghead cannel in the amount of gas they 
produce, though not so free from impuri- 
ties. Some of the Kentucky coals are also 
used to good advantage. The specific grav- 
28 



ity is not depended upon as a certain test 
of the quality of the gas. the density of 
which may be increased by presence of im- 
pure heavy gases, or even of atmospheric 
air; but it is resorted to only as an indica- 
tion in the absence of more exact tests. 

The coke obtained from the retorts 
amounts to about forty bushels to the ton 
of coal; ten bushels are required for the 
fires beneath, and the rest is sold. As the 
volatile products pass through the hydraulic 
main, the principal portions of the oily and 
ammoniacal compounds are deposited in it; 
but some of these pass on in vapors, and 
would, if not separated, cause obstructions 
in the pipes in which they might condense 
in liquids and solids. These are conse- 
quently passed through a succession of tall 
iron pipes standing in the open air, and 
sometimes kept cool by water trickling 
down their outside. A pipe from the bot- 
tom of each pair conveys the condensed 
tar and ammonia into a cistern in the 
ground. Formerly the gas was still fin ther 
condensed by passing it into the bottom of 
a tower filled with bricks, stones, etc., 
among the interstices of which it found 
its way up, while water was constantly 
sprinkled on the top and trickled down to 
keep the whole cool. This water removed 
the ammonia, but it also carried off sume 
of the richest hydrocarbons, and conse- 
quently the wet scrubber, as it was called, 
was generally abandoned for other methods 
of condensing, in which the water was dis-- 
pensed with. The gas made its exit from 
the top of the scrubber; and its passage 
being already somewhat impeded so as to 
throw considerable pressure back into the 
retorts, thus effecting chemical changes in 
the gas, which impaired its quality, it 
was found necessary to introduce a revolv- 
ing exhauster, which took off this pressure, 
and at the same time propelled the gas for- 
ward into the succeeding apparatus. This 
was a purifier, the object of which was to 
arrest the carbonic acid and sulphurous 
gases. Dry quicklime, and also the solu- 
tion of this in water, known as milk of 
lime, have the property of absorbing these 
gases as they are made to pass among the 
particles of the one spread upon shelves, or 
interspersed among a porous substance 
such as dry moss ; or to bubble up through 
the aqueous solution. The lime as it be- 
came saturated with the impure gases was 
replaced with fresh portions. 



534 



ILLUMINATING GAS. 



The cleansing process was now complete, 
and the gas in proper condition to be de- 
livered to the consumer. It must first, 
however, be measured, that a record may- 
be kept of the quantity produced, and it 
was next conducted into the great gas- 
holders in which it was stored. The meas- 
urement was effected by means of a large 
station meter, constructed on the principle 
of the small service-meters, with one of 
which each consumer is supplied. A re- 
volving drum with four compartments of 
equal capacity is made to rotate in a tight 
box by the gas entering and filling one of 
these compartments after another. Their 
capacity being known, and the number of 
revolutions being recorded by a train of 
wheel-work outside the box, the quantity 
of gas which passes through is indicated 
with moderate accuracy. The largest me- 
ters pass about 650 cubic feet by one rev- 
olution of the drum, or about 70,000 cubic 
feet in an hour. 

The gas-holders are the large cylindrical 
vessels of plate iron, the most conspicuous 
objects at the gas works. Each one is set 
with its open end down, and immersed in 
a cistern of water of diameter a little ex- 
ceeding its own. It is buoyed up by the 
water, and also counterbalanced by weights 
passing over pulleys. The gas admitted 
under the inverted cylinder lifts this up, 
and fills all the portion above the water. 
The weight of the cylinder when the influx 
is shut off and the discharge pipes are 
opened presses the gas out and through the 
mains to the points where it is consumed. 
The gas-holders of the largest works are of 
immense size. In Philadelphia, there is 
one 100 feet in diameter, and 95 feet high, 
holding 1,800,000 cubic feet of gas. Even 
this is exceeded by one at the Imperial Gas 
Company's works, London, which is 201 
feet in diameter, 80 feet high, and of the 
capacity of 2,500,000 cubic feet. This cost 
upward of $200,000, and contains 1,500 
tons of iron, 5,000 cubic feet of stone work, 
and 2,000,000 bricks. No advantage is 
gained in a single structure of this immense 
size over several smaller ones. On the con- 
trary, this involves heavy expenditures to 
protect them against the force of the wind, 
and render them manageable. Those of 
great height are made in sections, which 
shut one within another in descending, 
like the parts of a telescope. As each ?ec- 
.tion is lifted in turn out of the water, its 



lower edge, which is turned up in an out- 
ward direction, forming an annular cup, 
includes a portion of water, into which the 
upper edge of the next lower section 
catches, being turned over inward for this 
purpose. A gas-tight joint between the 
two sections is thus formed. 

To insure uniformity of pressure, as the 
gas enters the maids it is first made to pass 
through the apparatus called a governor, 
in which, according to the force or slow- 
ness with which it moves, it causes a valve 
to rise and partially close an aperture with- 
in the machine through which the gas 
flows, or to descend and open this aper- 
ture. The increase of pressure as the gas 
is carried to higher levels, amounting to 
one-fifth of an inch of water in every thirty 
feet, renders it important in hilly towns to 
have governors upon different levels. In 
high buildings a very sensible difference is 
perceived in the force with which the gas 
issues from the burners on the different 
stories. This involves a waste of gas 
where the pressure is great, for under such 
conditions a considerable portion of that 
consumed adds little to the illuminating 
effect. Various governors or regulators 
have been devised for the use of consumers 
with a view of producing an increase of 
light with reduced consumption of gas; and 
when judiciously applied, some of them 
have proved very successful. They have 
been introduced into some of the public 
buildings of New York city, controlled by 
the Street Department, and according to 
the report of the Street- Commissioner, the 
saving has been very remarkable. 

Each consumer of gas is supplied with a 
meter, which is Under the control of the 
gas company; and from its indications the 
amount furnished is determined by inspec- 
tion every month. 

Though in the use of gas the consumer 
is in a great measure dependent on the 
manufacturer as regards the economy of 
the light, there are several points, by giv- 
ing personal attention to which, he may 
more fully realize the saving it affords. In 
the fi rst place, he must be aware that every 
one employing this source of light uses it 
more freely than that derived from lamps 
and candles. It is enjoyed with so little 
trouble and apparent cost, that much more 
light is soon regarded essential than was 
perfectly satisfactory under the old meth- 
ods of producing it. He should next see 



MINING INDUSTRY OP THE UNITED STATES. 



535 



that the area of the delivery pipe bears 
such proportion to the quantity usually re- 
quired, that there is no undue pressure 
upon the burners, as it is evident when the 
gas "blows" through them as it burns. 
This should be checked by shutting off a 
part of the supply by means of the stop- 
cock at the meter; and this should be 
looked to after every visit of the gas man 
to the meter. The regulator also is in- 
tended to remedy this over supply, but it 
may still be necessary to keep part of the 
gas turned off, and by so doing the regula- 
tor may be dispensed with. Attention 
should next be directed to the burners, 
that those of largest size, such as consume 
with the ordinary pressure six feet or more 
of gas an hour, should be placed only 
where the greatest quantity of light is re- 
quired, and that burners of four feet, three 
feet, two feet, or even one foot an hour, be 
placed where the light they give will be 
sufficient. A great variety of burners have 
been contrived, and some of them are 
highly recommended for affording more 
light with the same amount of gas. All, 
however, are liable to become foul after a 
time, and should be occasionally cleaned or 
replaced. The iron of which they are made 
is corroded by the ingredients of the gas, 
especially when not in use, and air enter- 
ing, its elements form acid compounds with 
those of the gas, which remain in the open 
portion of the pipe. The argand burner is 
recommended for the powerful and steady 
light it gives, but it is far from being eco- 
nomical, and moreover produces great heat. 
The quality of gas is determined either 
by analysis, or more conveniently by test- 
ing with the photometer its comparative 
capacity of producing light. The standard 
adopted for comparison is spermaceti can- 
dles, each one burning 120 grains in an 
hour. An argand burner consuming five 
feet of gas an hour (the quantity carefully 
proved by the meter) is used in making 
the trial; and the number of candles re- 
quired to produce an equal amount of light 
indicates the quality of the gas. At the 
points of consumption, this is sometimes in- 
ferior to that of the gas at the works be- 
fore it enters the gas-holders and passes 
through the mains ; and in very cold 
weather, by the condensation of the richest 
hydrocarbon vapor in the pipes, the gas 
that reaches the burners is much poorer 
than that which left the works. Conse- 



quently these facts should be taken into 
consideration in estimating the quality of 
gas furnished by any establishment. Again, 
after a period of excessive cold weather, 
when the gas has burned dimly by the con- 
densation of its best portions in the pipes — 
it may be to the extent at times of obstruct- 
ing the flow through them — and with the 
return of milder weather the vapors are 
released and mix with the new gas, they 
sometimes so overburden this with an un- 
due proportion of the richest compounds, 
that with the ordinary burners the gas can- 
not be consumed, and the result is a smoky 
flame, of which the consumers make great 
complaint, believing it to be caused by in- 
ferior gas. Such are some of the causes, 
over which the manufacturers have no con- 
trol, that involve more or less irregularity 
in the quality of the gas supplied. 

The gas produced at different works is 
of various qualities. That of the Manhat- 
tan Gas Light Company is rated at sixteen 
candles, though probably seldom reaching 
twelve, and is perhaps as good as any fur- 
nished in our cities. It is tested daily 
with the photometer at their office. In 
England, the gas of the London works va- 
ries from eleven to eighteen candles. That 
of Liverpool is much better, sometimes be- 
ing equal to twenty-two candles. 

Other materials than coal have been ap- 
plied to some extent in the United States 
for producing gas chiefly for small supplies 
for single buildings. The most successful 
of these processes is that with rosin oil. 
The apparatus is exceedingly simple, and 
is placed in an apartment in an out-build- 
ing. It consists of a stove containing a 
chamber in the top, into which the rosin 
oil is allowed to drop slowly. It is decom- 
posed by the heat of the surface upon 
which it falls, and the gaseous products 
pass immediately through the pipes into 
the gas-holder, whence they are distributed 
as at the large gas works. The supply for 
a week may be made in less than an hour 
with very little attention from the person 
in charge. The gas is superior to that 
from coal, and the expense, not reckoning 
the cost of the gas-holder and the appara- 
tus, is less than the price ordinarily paid 
for gas. 

In Philadelphia, wood has been success- 
fully used at the Market street bridge works. 
Six retorts have been kept in operation 
with it for some time, and the yield and 



53G 



ILLUMINATING GAS. 



quality of the gas have proved very satis- 
factory. As in the use of coal, it is found 
necessary to charge the material into re- 
torts already at a high heat, otherwise the 
gaseous products have little illuminating 
power. Gas thus made from pine wood 
has been found to contain 10.57 per cent, 
of defiant gas, and that from oak 6.46 per 
cent. 

Hydrocarbon Gas. — What is known as 
the hydrocarbon or water gas manufacture 
was introduced into Philadelphia in 1858, 
and according to the published reports, its 
application for lighting a portion of the 
Girard Ho ise proved perfectly satisfactory. 
It was introduced into the town of Aurora, 
Indiana, in January, 1861, and according 
to the statements published in the Cincin 
nati Daily Commercial, the operation had 
been very successful. The light is des- 
cribed as very brilliant, and the gas almost 
free from odor. The process appears to 
be similar to that of Mr. White, of Man- 
chester, England, which consists in the gen- 
eration of non-illuminating gases by the 
action of steam upon charcoal highly heated 
in a retort, the aqueous vapor being thereby 
decomposed, and various gaseous com- 
pounds produced by its hydrogen and oxy- 
gen combining with the carbon of the char- 
coal. If the operation is properly con- 
ducted these compounds should be almost 
entirely carb mic oxide and free hydrogen ; 
if carbonic acid is produced, as it may well 
be, even to the extent of one per cent., it 
may involve the expense of purification by 
means of a lime purifier. These gases are 
immediately passed through another re- 
tort, in which the illuminating gases are 
generated, and mixing with the n the 
whole is immediately swept forward out of 
the reach of the high decomposing temper- 
ature. The material employed for furnish- 
ing the illuminating gas is either rosin or 
rosin oil gradually dropped into the heated 
retort; and it is stated that various other 
carbonaceous substances, as the tar from 
the gas works and cheap greasy compounds, 
may be economically applied. 

Although this method of producing gas 
has been highly recommended by eminent 
English authorities, especially by Dr. 
Frankland, an account of whose experi- 
ments and conclusions is given in a recent 
edition of Ure's Dictionary, it has not been 
adopted by gas companies, whose first in- 
terest it would be to avail themselves of 



such improvements, and it is reasonable to 
suppose there are some insuperable objec- 
tions to it. Indeed, in the last edition of 
Clegg's " Treatise upon the Manufacture 
and Use of Gas," the subject is passed by 
with scarcely any notice, although it had 
been in the previous edition tieated in de- 
tail and with commendation. In the Eng- 
lish Gas Journal it it decidedly condemned. 
No analyses of the gas thus produced in 
this country have ever been published, nor 
any reports of photometrical experiments 
that might establish its light-giving capac- 
ity. As the subject for some time at- 
tracted much attention, and has given rise 
to extravagant expectations of cheap pro- 
duction of gas, it is very desirable that such 
trials and reports should be made by some 
competent chemist. Some companies have 
been organized in our large cities for the 
manufacture of this "water gas," and they 
have been moderately successful. One in 
Brooklyn, and another in New York, are 
now furnishing it. 

Gas for Steamboats and Railroad 
Cars. — Several methods have recently been 
put in practice for furnishing gas for the 
convenience of passengers in steam vessels, 
or upon railroads. One plan is to place in 
the boats or under the cars large cases of 
sheet iron, each one provided with a dia- 
phragm or partition of india-rubber across 
its upper portion. A. connection being 
made between the receptacle under the dia- 
phragm and the street main, the gas fills 
this portion of the case and the connection 
is then shut off. When required for use, 
the gas is forced out by the pressure of air 
uniformly applied upon the upper surface 
of the india-rubber sheet by means of a 
meter running by clock work. This method 
has so far been successful; but danger is 
apprehended by some that atmospheric air 
may find its way through the flexible sheets, 
all of which are more or less permeable 
when used to separate different gaseous 
compounds, and that an explosive mixture 
may thus be introduced. By another plan 
of a New York company, the gas by means 
of force pumps is compressed into strong 
cylindrical gas-holders made like the boil- 
ers of steam engines. The gas is thus made 
to occupy a diminished space in proportion 
to the pressure used, that of twenty atmos- 
pheres placing 1,000 cubic feet of gas in 
fifty feet space. In Jersey City, where 
this method has been applied to furnishing 



MINING INDUSTRY OF TIIE UNITED STATES. 



537 



gas for railroad cars, the pressure employed 
is about 450 lbs. upon the square inch. 
Under this pressure the gas is conveyed 
through pipes to the points where the cars 
receive from them their supplies. The gas 
by its elasticity presses through the burn- 
ers, and uniformity of discharge while this 
force is constantly diminishing is secured 
by a governor or regulator constructed on 
the principle already described. 

Gas for Fuel. — Besides its use for pro- 
ducing light, gas has long been applied to 
other domestic purposes for the sake of 
the heat it can be made to afford in burn- 
ing. It was thus first used by chemists, 
and mechanics, as bookbinders, then ap- 
plied it in suitable stoves to the heating of 
such tools as they required of a high tem- 
perature. After this stoves were contrived 
on different plans in which various culinary 
operations might be conducted, and some 
also for warming rooms. Though it would 
appear to be an expensive fuel, it has been 
found for many purposes, in which only a 
certain amount of heat is required, and this 
for a short time, not merely exceedingly 
convenient, but economical. No more need 
be consumed than is required to effect the 
desired purpose, and it is moreover applied 
directly to the object to be heated with 
little dispersion or waste of heat. But for 
warming rooms it is objectionable, not only 
on account of its cost, but also from its vi- 
tiating the atmosphere by the large amount 
of the noxious gases produced by its com- 
bustion. If these are conveyed away by 
ventilating flues, they carry with them a 
considerable portion of the caloric set free. 

The general introduction of petroleum 
oils for illuminating purposes did not, at 
first, have much effect on the' production 
of illuminating gas, because it was manu- 
factured only in the larger cities, and was 
preferred to the somewhat malodorous 
" kerosene " by those who could have their 
choice. As, however, gas works were ex- 
tended to the smaller cities and towns, 
there began to be a pretty active competi- 
tion between the petroleum products and 
gas, and this in several directions. Naph- 
thaline, gasoline, and other of the lighter 
and more explosive products of petroleum 
distillation and refining were used "in the 
production of gas with small apparatus 
sufficient for the supply of a hotel, store, 
or private dwelling; but this was fraught 
with so many dangers that it never came 



into very general use. New lamps and 
burners with metallic or glass wicks were 
contrived for burning kerosene with less 
danger, and in the large cities many of the 
finest stores were fitted up with these 
lamps, which gave a better light at much 
less cost than gas, but the work of cleaning 
and filling them was irksome, and occasion- 
ally there were accidents, even in their 
most careful use. Yet they became suffi- 
ciently general to bring down the price of 
gas stocks nearly one half, and have made 
the business much less profitable than for- 
merly. 

But the most formidable competitor with 
gas is now, and is likely to be, the electric 
light. We shall have more to say in re- 
gard to this in another chapter, but it is 
sufficient to say here that the electric light 
has passed from the stage of possible and 
theoretical experiment into that of a great 
practical fact, and that with six or eight 
rival manufacturers, all with large capitals, 
great inventive genius, and dogged deter- 
mination to accomplish all that can be ac- 
complished by the most persevering effort, 
it is not possible that they should fail of 
achieving a great and permanent success. 
Already in all our large cities, many large 
stores, warehouses, churches, and public 
halls are lighted by it, and portions of the 
streets. There is need of simplifying and 
economizing the costly machinery now 
used for its production; need of rendering 
it less expensive than now, in order that it 
may be introduced gene-rally into private 
dwellings; need of modifying thetcneand 
color of the light, which is now too white 
and glaring; need of preventing the possi- 
bility of fire and accidents, which might 
prove fatal from the contact of the wires. 
But all these difficulties will be overcome 
by patient experiment, and the light of the 
future is destined to be the electric light, 
unless something still more perfect can be 
discovered or devised. 



CHAPTER XL 

COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

Notwithstanding the substitution in the 
cities and most of the towns of considerable 
size throughout the country of gas for oils, 
the demand for the latter has increased 
much faster than the supply, as is shown 
by the price for sperm oil being very much 



538 



COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 



higher than it was in 1843, when it brought 
about fifty-five cents per gallon. Besides 
its use for illuminating purposes, the con- 
sumption of oil is enormous for lubricating 
machinery. The railroads and steamboats, 
and the increasing numbers of large fac- 
tories, demand such quantities of it that all 
the ordinary sources of supply were over- 
tasked, and the whaling business formerly 
so prosperous in New England, has fallen 
off in the face of advancing prices, or been 
forced to gather itself in fewer centers, 
where by concentration of its operations 
the business could be conducted with the 
greatest economy. From many seaports of 
New England this business has quite dis- 
appeared, and even those which retained 
for some years their fleets of whaling ships 
have now almost abandoned the business. 
Nantucket, once the great center of the 
sperm whale fishery, has dwindled from 
year to year till now no ships are sent out 
from the island. The manufacture of lard 
oil, which for some years was extensively 
carried on in the western states, failed to 
meet the increasing demands, when at last 
attention began to be directed to the ex- 
traction of oils from the bituminous coals 
and shales, by processes which had been 
introduced from France and England. The 
success attained by Mr. James Young, of 
Glasgow, in his treatment of the " Torbane 
Hill mineral," or Boghead cannel of Scot- 
land, served more than anything else to 
give encouragement to this enterprise. In 
1854, according to the testimony of this 
practical chemist in a lawsuit in London, 
he was producing about 8,000 gallons a 
week of an oil he called paraffine oil, which 
sold for 5s. a gallon, the sales amounting 
in all to about $500,000 per annum, of 
which the greater portion was profit. 
Operations of a similar character had for 
some time previously been conducted upon 
a large scale at Autun, Department of the 
Saone and Doire, in France; the materials 
employed being highly bituminous shales, 
probably not essentially different from the 
Torbane Hill mineral, except in producing 
much less oil to the ton. 

The first factory for making coal oil in 
the United States was established on New- 
town Creek, Long Island, opposite New 
York city, and commenced operations in 
June, 1 854. This was known as the Kero- 
sene Oil Works, and was designed to work 
the Boghead cannel, or coal of similar char- 



acter from the province of New Brunswick, 
or from the west, by the patented process 
of Mr. Young. In Kentucky, Ohio, Vir- 
ginia, and Pennsylvania, cannel coals were 
found of suitable qualities for this manu- 
facture; and in 1856 the Breckenridge 
Coal Oil works were in successful operation 
at Cloverport, on the Ohio river, in Breck- 
enridge county, Kentucky. The same year 
a factory was built in Perry county, Ohio, 
by Messrs. Dillie and Robinson, and others 
rapidly sprung up in the vicinity of New- 
ark, which soon became an important cen- 
ter of this new business. In 1858, several 
large factories were built in New England, 
one in Boston, and one in Portland, Maine. 
It is doubtful whether Young was the first 
inventor or discoverer of this, for. as we 
shall see, the late Baron von Reichenbach 
had many years before distilled some 
ounces of a naphtha from pit coal, which 
was substantially identical with Young's ; 
and several other chemists claim to have 
arrived at similar results; but Young was 
certainly the first to produce the oil on a 
commercial scale. 

So rapid was the increase in the demand 
for this oil, that in 1860 there were nearly 
eighty manufactories in the United States, 
employing over $3,000,000 capital, and 
producing oil, naphthalin, and paraffine to 
the amount of five millions of dollars annu- 
ally. The coal oil manufacture had assumed 
at a bound an importance which gave it the 
leading place among the new manufactures 
of the previous decade. The production 
of illuminating oils exceeded in that year 
ten million gallons, and about five millions 
of gallons of the heavy lubricating oils and 
paraffine. The man who had predicted 
that within the next three years all this 
activity of production would cease, and 
another article then just coming into notice 
would supersede it, and attain to ten times 
its extent, would have been deemed little 
less than a madman. Yet this was pre- 
cisely what happened. 

HISTORY AND METHOD OF THE MANUFACTURE. 

The possibility of extracting oil from bi- 
tuminous minerals appears to have been 
known since the year 1694, a patent hav- 
ing been granted in January of that year 
to Martin Eele, Thomas Hancock, and Wil- 
liam Portlock, for "a way to extract and 
make great quantities of pitch, tarr, and 
oyle out of a sort of stone, of which there 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



539 



is a sufficient found within our dominions 
of England and Wales." This stone proved 
to be a bituminous shale; and in 1716 it 
was again applied to similar use under an- 
other patent, granted to M. & T. Belton, of 
Shrewsbury. In the course of the eight- 
eenth century the oily product obtained 
was employed to some extent as a medi- 
cine, under the name of British or petro- 
leum oil. Though from time to time other 
patents were granted in England for the 
same process, the business never became of 
importance until the successful trials were 
made by Mr. James Young, of Glasgow, 
upon the Boghead cannel already referred 
to. On the continent the subject was 
brought before the public by the researches 
of Baron von Reichenbach in 1829, '30, 
and '31, when he discovered and separated 
numerous new compounds from the pro- 
ducts of the slow distillation of bituminous 
substances. The compound he named eu- 
pion is the same thing as the rectified oil 
since known as coal oil, paraffine oil, kero- 
sme, photogenic, pyrogenic oil, and by other 
local or commercial names. He appreci- 
ated its useful properties, and recom- 
mended the prosecution of further trials 
with the object of establishing the best 
mode of separating it. In France, its char- 
acter was understood in 1824, when a pat- 
ent was granted for its manufacture; and 
i.i 1833 factories were in operation for pro- 
ducing it. In 1834 the method adopted 
by Selligue was first published, and in the 
specification of the patent granted to him, 
March 19, 1845, is a full account of the 
process as conducted in the works at Autun. 
This is still the best treatise published up- 
on the manufacture, and notwithstanding 
the numerous patents which have since 
been issued, the improvements are limited 
to comparatively unimportant modifications 
of the apparatus. In the United States, 
the first patent granted in this manufac- 
ture was in March, 1852, to James Young 
for his process, which in this country was 
first introduced at the kerosene oil works on 
Newton Creek. In 1853 two patents were 
granted, in 1854 and 1855 one each, in 1856 
six, in 1858 seven, and in 1859 twenty-two. 
As mentioned in the preceding chapter, 
the products obtained by the distillation of 
bituminous substances vary according to 
the amount of heat employed and the man- 
ner of its application, whether sudden or 
gradual Coals thrown into red hot retorts 



are resolved into large quantities of gas, 
with the production of inconsiderable quan- 
tities of oily compounds heavier in the 
aggregate than water, and called coal tar. 
They consist of a variety of hydrocarbons, 
as the fluids designated by the name of 
naphtha, the white crystalline substance 
called naphthaline, the veiy volatile fluid 
benzole, besides carbolic acid and a great 
number of other curious and interesting 
compounds of hydrogen and carbon. In 
general they contain a less proportional 
amount of hydrogen than the products ob- 
tained by slow distillation, the fluids are 
denser, and their boiling points higher. 

When the bituminous substances are 
gradually and moderately heated in retorts, 
the production of gas is small, the carbon 
and hydrogen separating chiefly in the 
form of oily compounds of a greenish 
color, the specific gravity of which is less 
than water. These compounds form what 
is called crude coal oil, and are similar in 
appearance and composition to the natural 
petroleum, or rock oil, obtained in some 
places from the earth, as will be described 
in the next chapter. Benzole and naphtha- 
line, products of the other method of dis- 
tillation, are found, if at all, as a result of 
the employment of too high heat, and in- 
stead of the latter the waxy or spermaceti- 
like substance called paraffine is generated 
and is held in solution in the oils, from 
which it may be separated by repeated dis- 
tillations, and draining off through filters 
and pressing out the fluid portions of the 
concentrated residues, at the lowest avail? 
able temperatures. The oily products are 
divisible into a great number of distinct 
compounds by means of repeated distilla- 
tions, each one being carefully conducted 
at a certain degree of temperature, and the 
product which comes over at this degree 
being kept by itself. But in the large way 
they are separated into only three classes, 
which are distinguished as the light oils for 
lamps, the heavy oils which are suitable for 
lubricating purposes, and paraffine. Some- 
times a mixture of the heaviest oils and 
paraffine is made use of and sold for wagon 
grease and such purposes- and the first pro- 
ducts which come over in the distillation 
are kept by themselves, and sold under the 
name of naphtha (or incorrectly as benzole) 
to be used as a solvent for the resins, 
caoutchouc, etc., and for removing grease 
spots from fabrics. 



540 



OAL OIL AXD PETROLEUM. 



The proportions obtained from a ton of 
coal or shale are very variable. The Bog- 
head cannel yields, in well conducted oper- 
ations, about 1 1 7 gallons of crude oil, from 
which the product of refined oil is about 
60 gallons. It can be made to produce 
even 130 gallons of crude oil, containing a 
larger proportion of refined oil than the 
117 gallons ordinarily obtained. The 
Breckenridge coal yields from 90 to 100 
gallons of crude oil, and this 50 to 60 of 
refined oil. The Cannelton coal of Vir- 
ginia is of similar quality to the Brecken- 
ridge cannel. The coals of Ohio run from 
55 to 87 gallons of crude oils to the ton, 
and those of Darlington, Penn., from 45 to 
55 gallons. Besides the oils there also 
come over from the retorts, as in the gas 
manufacture, a quantity of water rendered 
alkaline by the ammonia it holds. This 
collects at the bottom of the reservoirs into 
which the products are received, and the 
oil that floats upon the surface being re- 
moved the ammoniacal liquors are allowed 
to escape. 

While the general plan of the operations 
is the same in all the factories, the appara- 
tus is variously modified. By Mr. Young's 
process the coal was distilled in cast-iron 
Q -shaped retorts, like those employed in 
making gas, and the volatile products were 
passed by a worm through a refrigei'ator 
kept at a temperature of about 55° F. The 
oils as they condensed dropped from the 
end of the worm into a receiver. Many 
patents were granted in Europe and in this 
country for different kinds of retorts. 
Some were made of cylindrical form and 
set upright in the furnace; the charge was 
introduced at the top and drawn out, when 
exhausted, at the bottom; the volatile pro- 
ducts making their exit either through 
pipes at the top or at different heights. 
Some were constructed of fire-clay instead 
of cast-iron. In order that the charge 
might be uniformly heated, revolving cyl- 
indrical retorts were contrived and pat- 
ented, first in France many years ago, and 
afterwards in the United States. They were 
sometimes eight feet long and six feet di- 
ameter, suspended upon an axle at each end. 
They were charged through a manhole in 
the front end like the common horizontal 
retorts, and the vapors passed out through 
the axle at the opposite end, which was 
made hollow for this purpose. Retorts of 
the size named were charged with about a 



ton of cannel coal, and four such charges 
could be worked off in twenty-four hours. 
They revolved slowly, about twice in a 
minute, thus turning the charge over and 
causing it to be uniformly exposed to the 
fire beneath. At the Lucesco works, thirty 
miles above Pittsburg, on the Alleghany, 
ten large revolving retorts were put in op- 
eration, each one of the capacity of two 
and a half tons. They were recommended 
for the rapidity with which the process was 
conducted, and the large amount of oil ob- 
tained to the ton of coal while they contin- 
ued in good order; and, on the other hand, . 
it was objected to them that the coal was 
apt to be ground to powder, and the dust 
carried along with the vapors, obstructing 
the condensing worm and adding to the 
cost of purification. They were, moreover, 
expensive to construct and liable to get 
out of order. 

By all these arrangements the fire which 
caused the expulsion of the volatile mat- 
ters was outside of the retorts. But the 
same object was also attained by the use of 
ovens and pits similar to those used for 
producing charcoal and coke, in which the 
material operated upon was itself partially 
consumed, to generate the heat required 
to drive off so much of its volatile constit- 
uents as escaped combustion. Kilns thus 
designed for extracting coal oils were in 
use in this country and in Europe; and in 
Virginia, near Wheeling, the plan was 
adopted of distilling the coal or shale in 
large pits dug in the ground of capacity 
sufficient to contain one hundred tons of 
the raw material. These were covered 
with earth, and the fire being started at 
one end, the heat spread the volatile pro- 
ducts forward, and they were drawn out 
at the opposite end by the exhausting 
action caused by a jet of steam, and re- 
ceived into suitable condensing apparatus. 
Some of the kilns were constructed to be 
fired at the bottom, and the vapors then 
passed upward through the charge, and 
conveyed in pipes from the top to the con- 
densers. The kilns of the Kerosene Oil 
Company, patented by Mr. Luther Atwood, 
were made open at the top, and a down- 
ward draught through the charge, which 
was fired on the upper surface, was pro- 
duced by a steam jet thrown into the educ- 
tion pipe that passed out from the bottom 
of the kiln. A partial vacuum was thus 
produced, causing a current of air to flow 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATE". 



541 



in from the kiln. At the works of this 
company there were eighteen of these kilns 
in shape like a circular lime kiln, built of 
ordinary brick and lined with fire-brick. 
They were twenty feet high and twelve feet 
diameter inside, each one having a capac- 
ity of over twenty-five tons of coal. When 
this amount of Boghead cannel was intro- 
duced it was covered with about four tons 
of Cumberland coal and a quantity of pine 
wood. This was set on fire, and at the 
same time the steam jet was let on. The 
heated gases from the combustibles above 
passed through the bituminous materials 
below ; but little air reached these that was 
not already deprived of its power of sus- 
taining further combustion. The volatile 
products were gradually expelled before 
the slowly increasing heat, and the opera- 
tion was not completed till the expiration 
of four days. It was hastened or checked, 
as might be necessary, by means of the 
steam jet by which the draught was con- 
trolled. What was left in the kiln was un 
consumed coal and ashes — no good coke 
was produced. The condensers at these 
works were tall cylinders of boiler-plate 
iron. Passing through a succession of 
these the vapors collected and trickled 
down their sides, and the mixed oily and 
aqueous products were received into iron 
vats placed in the ground. The uncon- 
densable gases escaped into the open air 
from the top of the last of the cylinders. 
From the vats the oil rising to the surface 
flowed over into a conduit that led to a 
large cistern in the ground of the capacity 
of 40,000 gallons. The water at the same 
time was discharged by a pipe, one end of 
which was at the bottom of the vat. and 
the other was bent over its upper edge, the 
flow being caused by the difference of an 
inch in the elevation of the surface of the 
two vats. Some oil was carried over into 
the second vat, and this was separated by 
a repetition of the same arrangement, and 
so on through several vats, till the ammo- 
niacal waters were finally allowed to escape 
after being first received into a large cis- 
tern, where some oil still collected upon 
the surface, and was removed by occasional 
damming. 

Still another method of conducting the 
dry distillation was by the introduction of 
highly heated steam into the retorts, as 
patented by Mr. William Brown, in 1853, 
in England and in this country, though 



this seems also to have been used in the 
original operations of Selligue in FVance. 
The effect of the steam was to aid in heat- 
ing the charge, while at the same time the 
vapors were taken up and carried along 
by it, and protected from being burned or 
decomposed by remaining in contact with 
the hot surfaces of the retort. In the sub- 
sequent distillation of the crude oil high 
steam was similarly applied in the stills. 

Nearly the same process of refining was 
practiced at all the factories. The crude 
oil was pumped up into large stills of cast 
or boiler-plate iron, with cast-iron bottoms 
two inches thick. The capacity of these at 
the works above referred to was 1,500 gal- 
lons each, and the time required for distill- 
ing off this amount of oil wrs twenty four 
hours. They were heated by fires of an- 
thracite and coke, the latter being itself a 
product of the distillation and obtained 
from the inside of the stills after each heat. 
It was deposited from the crude oil, and 
formed a solid and extremely hard incrus- 
tation which was sometimes nearly a foot 
thick upon the bottom of the stills. It was 
a much superior coke to that obtained from 
the gas retorts, and in its structure was 
coarsely honey-combed in the upper or last 
formed portions, gradually growing closer 
and more compact toward the bottom upon 
which it adhered. The distillation was 
conducted at a temperature not exceeding 
800° F., and the process was rendered con- 
tinuous by admitting a small stream of oil 
into the stills. The vapors passing through 
the goose-neck were condensed in a long 
worm kept in the water condenser, which 
was, in the latter part of the distillation, at 
a temperature of 80° or more. It was nec- 
essary to guard against so low temperature 
as might cause the paraffine to solidify in 
the worm, which by stopping the flow of 
the products might result in blowing up 
the still. The heat was carefully regulated 
so that the oil came over uniformly, flow- 
ing from the end of the worm in a steady 
stream. It was still of a greenish c<>lor, 
with more or less of its peculiar, disagree- 
able odor. Yet it was evidently purified 
to a considerable extent by its separation 
from the free carbon and other impurities, 
usually amounting to 10 or 12 per cent., 
which were left behind in the stills. The 
oils were next pumped into large cylindri- 
cal cistei-ns. called agitators, to undergo the 
chemical treatment, which was in general 



542 



COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 



the same as that practiced by Selligue. An 
addition was made to them of a quantity 
of sulphuric acid, perhaps to the amount of 
5 per cent. The mixture was then vio- 
lently agitated or made to sweep rapidly 
round by s irrers in the cisterns, moved by 
machinery. The pure oil and paraffine 
were unaffected by the chemical agents, 
but the carbonaceous particles and coloring 
matters were more or less charred and ox- 
i iized, and their condition was so changed 
taat when the mixture was left for some 
hours to repose, they subsided in great 
part together with the acid, and these 
could then be drawn off leaving the par- 
tially purified oil in the upper portion of 
the cisterns. This was next washed with 
about one-fifth its quantity of water, which 
removed the soluble impurities and a por- 
tion of the remaining acid. These, after 
subsiding, being drawn off, a strong lye of 
potash or soda was introduced into the oil, 
which neutralized and fixed what acid re- 
mained, and caused the precipitation of 
further portions of the coloring and tarry 
matters. The mixture was again agitated, 
and was then left six hours to repose, after 
which the sediment being drawn off, it was 
again washed with water, and this, too, 
with the matters it had taken up, were 
drawn off. In some places chalk or lime 
was employed instead of the alkaline lye 
to neutralize and fix the acid, and the 
chemical treatment, as it was called, was 
in other respects variously modified. 
Though this has been designated the l c >ld" 
treatment, the temperature was not allowed 
to fall below 90° during these processes. 

At last the oils freed from most of their 
impurities were introduced into stills like 
those of the first set. The product which 
first came over was a very light oil some- 
what discolored, which was soon followed 
by a clear oil having little odor. This 
gradually increased in density from 0.733 
to 0.820, up to which point the mixture of 
oils was classed as illuminating, and was 
without further preparation sufficiently 
pure to be at once barrelled for the market. 
After this the increasing depth of the color 
and the greater density of the product in- 
dicated that the light oils had been nearly 
exhausted, and the remaining portions 
were hence kept by themselves to afford 
the heavy lubricating oils, and also it may 
be, by means of fractional distillation, the 
additional quantities of light oils they still 



contained, and, finally, the paraffine which 
was chiefly concentrated with the last por- 
tions. This substance when separated from 
the oils by filtration and pressure at low 
temperatures, was of a dark color and 
somewhat offensive odor; and to bleach 
and deodorize it proved to be somewhat 
troublesome and expensive operations. Ex- 
posure to the sunlight has a bleaching 
effect; but the processes for this purpose 
were not made public for some years. 
When obtained perfectly pure and white, 
difficulties were encountered in running it 
into candles, which were not common to 
other materials used for this purpose. 
When cooled in ordinary moulds the par- 
affine would crack in lines radiating from 
the wick, and the exterior would present 
a clouded, mottled surface. The method 
of obviating this difficulty, as described in 
the French work, "Le Technologiste," of 
1859, was to use a mould in two parts, that 
part for the point of the candle working in 
the other like a piston. These moulds be- 
ing brought to the temperature of melted 
paraffine were filled and then immediately 
plunged into water at nearly the freezing 
point. Having remained three or four 
minutes, they were taken out and exposed 
to a current of cool air for fifteen or twenty 
minutes. The candles then came out, as 
the movable part of the mould was pushed 
in, free from defects. This method was 
successfully introduced into the United 
States. Paraffine candles were made at 
some of the coal oil works, as at those of 
New York, New Bedford, and Portland. 
They were of beautiful appearance, re- 
sembling the best sperm candles, and at 
the same time were more economical for 
the amount of light they afforded. The 
oil that was pressed out from the par- 
affine was useful chiefly as a lubricator, and 
from the low temperature at which it was 
obtained, if for no other reason, it was in- 
sured against chilling in cold weather. 
The residue in the stills was a mixture 
of the tarry matters with the portion of 
the chemical ingredients that was intro- 
duced with the oils. For this no use was 
found. The heavy oils found their prin- 
cipal application in lubricating machinery, 
and large quantities were consumed for 
this purpose upon the Western railroads. 
The heavier natural oils of Ohio, when 
washed clean from the sand that came up 
with them, were also very well adapted 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



543 



for this use; but it 
geous to mix either 



was found advanta- 
the crude or manu- 
factured article with an equal quantity of 
lard oil. The petroleum corrected the ten- 
dency of this to gum and chill, while it re- 
ceived additional body from the lard oil. 
Another use for the heavy oils was for 
cleansing wool in the woolen factories, and 
where they were tried for this purpose 
they wei*e preferred to other oils. In cur- 
rying leather, also, they were said to have 
proved a good substitute for fish oil. Ex- 
periments were made with them in Ohio 
for mixing paints, and the crude heavier 
kinds, as those of Mecca, treated in the 
same manner as linseed oil, boiling them 
with dryers, etc., formed a good body, cov- 
ered the wood well, dried rapidly and per- 
fectly, and formed a smooth, hard surface, 
retaining no odor. The great abundance 
of the supply of petroleum in Pennsylvania 
and Ohio induced some speculation as to 
the probability of the hydrocarbon oils be- 
ing used for fuel for steamboats, locomo- 
tives, and wherever a highly concentrated, 
portable, and manageable fuel was required. 
For domestic uses, also, such as required a 
fire only a little while at a time, the coal 
oils were conveniently used in suitable 
stoves in the same manner that gas was 
applied to the same purpose. But experi- 
ments were wanting to establish the rate 
per gallon at which it might enter into 
competition with other fuels upon a larger 
scale. Besides the heavy and light oils, no 
other valuable products resulted from the 
distillation of the coal oils. Benzole is 
said not to be a product of this process. It 
belongs, together with a special class of 
hydrocarbons designated as the benzole 
series, to the tar of the gas works; and if 
ever obtained in the coal oil distillation, it 
was declared that it must be by bad man- 
agement and the use of excess of heat. It 
was found, after the discovery and practi- 
cal adoption of the petroleum as an illumi- 
nating fluid, that from this, by the refining 
and distilling processes, not only benzine 
but naphtha and other still more volatile 
hydrocarbons were produced, and the prin- 
cipal difficulty in reducing the petroleum 
to a safe and non-explosive illuminator was 
to rid it of these very volatile oils. It is 
probable that they did exist in nearly the 
same form in the coal oils, but had not 
been skillfully eliminated at first. 

The lighter coal oils were superior in 



many respects to most of the articles pre- 
viously used for purposes of illumination. 
Their odor, though not very agreeable, was 
better than that of most of the sperm or 
lard oils, and the spots made by spilling 
them on articles of dress or furniture were 
removed with less difficulty than those of 
the fatty oils. They were also far less lia- 
ble to explosions than the so-called '-burn 
ing fluids," which were previously in very- 
general use, but were constantly producing 
terrible accidents and loss of life. They 
were, if burned in properly constructed 
lamps, much less disagreeable and liable to 
smoke than camphene. 

But the reign of the coal oils for pur- 
poses of illumination was destined to be of 
short duration; for petroleum, or, as it 
came to be called, when refined for illumi- 
nating purposes, "kerosene oil," became so 
abundant in 1861 and 1862, and received 
such an extensive development, that the 
distillation of oil from coals, both for illu- 
minating and lubricating purposes, almost 
ceased after 1863. An effort was, indeed, 
made in 1863 and 1864 to distil these oils 
on a large scale from the bituminous shales 
of Kentucky; but though the material 
could be had at the cost of breaking it up, 
and the process of distillation was very 
simple, the flowing wells of western Penn- 
sylvania and "West Virginia furnished 
crude petroleum so cheaply that this under- 
taking proved unprofitable. 



CHAPTER XI- 

PETROLEUM, OR ROCK OIL 

The occurrence of an oily fluid oozing in 
some regions from the surface of the earth, 
coming out with the springs of water, and 
forming a layer upon its surface, has been 
noticed from ancient times, and the oil has 
been collected by excavating pits and canals, 
and also by sinking deep wells. The as- 
phalt ('-slime" of the Old Testament) used 
in the construction of the tower of Babel 
(Gen. xi, 3) and the city of Nineveh was an 
asphaltic mortar, the asphalt for which was 
a partially evaporated petroleum. This 
was obtained from the springs of Is, on the 
Euphrates, and to this day it is used to 
supply the neighboring villages with oil. 
Zante, the Ionian islands, and Agregentam 
in Sicily have all had oil wells yielding a 
large amount for more than 2,000 years. 



544 



PETROLEUM, OR ROCK OIL. 



TI13 wells of Amians, on the banks of the 
Tasj, formerly supplied oil with which the 
city of Genoa was lighted. Baku, a town 
on the west side of the Caspian Sea in 
Georgia, has long been celebrated for its 
springs of a very pure variety of petroleum 
or naphtha, and the annual value of this 
product, according to M. Abich, is about 
3,000,000 francs, and might easily be made 
as large again. Over a tract about 25 
miles long and half a mile wide, the strata, 
which are chiefly argillaceous sandstones of 
loose texture, belonging to the medial ter- 
tiary formation, are saturated with the oil, 
and hold it like a sponge. To collect it 
large open wells are sunk to the depth of 
16 to 20 feet, and in these the. oil gathers 
and is occasionally taken out. That ob- 
tained near the centre of the tract is clear, 
slightly yellow, like Sauterne wine, and as 
pure as distilled oil. Toward the margins 
of the tract the oil is more colored, first a 
yellowish green, then reddish brown. In 
the environs of Baku are hills of volcanic 
rocks through which bituminous springs 
flow out. Jets of carburetted hydrogen 
are common in the district, and salt, which 
is almost always found with petroleum 
springs, abounds in the neighborhood. 

Another famous locality of natural oils 
is in Burmah, on the banks of the Irrawad- 
dy, near Prome. Fifty years ago it was 
reported there were about 520 wells in this 
region, and the oil from them was used for 
the supply of the whole empire and many 



parts of India. The town of JRainanghong 
is the center of the oil district, and its in- 
habitants are chiefly employed in manu- 
facturing earthen jars for the oil, immense 
numbers of which are stacked in pyramids 
outside the town, like shot in an arsenal. 
The formation containing the oil consists 
of sandy clays resting on sandstones and 
slates. The lowest bed reached by the 
open wells, which are sometimes 60 feet 
deep, is a pale blue argillaceous slate. 
Under this is said to be coal (tertiary?) 
The oil drips from the slates into the wells, 
and is collected as at Baku. The annual 
product is variously stated at 412,000 hogs- 
heads, and at 8,000,000 pounds. 

The Burmese petroleum has been largely 
imported into Great Britain, and is employ- 
ed at the great candle manufactory of 
Messrs. Price & Co., at Belmont and Sher- 
wood. It is described as a semi-fluid naph- 
tha, about the consistence of goose grease, 
of a greenish brown color, and a peculiar, 
but not disagreeable odor. It is used by 
the natives, in the condition in which they 
obtain it, as a lamp- fuel, as a preservative 
of timber against insects, and as a medi- 
cine. It is imported in hermetically-closed 
metallic tanks, to prevent the loss of any 
of its constituents by evaporation. At the 
works it is distilled first with steam under 
ordinary pressure, and then by steam at 
successively increasing temperatures, with 
the following- results : — 



Temperature. 

Fahr. 
Below 212° 


Proportional 

product. 

11 


230° to 293° 


10 


293° to 320° 




320° to 612° 


20 


About 612° 


31 




(21 


Above 612° 


1 3 




( 4 



Character of product. 

Mixture of fluid hydrocarbons free from parafflne. 

" " " containing a little parafflne. 

Distillate very small in quantity. 
Containing parafflne, but still fluid at 32°. 

Product which solidifies on cooling, and may be submitted to pressure. 
Fluids with much parafflne. 
Pitchy matters. 
Residue of coke, and a little earthy matter in the still. 



Nearly all the parafflne may be separated 
from the distillates by exposing these to 
freezing mixtures; and the total product 
of this solid hydrocarbon is estimated at 10 
or 1 1 per cent. 

Other localities might be named which 
furnish these oils upon a less extensive 
scale, as in Italy, France, Switzerland, and 
Germany. In Cuba impure varieties of 
bitumen are met with flowing up through 
fissures in the rocks and spreading over the 
surface in a tarry incrustation, which some- 



times solidifies on cooling. In the island 
of Trinidad, three-fourths of a mile back 
from the coast, is a lake called the Tar 
Lake, a mile and a half in circumference, 
apparently filled with impure petroleum 
and asphaltum. The latter, more or less 
charged in its numerous cavities with liquid 
bitumen, forms a solid crust around the 
margin of the lake, and in the center the 
materials appear to be in a liquid boiling 
condition. The varieties contain more or 
less oil, and methods have been devised of 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



545 



extracting this; but the chief useful appli- 
cations of the material seem to be for 
coating the timbers of ships to protect them 
from decay, and in furnishing the asphal- 
tum used in France and the United States 
for pavement and for roofing purposes. 
By a process invented by Messrs. Atwood 
of New York the asphaltum was twice 
distilled, then subjected to treatment with 
sulphuric acid and an alkali, and further 
purified by permanganate of soda. A third 
distillation yielded an oil of specific gravity 
0.900, fluid at 32° F., and boiling at 000° F. 
In the United States the existence of 
petroleum has long been known, and the 
article has been collected and sold for me- 
dicinal purposes; chiefly for an external 
application, though sometimes administered 
internally. It was formerly procured by 
the Seneca Indians in western New York 
and Pennsylvania, and was hence known 
as Seneca or Genesee oil. At various 
places it was recognized along a belt of 
country passing from this portion of New 
York across the north-west part of Penn- 
sylvania into Ohio. In the last-named 
state it was obtained in such quantity in 
the year 1819, by means of wells sunk for 
salt water, that it is a little remarkable the 
value of the material was not then appre- 
ciated, and the means perceived of obtain- 
ing it to any amount. The following de- 
scription of the operations connected with 
the salt borings then in progress on the 
Little Muskingum, in the south-western 
part of the state, written in 1819, was first 
published in the American Journal of Sci- 
ence in 1826: "They have sunk two wells 
which are now more than 400 feet in depth; 
one of them affords a very strong and pure 
water, but not in great quantity. The 
other discharges such vast quantities of pe- 
troleum, or as it is vulgarly called, 'Seneka 
oil,' and besides is subject to such tremen- 
dous explosions of gas, as to force out all 
the water and afford nothing but gas for 
several days, that they make but little or 
no salt. Nevertheless, the petroleum af- 
fords considerable profit, and is beginning 
to be in demand for lamps in workshops 
and manufactories. It affords a clear bright 
light, when burnt in this way, and will be 
a valuable article for lighting the street 
lamps in the future cities of Ohio." Sev- 
eral coal-beds were penetrated in sinking 
these wells. In several of the southwestern 
counties of New York, the existence of pe- 



troleum and its products has been well 
known for more than 6l> years. In Chau- 
tauqua county, the hydrogen gas springs 
which furnish light to half the village of 
Fredonia, and more recently have come to 
the surface at another point, where they 
yield a much larger supply, are known to 
proceed from the lighter and more gaseous 
portions of petroleum deposits of a res- 
ervoir nearer the surface than most of 
those in Pennsylvania. 

In north-western Pennsylvania the exist- 
ence of oil in the soil along the valleys of 
some of the streams was known to the 
early settlers. One stream, in consequence 
of its appearance on the banks, was called 
Oil Creek. In other localities also it was 
noticed, and several flowing oil wells were 
in operation between 1829 and 1836 at 
some places in western Virginia and east- 
ern Kentucky. At Tarentum above Pitts- 
burg, oil was obtained by boring about the 
year 1845. Two springs were opened in 
boring for -salt, and they have continued 
to yield small quantities of oil, sometimes 
a barrel a day. This has been used only 
for medicinal purposes. On Oil Creek two 
localities were especially noted, one close 
to the northern line of Venango county, 
half a mile below the village of Titusville, 
and one 14 miles further down the stream, 
a mile above its entrance into the Alle- 
ghany river. All the way below the upper 
locality through the narrow valley of the 
creek are ancient pits covering acres of 
ground, once dug and used for collecting 
oil after the method now practiced in Asia. 
One of these at Titusville was found, after 
it was cleared out, to have been 27 feet 
deep and 5 or 6 feet in diameter, and to be 
cribbed up with logs to the top. In an- 
other, a notched tree was found still stand- 
ing in the position in which it had been 
used as a ladder. This kind of ladders 
were used by the Aztec and Pueblo In- 
dians in their mines in the west. It was 
at first supposed that these wells had been 
dug by whites, during the French occupa- 
tion of that country, but that idea was 
negatived by the fact that upon the earth 
thrown out in digging the wells, or in the 
wells themselves, trees were growing which 
were from 500 to 1.000 years old. They 
were probably dug by the mound builders, 
who are now supposed to have been con- 
temporaries of the Toltecs, and to have 
occupied this region about the 5th or 6th 



546 



PETROLEUM, OR ROCK OIL. 



century. It seems, however, from Day's 
''History of Pennsylvania," that the Seneca 
and perhaps other Indian tribes knew of 
these wells and used the oil as an unguent 
and in their religious worship. They 
mixed with it their paint with which they 
anointed themselves for war; and on oc- 
casions of their most important assemblages, 
as was graphically described by the com- 
mandant of Fort Duquesne in a letter to 
General Montcalm, they set fire to the scum 
of oil which had collected on the surface of 
the water, and at sight of the flames gave 
forth triumphant shouts which made the 
hills re-echo again. In this ceremony the 
commandant thought he saw revived the 
ancient fire worship, such as was once prac- 
tised in Baku, the sacred city of the Gue- 
bres or Fire Worshipers. 

The old maps of this portion of Pennsyl- 
vania indicate several places in Venango 
and Crawford counties where oil springs 
had been noted by the early settlers. 
They made some use of the oil, collecting 
it by spreading a woolen cloth upon the 
pools of water below the springs, and when 
the cloth was saturated with the oil wring- 
ing it out into vessels. The two springs 
referred to on Oil Creek furnished small 
quantities of oil as it was required, and 
from a third, twelve miles below Titusville 
in the middle of the creek, the owner has 
procured 20 barrels or more of oil in a 
year.* In 1854 Messrs. Eveleth and Bis- 
sell of New York purchased the upper 
spring, and leased mineral rights over a 
portion of the valley. They then obtained 
from Prof. B. Silliman, jr., of New Haven, 
a report upon the qualities of the oil, and 
in 1855 organized a company in New York 
called the " Pennsylvania Rock Oil Com- 
pany," to engage in its exploration. The 
same year a new company under the same 
name, formed in New Haven and organ- 
ized under the laws of Connecticut, suc- 
ceeded to the rights of the old company; 
but for two years they made no progress 
in developing the resources of the property 
they had acquired. In December, 1857, 
they concluded an agreement with Messrs. 
Bowditch and Drake of New Haven to 
undertake the search for oil. To the enter- 
prise of Col. G. L. Drake, who removed to 
Titusville and prosecuted the business in 



*See a pamphlet by Thomas A. Gale, published in Erie, 
Penn., 1860, entitled "Rock Oil in Pennsylvania and else- 
where." 



the face of serious obstacles, the region is 
indebted for the important results which 
followed. After a well had been sunk and 
curbed near the spring, ten feet square and 
sixteen feet deep, boring was commenced 
in the spring of 1859, and on the 26th of 
August, at the depth of seventy-one feet, 
the drill suddenly sank four inches, and 
when taken out the oil rose within five 
inches of the surface. At first a small 
pump threw up about 400 gallons daily. 
By introducing a larger one the flow was 
increased to 1000 gallons in the same time. 
Though the pumping was continued by 
steam power for months no diminution was 
experienced in the flow. The success of 
this enterprise produced great excitement, 
and the lands upon the creek were soon 
leased to parties who undertook to bore 
for oil for a certain share of the product, 
sometimes advancing besides a moderate 
sum to the owner. 

The country was overrun by explorers 
for favorable sites for new wells, and bor- 
ings were undertaken along the valley of 
the Alleghany river, and up the French 
Creek above Franklin. The summer of 
1860 witnessed unwonted activity and en- 
terprise in this hitherto quiet portion of the 
state, where the population had before 
known no other pursuits than farming and 
lumbering. Every farm along the deep, 
narrow valleys, suddenly acquired an extra- 
ordinary value, and in the vicinity of the 
most successful wells villages sprung up as 
in California during the gold excitement, 
and new branches of manufacturing were 
all at once introduced for supplying to the 
oil men the barrels required for the oil and 
the tools employed in boring the wells. 
From Titusville to the mouth of Oil Creek, 
about 15 miles, the derricks of the well 
borers were everywhere seen. On the Al- 
leghany river the number below Tidioute 
in Warren county, south into Venango 
county, showed that this portion of the dis- 
trict was especially productive, and the 
same might be said of the vicinity of the 
town of Franklin, both up the Alleghany 
river and French Creek. The wells had 
amounted to several hundred, or according 
to one published statement, to full 2000 in 
number before the close of the year, and 
from an estimate published in the Ymuxngo 
Spectator, (Franklin) 74 of these on the 
21st of November, 1860, were producing 
the following daily yield: — 



MIXING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



547 



No. of wells. Prod. bbln. 

On Oil Creek, 33 485 

" Upper Alleghany river, 20 442 

Franklin 15 139 

Two Mile Run, 3 64 

French Creek, 3 35 

Total, 74 1165 

The capacity of the barrel is 40 gallons, 
and at the low estimate of only 20 cents 
the gallon the total value of the daily 
product was not far from $10,000. The 
depth of the wells was in a few instances 
less than 100 feet. The shallowest one re- 
ported, belonging to the Tidioute Island 
Oil Company, was 67 feet deep, and its 
product was 30 barrels a day. In general 
the depth was from 180 to 280 feet; one 
well in Franklin was 502 feet in depth, 
and one on Oil Creek 425 feet. The deep- 
est wells were not the most productive, and 
the fact of their being extended beyond the 
ordinary depths was generally considered 
an evidence of their failure to produce 
much oil. There were exceptions, how- 
ever, to this, one of the deepest wells, that 
of Hoover and Stewart, three miles below 
Franklin, producing largely of excellent 
oil. 

By far the most extensive deposits of 
petroleum occur in N. W. Pennsylvania in 
the counties of Venango. Mercer, Craw- 
ford, and Warren. "Within the last few 
years, it has been discovered that w T hat is 
known as the Bradford district in McKean 
county, the next county east of Warren, 
had extensive deposits of a very fine oil, 
and many hundred wells have been bored 
there. In 1878, it was discovered that 
the southwestern portion of Alleghany 
county, New York, northeast of the Brad- 
ford district, was also rich in oil; and now 
there are 600 or more producing wells 
there (on Honeoye, Little Genesee, and 
Dodge Creeks, affluents of the Alleghany 
river). These yield nearly 13,000 barrels 
a day. More than three-fourths of all the 
petroleum of commerce comes from this 
region. Other districts which furnish con- 
siderable quantities are: the Mecca, Graf- 
ton, Vermillion, and Mapew valleys, in 
Ohio; Smith's Ferry on the boundary be- 
tween Ohio. West Virginia, and Pennsyl- 
vania; Parkersburg, W. Va.; Glasgow and 
Burkesville, Ky. ; Enniskillen and Gaspe, 
Canada; Sweetwater and Carbon Counties, 
Wyoming; the Tar Springs in Colorado; 
Bear Lake County, Idaho ; Iron and per- 



haps other counties in Utah; Santa Bar- 
bara and Humboldt counties in Calif oinia. 
The specific gravity, and sensible propertif s 
of the petroleum from these localities, dif- 
fer, in a very marked degree, in part, per- 
haps, from their geological position, and 
the variety of organic animal and vegetable 
matters from which they have exuded. 
They are found in every geological hoii- 
zon from the lower Silurian to the Tei tiary. 
The Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Canada de- 
posits, are in the Devonian, though in dif- 
ferent strata of it. The West Virginia and 
southeastern Ohio, are probably in the 
lower coal measures; the North Carolina 
deposits, which are small, are in the 
Triassic strata; that of California and mest 
of the western states and territories is in 
the Cretaceous and lower Tertiary, while 
that of Trinidad, of Italy, Germany, and 
Baku and Burmah are generally in the 
Miocene strata of the Tertiary. 

Another cause of this difference is found 
in the different vegetable and animal tis- 
sues from which they are evolved. The 
Carboniferous and Devonian foimations 
were deposited in eras of immense vege- 
table development, mainly of the palms, 
ferns, etc., and much the largest quantity 
of American oils is obtained from these 
formations. In this there is less of animal 
matter than in the rocks of a later age, and 
the oils are generally lighter and more 
volatile. This may be due also in part to 
the fact that in these rocks there are im- 
mense reservoirs between the strata, which 
are so completely closed to the air, that the 
lighter oils accumulate there in such quan- 
tities and under such pressure, that when 
they are reached by the boring tools, they 
will sometimes throw the boring tools a'nd 
a continuous jet of oil, one hundred feet 
or more into the air. 

There is also a great difference in the 
density, volatility, and vaporizing point of 
the different oils, and though all are hydro- 
carbons, yet the proportions of carbon and 
hydrogen differ, as do the products which 
can be obtained by distillation from them. 
The lighter oils belong chemically to the 
marsh -gas scries, in which the proportion 
of carbon in 100 atoms ranges from 82.80 
to 84.90 and of hydrogen from 17.20 to 
15.10. The heavier oils belong to the 
ethylene series, whose composition is very 
uniformly 85.71 carbon, and 14.20 hydro- 
gen. The boiling or vaporizing points of 



548 



PETROLEUM, OR ROCK OIL. 



these various compounds range from 34° F. 
to 698° F. .They are known by the names 
of naphthalene, gasolene, naphtha, benzine, 
the various grades of illuminating kerosene, 
astral oils, etc., to the lubricating oils, para- 
ffine, malthas, bitumen, and asphalt. The 
selection of localities which was originally 
almost a matter of chance is not so now. 
It is well understood in any formations 
known to be oil-bearing, between what 
strata the oil is likely to be found, and 
though the system of crevices and previous 
strata through which the oil flows in its 
subterranean currents, is very irregular 
and often interrupted, and the strata them- 
selves are of varying thickness, yet in cer- 
tain localities the reser v^oirs are pretty cer- 
tain to be reached within a few feet more 
or less. 

It is not to be denied, however, that a 
well which may be near other productive 
wells, and may have been bored in full 
accordance with the most positive indica- 
tions for reaching the subterranean oil 
reservoir may prove to be a dry well; the 
strata at that point may have been brought 
together so closely as to admit of no crev- 
ice or shallow place for a reservoir. But 
so thoroughly have the strata been traced 
in all their curves and dips that such acci- 
dents are much less common now than they 
were at first. The oil does not appear to 
be spread out, as the rocks lie in horizontal 
sheets, or if so there are many places where 
it does not find its way between the strata, 
and wells near together from which oil is 
pumped do not always draw upon each 
other. The valleys to which the early 
operations were limited, were narrow, and 
were bounded on each side by hills, the 
summits of which, from 250 to 400 feet 
above the bottoms, were on the general 
level of the country. The increased ex- 
pense that would be incurred in sinking 
from the upper surface and in afterward 
raising the oil to this height, as also the 
uncertainty of finding oil elsewhere than 
in the valleys, prevented the explorations 
from being extended beyond the creek and 
river bottoms; but it was not long before 
the capacity of the broad districts between 
the streams to produce oil was thoroughly 
tested. At first the most favorable sites 
were supposed to be near a break in the 
hills that formed the margin of the valley, 
as where a branch came into the main 
stream. An experiment was undertaken 



to test the high grounds west of Tidioute 
branch, which proved successful. 

As the bituminous coals are known as a 
source of hydrocarbon oils, it was natural 
to suppose that the springs of oil found 
near the coal region were fed from the 
coal-beds or bituminous shales of the coal 
formation. But it happens that only a few 
oil springs of western Pennsylvania have 
been struck in the coal-measures themselves, 
and that some of these are sunk into the 
underlying groups of rock to reach the 
supplies of oil. The oil districts are in 
general outside of the coal-field and upon 
the outcrop of lower formations which pass 
beneath the coal-measures, the whole nav- 
ing a general conformity of dip. Hence 
the slope of the strata is toward the coal, 
and an obstacle is thus presented to the 
flow of the oil from the coal-field toward its 
margin; and though under some circum- 
stances the elastic pressure of the carbu- 
retted hydrogen gas might force the oil con- 
siderable distances from its source, it was 
hardly to be supposed that this should first 
find its way down into lower formations 
and then be carried many miles (30 to 50) 
and find its outlet in another district, rather 
than to the surface at some nearer point. 
The strata of northwestern Pennsylvania 
lie nearly horizontally, their general in- 
clination being toward the south. The 
highest rock upon the summits of the hills 
of the oil region is the conglomerate or 
pebbly rock (the floor of the coal-meas- 
ures). Beneath this are sei'ies of thin bed- 
ded sandstones, slates, and shales, alternat- 
ing with each other with frequent repeti- 
tions. The shales, often of an olive green 
color, are readily recognized as belonging 
to the Chemung and Portage groups of the 
New York geologists — a formation which 
overspreads this portion of the country, ex- 
tending in New York two-thirds of the 
way toward Lake Ontario and as far east 
as Binghamton. It is also continued 
through Ohio, crossing the Ohio river at 
Portsmouth, and in this state is known as 
the Waverley series. Under this is a 
heavy bed of bituminous shale, 200 or 300 
feet thick, called in Ohio the black slate 
and in New York the Hamilton shales. 
This group contains an immense amount 
of carbonaceous matter, and oil is often 
disseminated through it. Sometimes it 
runs out in springs and finds an outlet by 
the occasional fissures in the beds. Dr. J. 



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MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



549 



S. Newberry, who lias given much atten- 
tion to this subject, is of opinion that this 
formation contains sufficient carbonaceous 
material to be the source of the oil, and 
that the more porous and open shales and 
sandstones of higher formations are its 
reservoirs. Such is the geological forma- 
tion of the Seneca oil region and of the 
oil springs of Canada West, which are the 
districts affording this product most remote 
from the coal-field. But though actual ex- 
perience alone can determine the extent 
of the quantities of oil stored up and the 
period they will last, there is certainly en- 
couragement to be drawn from the never- 
failing yield of the oil districts of Asia, 
which for centuries have poured forth with- 
out stint their rivers of oil. 

The sinking of wells is conducted after 
the usual method of boring artesian wells. 
After much uncertain consideration of the 
chances, a particular spot is selected, more, 
perhaps, from the hope of its being the 
right one than from any very practical 
grounds for the choice; but as the oil flows 
only in crevices among the strata, the loca- 
tion is frequently determined — other 
things being equal — by the prospect of 
reaching the rock at a few feet from the 
surface, and thereby avoiding the necessity 
of sinking an open well or driving pipes 
through unknown obstacles down to the 
rock. If the bed rock is found within ten 
or fifteen feet, the boring is begun at once. 
The derrick being raised, an elm, hickorj r , 
hemlock, or other elastic timber is cut 
down, some 25 or 30 feet in length. The 
larger end is fixed in a notch of a tree, or 
heavy post planted in the ground, and 
another post is set under it at a distance 
from the butt determined by the elasticity 
of the timber. The spring of the pole 
should be sufficient to raise the drill 
quickly, with its iron connecting rods, 
weighing often 300 pounds. The rods are 
suspended from the free end of the pole by 
a swivel or simple bolt-head, turning freely 
around. At the commencment of the bor- 
ing, the rods being very short do not 
weigh more, including the drill, than 70 or 
80 pounds. Two men, therefore, jerk 
them forcibly down, to increase the mo- 
mentum of the drill ; the spring of the pole 
immediately raises the drill for the next 
stroke, while at each blow a man gives it 
a slight turn so that it may cut a round 
hole. Several other methods are employed. 

69 



for making the pole spring; by one which 
is conveniently worked without employing 
steam or horse power, a sort of double 
stirrup is suspended from the pole into 
which two men place each a foot, and 
pressing the stirrup suddenly down it im- 
mediately springs up again with the drill 
This is much used, though some wells are 
sunk by horse-power machinery, and some 
by steam engines of four or five horse 
power. 

As the well is constantly deepening, 
while the stroke of the spring-pole (about 
30 inches) remains constant, a vertical ad- 
justing screw about 18 inches in length is 
attached to the end of the spring-pole; the 
rope is clamped to the lower end or nut of 
this screw, and then extended to the pul- 
ley above. As the well deepens, a slight 
turn of the screw lowers the rope with the 
rods attached to it. and thus keeps the drill 
always free to fall to the bottom with an 
equal stroke. The work is continued by a. 
constant succession of strokes, to a depth 
of about fifty feet, successive lengths of 
iron rods being screwed on as the hole 
deepens — increasing the weight of the tools 
to about 300 pounds. The use of any ad- 
ditional rods is then dispensed with, and 
the upper rod is suspended by a rope at- 
tached to the spring-pole, and continued 
above the pole around a pulley and wind- 
lass, used to raise the boring tools when it 
is necessary to draw them out. They are 
drawn up in this manner at intervals of an 
hour or two, in order to sharpen and tem- 
per the drill, and to make room for the 
sand-pump. This is a thin iron tube, a 
little more than half the diameter of the 
hole, with a simple valve at the bottom 
opening upward. It is lowered by a cord 
to the bottom of the well, then raised up 
with a jerk, and suffered to drop again by 
its own weight. This is repeated quickly 
eight or ten times; a whirl is thus pro- 
duced in the water below which stirs up 
the mud and small pieces of broken stone; 
as the tube drops, the mud and small 
stones enter the open valve and are retaim d 
when the tube is drawn out. 

The jarrers are employed to increase 
the force of the spring-pole when the drill 
happens to be wedged in the hole by 
broken pieces of stone or by other ob- 
structions. They are two rectangular 
links about 1 8 inches in length, formed of 
stout bars of iron, and connecting the upper 



550 



PETROLEUM, OR ROCK OIL. 



rods with the lower. When the drill de- 
scends to the bottom, the upper link as 
it descends, slips down eight or ten inches 
in the lower link, and when the pole 
springs up the upper link has the advan- 
tage of moving through this space, and 
thereby giving a sudden upward jerk to 
the drill rod. The force of this upward 
jerk is greatly increased by a heavy rod 
introduced above the upper link, and 
which, as it moves up, lends its momentum 
to the stroke. 

The hole is carried down by three men 
at different rates according to the nature 
of the strata encountered, varying from a 
foot or less to six feet in a day. In the 
hard sandstones of quartz pebbles firmly 
united together, two or three inches sink- 
ing in twelve hours may be all the progress 
practicable. The material brought up is 
carefully scanned for any oily appearance 
indicating the proximity of oil, and the 
well is watched to observe if any carbu- 
retted hydrogen gas escapes from it, which 
is considered a favorable sign. 

The process of drilling in the rock is 
considered by all concerned in boring for 
petroleum, a very simple- and even wel- 
come operation, especially when contrasted 
with the uncertainties and apprehensions 
that surround the driving of pipes. At the 
outset, the cost of four iron pipes and 
bands long enough to reach a depth of 
forty feet, is equal to that of & complete 
•set of boring tools with the rods and ropes 
sufficient to bore half a dozen wells of 300 
feet each in depth. There is often great 
uncertainty of knowing how deep the pipes 
will have to be driven, and it is impossible 
to foresee the various obstacles through 
which they have to go. When the work 
lias gone down successfully 70 or even 100 
feet, the lowest pipe is often suddenly 
broken or takes an oblique direction. The 
pipes in the ground are then abandoned, 
-and a new set driven in another place, 
although in several instances pipes reach- 
ing 60 feet in depth have been pulled up 
by a lever and axle, with chains or rods 
attached to a lewis wedge driven into the 
"bottom pipe. 

The pipes are of cast iron, generally ten 
or twelve feet long, about five inches bore, 
and the shell full an inch thick. The 
lower end of the first- pipe is not sharpened, 
but is driven down blunt as it comes from 
the mould. The pipes are fastened to- 



gether in the simplest manner possible, by 
wrought-iron bands, the ends being turned 
off, leaving a neck somewhat larger than 
the interior diameter of the bands, to re- 
ceive them when expanded by heat. 

Through common earth or gravel the 
pipes are forced down by the ordinary pro- 
cess of pile-driving; but when large stones 
are encountered, or round boulders as 
large as a man's head, there is great risk 
of breaking or turning the pipes. As 
soon, therefore, as the pipes meet with any 
great resistance the driving is suspended 
and the drill is applied to break up the 
stone or to bore a circular hole in it, which 
is afterward reamed out as large as the in- 
terior diameter of the pipes. The driving 
is then resumed, and in soft shales the 
pipes are often forced on, crushing down 
the sides of the hole, and making their 
way through to the depth of 12 or 15 
inches in the rocky stratum. 

The cost of boring a well 200 feet deep 
is generally estimated at from $1,000 to 
SI, 5 00. The latter sum includes the cost 
of all the tools and materials, and also of 
a small steam engine, a large tank of pine 
plank, in which the product is collected 
for the oil and water to separate, and it 
also allows for such accidents and delays 
as are common to these operations. 

A method now adopted in most of the 
new wells is called "shooting the well." 
and is the invention of a Mr. Roberts. 
When the well has been drilled into the 
oil producing rock, a can containing from 
40 to 60 pounds of nitro-glycerine is care- 
fully lowered to the bottom, and a small 
iron called a "go devil" is sent down after 
it, the operators meanwhile taking their 
flight to a safe distance. As the new wells 
are from 900 to 1200 feet deep, there is 
ample time for the escape. A dull thud is 
heard and a yellow stream of oil spurts up 
filling the derrick and shooting a hundred 
feet into the air, to fall against the wind 
in spray. Mr. Roberts' royalty is $215 
including the nitro-glycerine and tools. 
So there is some ''moonlighting," or ex- 
ploding without paying the royalty. 

When the oil is struck it often rises up 
in the well, sometimes flowing over the 
to">, and in several instances it has burst 
fo th in a jet and played like a fountain, 
• trowing the oil mixed with water high 
up into the air. Such jets have rarely 
lasted long, and are usually interrupted by 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



551 



discharges of gas, the elasticity of which 
drives out with violence the fluids mixed 
with it, as champagne wine is projected 
from a bottle on removing the cork. 
Hundreds of barrels of oil have, however, 
been wasted at some of the wells for want 
of means to collect it or stop its flow in its 
sudden first appearance. At "Williams' 
well, half a mile below Titusville, about 
100 barrels of oil were collected the first 
night the oil was reached, and a large 
quantity besides was lost. A similar event 
occurred near Tidioute, the oil rushing up 
so violently as to knock over the laborer 
who held the drill and to pass through the 
derrick and over the trees around. After 
a time the spouting wells become quiet 
and the oil settles down, so that it has to 
be raised by pumping. The pumps are 
contrived to work at any depth, and by 
men, or by horse power, or the steam en- 
gine. For a time at some of the wells the 
product has been water alone or water 
mixed with a little oil; and after pumping 
several days this has given place to oil 
with a moderate proportion of water. If 
the pumping be suspended for a day water 
accumulates, and it may be several days 
before this is drawn out and the former 
yield of oil recovered. The water is gen- 
erally salt. The flow of oil has rarely if 
ever been known to fail entirely except by 
reason of some obstruction in the wells, 
and in such cases it has usually returned 
after the hole has been bored out larger or 
made deeper. The supply is not, how- 
ever, altogether regular in any of the wells, 
even after the flow has settled down to a 
moderate production of 1 or 15 barrels a 
day. The maximum yield of a well for a con- 
siderable time is about 50 barrels a day, 
and from this the production ranges down 
to 4 barrels, below which it is considered 
insufficient to pay expenses. 

The oil and water are conducted from 
the pumps into the large receiving vats, 
and after the water has subsided the oil is 
barrelled for the market. 

Most of the oil from the Pennsylvania, 
New Y"ork, and Ohio wells is conducted to 
the sea and lake ports and the refineries by 
iron pipes laid along the whole route, and 
under the beds of large rivers. These are 
with some exceptions the property of the 
Standard Oil Company, a very rich and 
powerful corporation which has a control- 
ling influence over the whole Petroleum 



trade, though they have not hitherto used 
their power to the injury of the public. 
It has extensive refineries at Pittsburgh, 
Cleveland, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Bayonne| 
N. J., Long Island City and Brooklyn, 
N. Y., and other intermediate points. 

The product of the different wells varies 
somewhat in quality and value. At Frank- 
lin the oil for the most part is heavy, 
marking as low as 33° Baume, which cor- 
responds to specific gravity 0.864. Some 
of the wells furnish oils of 35° or 36° — on 
Oil Creek the range is from 38° to 4G°, at 
Tidioute 43°. The French Creek oils are 
heavy. It is not unlikely that the depth 
of the wells may have some effect upon the 
quality of the oil, as from very shallow 
wells those of the lighter varieties must be 
likely to escape by evaporation, leaving the 
heavier portions behind. The oils ob- 
tained at Mecca, Trumbull county, Ohio, 
are heavy oils, being thick like goose 
grease, and marking 26° or 27°, which is 
equivalent to specific gravity 0.900. At 
Grafton, Lorain county, Ohio, the oil is 
even darker and thicker than this, mark- 
ing about 25° B. 

With the exception of some light, clear 
oils of reddish color, the petroleum is usu- 
ally of a greenish hue, more or less deep 
and opaque. It has an offensive smell 
which is not entirely removed by the ordi- 
nary methods of deodorizing practiced in 
the refineries. The process of purification 
is similar to that of the coal oil manufac- 
ture, as already described. The propor- 
tion of light oils separated by distillation 
varies with the crude petroleum employed. 
The largest product is about 90 per cent., 
and from this less amounts are obtained 
down to about 50 percent. The proper- 
ties and uses of these products have already 
been considered in treating of coal oil. 

To complete this account of the petro- 
leum of the United States more particular 
mention should be made of the extension 
of the district from northwestern Penn- 
sylvania into New York on one side, and 
Ohio on the other. In Chautauqua, Catta- 
raugus, and Allegany counties. N. ^ .. 
many places where the appearance of small 
quantities of oil upon the surface, and the 
escape of jets of rarluuvtted hydrogen, in- 
dicated the existence of petroleum 1m 'lew: 
and the names of Olean and another Oil 
creek, a branch of the Genesee river, sug- 
gested the probability of this proving 



552 



PETROLEUM, OR ROCK OIL. 



another oil district. As we have else- 
where stated, these suggestions proved cor- 
rect, and the northern extension of the 
Bradford district into Allegany county is 
now one of the most productive oil fields 
in that region. 

In Ohio the oil-producing counties are 
Noble, Adams, Franklin, Medina, Lorain, 
Cuyahoga, Trumbull, Mahoning, and some 
others. Near Cleveland and in the valley 
of the Cuyahoga oil appears in many places 
but it has not yet proved of much impor- 
tance. The vicinity of Mecca, Trumbull 
county, is the most productive locality. 
The Canada oil region extends from Lon- 
don, Ontario, toward the St. Clair river. 

The California petroleum which created 
such a furor on its first discovery and ex- 
amination by Professor Silliman in 1863, 
and the failure of which caused such 
heavy losses, proved on further investiga- 
tion to be of an entirely different class 
from the Pennsylvania petroleums, contain- 
ing none of the lighter naphthas, and yield- 
ing no paraffine. A burning oil could be 
produced from this by distillation, which 
was of much higher density than the Penn- 
sylvania oils, but at a price too high to be 
profitable. 

The fortunes made from these oil wells 
in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, and 
Canada, in 1860, 1861, and 1862, gave 
rise to the wildest speculation, and the pe- 
troleum fever which set the whole country 
mad for three or four years, deserves to be 
classed with the Morus Multicaulis specu- 
lation of 1836-7, the Washoe Mining 
Mania of 1857, or the Tulip-mania, and the 
South Sea Bubble of John Law, in the last 
century. There was, indeed, a more solid 
substratum of fact on which to base the 
petroleum speculation ; the oil was found in 
great quantities and over a wide extent of 
territory, and there was a large demand 
for it both at home and abroad; but only 
a small proportion of the eleven hundred 
companies which were formed between 
1861 and 1865, with their six hundred 
millions of dollars of nominal capital and 
actual paid-up capital of perhaps 105 mil- 
lions, either owned or leased lands or oil 
wells. The crafty schemers who had 
raised the commotion and excitement, pre- 
ferred to make their money by the sale of 
stock, and if the proposed wells were to be 
bored, to let their successors undertake 
their development. The whole community, 



meantime, had become infatuated; it was 
difficult to find a man or woman in the 
city or country who had not taken at least 
a small venture in what seemed a royal 
road to fortune, while in reality the chance 
of ever getting their money back was not 
one in a thousand. Grave clergymen, 
eminent lawyers, learned doctors, shrewd 
bankers, literary and scientific men of the 
highest character, and with them, mer- 
chants, tradesmen, mechanics, farmers, and 
day-laborers, all purchased shares, and in 
many instances, invested the little savings 
reserved for old age or disaster in these 
very attractive certificates of stock, in oil 
wells of whose possible productiveness 
they knew nothing, and of whose locality 
they had only a vague idea. The process 
of getting up an oil company was generally 
something like this: A speculator, often 
without much capital, would visit the oil 
regions and procure, at a very low rate, 
the refusal of the lease of two, three, five, 
or ten acres of land moderately near the 
oil lands, but not on them, and return to 
New York or some of the other eastern 
cities. Then joining with some other 
speculators who had more money, the lease 
would be taken and derricks put up pre- 
paratory to boring for a well, the whole 
expenditure being perhaps $1,000 or 
$1,500. Then a company would be 
formed with a capital ranging fiom $1,200,- 
000 to $15,000,000, officers appointed, the 
gang of speculators being the officers, with 
perhaps some innocent whom they had 
roped in for secretary. The shares were 
sold at from 20 to 50 percent, of their par 
value, the speculators reimbursed, and 
perhaps $10,000 expended in boring one, 
two, or three wells, and flaming accounts 
sent out of the progress made, and the 
prospect for a grand flowing well of 200 
barrels a day. Perhaps oil was struck, 
then the price ran up, a dividend was 
made, the stockholders were congratulated 
on their valuable property, and there was 
general jubilation; but no second dividend 
was made, and after four or five years the 
great majority of the wells " died and made 
no sign," but a very few were closed up by 
the benevolent and conscientious specu- 
lators, at from half a cent to a cent on the 
dollar of the amount originally paid for 
the stock, and these smooth-faced hypo- 
crites divided the money among themselves 
and were ready for the next opportunity 



.1 



MINING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



553 



of swindling the public. It is safe to say 
that innocent stockholders were swindled 
out of five hundred millions of dollars by 
the petroleum speculation. It was a lot- 
tery in which 999 chances were against 
them, and the thousandth was not wholly 
in their favor. Counting up their pro- 
spective wealth, as prophesied in the glow- 
ing circulars of each new company, men 
who had never been worth a thousand 
dollars fancied themselves millionaires, and 
looked forward to the time when they 
should set up their carriage, and live in 
princely style. It was much that the 
bursting of this bubble did not involve the 
whole country in financial disaster; but it 
was really on so sound a basis that these 
great losses in 1866 and 1867, were borne 
without any serious panic. 

It was worthy of notice, that during the 
height of this speculative fever, the pro- 
duction of the oil so far from increasing 
as would naturally have been expected, 
actually diminished, and it was only after 
the oil had touched its lowest price that 
the constantly increasing demand induced 
a correspondingly large production. For 
several years the heavy internal revenue 
tax greatly discouraged production, and 
the markets were glutted with the com- 
modity so that prices ruled low. 

The following table shows the rapid 
growth of the export trade in petroleum ; 
and reckoning on the assumption, which 
the most extensive dealers assure is the 
true one, that from fifty to sixty -five per 
cent, of the annual production is exported, 
exhibits also an approximate estimate of 
the annual product. 

Here, then, is an item of production, 
now exported to the extent of 40 to 60 
millions of dollars a year, and sold to the 
annual amount of 75 millions, which was 



not, 22 years ago, produced to the extent 
of $100,000; yet this extraordinary devel- 
opment has only, to a very slight extent, 
supplanted the trade in other means of 
illumination and lubrication. The con- 
sumption of Olefiant gas has, as we have 
seen, greatly increased in the same time; 
whale oil, sperm oil, and lard oil, have 
largely declined. 

STATEMENT 

Showing the quantity of Crude Petroleum produced, 

and the quantity and value of Petroleum Products 

exported Ire m tlie United States (luring each of 

the fiscal years from 18(12 to 1881, inclusive. 



EXPORTS. 



g 55 PRODUC- 
ES TION. 



Mineral, crude, 
including all nat- 
ural oils without 
regard to gravity. 



Gallons. Gallons. 

21,387.033 

60,026.5321 
104,105,718 
101,846.dl0( 
132,959,400, 
150,859,800 
151.775.718 
169.955.436 
185.262.672 
233,468,550 
245,384,874 
304,178,406 
469,927,122 
423.520,776 
37(1,571.964 
454.560.582 
619,007,(104 
710.539,452 
635,266,398 
598,99S,442 



9.980,654 
12,293,897 

16.057.943 
7.344,248 

10,029,659 
13,425.566 
10,403.314 
9,869 03S 
13.559.768 
18.439,407 
17.776,419 
14.718,114 
20,520.397 
26,819.202 
26.936.727 
25.874.488 
28 297,997, 
89,984,844 



Dollars. 



Total, 
including Refined 

Naphtha and other 
Petroleum products. 



3,864,187 
6,868,513 
6.015,921 
1,864.001 
1,5.64,933 
2,994,404 
2,237 292 
Util|s4i 
2,307,111 
8,010,060 

2.099.6(16 

1.406,018 

2.220,268 
3.756.729 
2 691 018 

1180.413 

1,927.207 
3,065,464 



Gallons. 

10,387,701 

28,250,721 

23.210 369 

25.496,849 

50,987.341 

70,255,481 

79,450.888 

100,636,684 

113,735,294 

149,892.691 

145,171.583 

187.815,187 

247,806,483 

221,955.3118 

243,660.152 

8*0,198,914 

338,841,303 

378.310.010 

420,099 599 

398,005,609 



Dollars. 
1.539,027 
5.227.889 
10.782.689 
16 563.413 
24.830,887 
24,407.642 
21.810,670 
81,127,488 
82,668,900 
86.894,810 
34,058,380 
42.05(1.756 
41.245,818 
30,078,668 
32 915.786 
61 ,7!-9,43S 
46,574,974 
40.305,249 
36,218,626 
40,315,609 



For several years the fluctuations in the 
price of crude and refined petroleum were 
very great and very rapid ; but speculation 
having ceased it has now settled down to 
a scale of prices which pay a fair but not 
exorbitant profit on the cost of produc- 
tion. The average prices of 1880 were 7£ 
cents a gallon for crude, and 9£ a gallon 
for refined petroleum, and those of 1881 
w T ere a shade lower. 



LAND SETTLEMENT-INTERNAL TRADE. 



CHAPTER I. 

WESTERN SETTLEMENT AND TRADE. 

PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA POPULATION AND 

LAND SALE8 AVENUES TO THE VALLEY 

CANAL AND RAILROAD EXPENDITURES 

LAKE CITIES AND TRADE RECIPROCITY. 

The original colonies, settled as they were 
under different grants, circumstances, and 
powers, had many and conflicting claims to 
the then comparatively unknown land run- 
ning back to the Mississippi river, bounded 
on the north by the chain of lakes, and on 
the south by the Spanish territories of Flori- 
da and Louisiana, when there was a question 
of union into a confederacy. These various 
claims were a matter of dispute, which, from 
being serious, was settled by a mutual ces- 
sion of the lands to the federal government, 
in trust, for the common benefit of all the 
states then existing, or thereafter to be- 
come members of the Union. The federal 
government having thus become owner of 
the lands, the constitution conferred upon 
Congress the power "to dispose of and 
make all needful rules and regulations re- 
specting the territory and other property 
belonging to the United States." The ob- 
vious policy of the government, like that of 
every other thrifty owner, was at once to 
attract settlers to these lands, thereby mak- 
ing them serviceable to the whole people as 
fast as possible. To do so, the lands were 
to be sold cheap, and as few formalities as 
possible placed in the way of the settlers. 
The domain was organized under the control 
of the Secretary of the Treasury, being ad- 
ministered under him by a commissioner of 
the land office. The whole domain was 
divided into districts, for each of which 
there is a surveyor-general, under whom the 
territory was subdivided for survey into dis- 
tricts. For each district there was a land 
office, occupied by a register and a receiver. 
A plan was prepared of each district by the 
surveyors, with the utmost care, showing 



ranges, sections, and townships, with topo- 
graphic characteristics. Of this plan there 
were three copies; one is retained at the 
land office, one by the surveyor, and the 
third is sent to the general office at Wash- 
ington, where it serves to regulate all tran- 
sactions. The land being all surveyed 
into sections of 640 acres each, was offered 
for sale by the government at auction, at 
a minimum price of $1.25 per acre. After 
the land had been on sale two years it 
maybe sold in 160 to 40 acre-lots. The 
actual occupant of any land offered had 
the pre-emption to it. The buyer of the 
land paid the money to the receiver, and 
took for it a receipt, of which the register 
sent a duplicate, with a certificate of the 
sale, to Washington. On the verification 
of the sale there, the deed of the land, 
called a "patent," was made out, and 
sent to the local land office register, who 
gave it to the purchaser in exchange 
for the receipt he held, and his title 
was then complete. In addition to the 
attractions of low prices and pre-emption 
rights, long credits were originally given, 
to enable the settler to pay for the land 
out of its proceeds. The abuses which 
sprung up led to a modification of the 
methods of sale, at different times. Large 
grants were also made for military pur- 
poses, to schools and universities, to states 
for internal improvements, for seats of 
government, public buildings, benefit of 
Indians, salines, swamp lands, and lastly, 
in aid of canals and railroads — the con- 
struction of which aided the settlement 
of those lands at a distance from large 
water courses, and therefore from mar- 
kets. The first land office was opened in 
1800, at Chillicothe. Ohio. The first sales 
of land, however, took place in New York 
three years before, and in that year a tri- 
angle on the lake was sold to Pennsylvania, 
in order to give her a port on the lake. That 
port is Erie, and is famous for the building 



LAND SETTLEMENT INTERNAL TRADE. 



555 



of Perry's fleet there in 1812, in seventy 
days from the time the wood stood in the 
forest until the stars and stripes floated to 
the breeze of the lake from the mast-head. 
That fleet was fatal to British supremacy on 
the lakes. Almost all the land sales took 
place in Ohio, until 1807, when offices were 
opened in Indiana and Mississippi. In 1809 
an office was opened in Alabama, and in 
1814 one in Illinois; in 1818 in Missouri, 
Louisiana, and Michigan. The sales of the 
lands proceeded with great activity in most 
of these states up to 1821, particularly 
after the embargo and war had turned 
attention from commerce and navigation to 
agriculture and manufacture. Nearly all 
the lands of the government were then in 
the great valley of the Mississippi. This is 
a vast basin, the sides of which are the 
eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains on 
the west, and the western slopes of the Al- 
leghany Mountains on the east. The chain 
of great lakes stretches across the northern 
end of the basin, and the Mississippi river 
flows through its centre to the Gulf of Mexi- 
co, receiving on its eastern side the Illinois, 
the Ohio with its affluents, and other 
large rivers which flow generally west from 
the water-shed of the Alleghanies ; and on 
its western side the Missouri and other large 
rivers whose waters descend from the east- 
ern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. The 
only outlets to this vast basin were by the 
St. Lawrence River (not then navigable, how- 
ever) north to the ocean, and the Mississippi 
river south to the gulf. Hardy pioneers 
did penetrate across the mountains, by a 
perilous seven weeks' journey, to the Ohio ; 
but once there, intercourse was but limited 
with the east. The fertile soil was, how- 
ever, attractive, and the Indian trade profit- 
able. In 1790 the whole population west 
of the mountains was 108,868 souls, or 
about 3 per cent of the whole population of 
the Union. In 1800 that population had 
increased to nearly 400,000, but the only 
outlet for their produce was down the Mis- 
sissippi through the French territory of 
Louisiana. That circumstance led to great 
dissatisfaction, and being adroitly handled 
by the political adventurers of that day, 
threatened disunion, by dissolving the states 
east and west — the latter to form a new 
confederacy with the south-west and Mexico. 
Tin; remedy was to purchase Louisiana. 
Fortunately, at the moment Napoleon had 
relinquished his projects of forming French 



colonies ; also being determined on war with 
England, he feared the seizure of Louisiana 
by that power, and determined to sell it to 
the United States for $14,984,872. This 
money, in 1803, gave him the Binewa of war, 
and also the hope that the transaction would 
embroil the United States with his enemy. 
England did at a later period attempt t<> 
take the territories. But the troops who 
had driven the French out of Spain, em- 
barked from England for the enterprise only 
to encounter the bloodiest defeat before 
cotton bags and western rifles. Louisiana 
was then possessed of a certain amount of 
population and wealth, which, from being 
French, by annexation became American. A 
considerable commerce had grown up. The 
amount of trade then existing between the 
eastern and western states may be gathered 
from the official returns of exports to New 
Orleans, in the four years before it was an- 
nexed, as follows : — 



States. 



1799. 



1S00. 



1802. 



Atlantic, 3,504,092 2,035,789 1,907,998 1,224,710 
Western, 1,124,842 1,596,640 



Total, $3,504,092 2,035,789 3,032,840 2,821,350 

The exports from the Atlantic States were 
mostly foreign merchandise destined for ex- 
port up the western rivers. The exports of 
the western states were the produce sent 
down for sale. Those exports were the 
productions of hardy adventurers, whom 
circumstances had induced to seek their for- 
tunes in the west. As long as the commerce 
of the country was active, and the sales of 
the farm products of the Atlantic states 
profitable, there was less inducement to mi- 
grate west than there was after the embargo 
had wrought a change in that respect, and 
the means of communication via New Or- 
leans had improved. When that port be- 
came an American city, and the mighty 
river to its mouth an American Btream, a 
new attraction was added to the fair lands 
of the valley, and in 1810 its population 
had risen to 878,315. The impulse thus 
given to western settlement was strength- 
ened by the effects of war upon the Atlantic 
states. The interruption of commerce and 
stagnation of exports threw out of employ- 
ment large numbers, who now turned an 
inquiring £aze beyond the mountains. The 
capital of the east thrown out o( commercial 
employment by the same circumstances, 
flowed eagerly into banking, in the hope of 



556 



WESTERN SETTLEMENT AND TRADE. 



deriving large profits from the growing re- 
sources of the west ; although inevitable 
disaster followed the erroneous principles 
on which that banking was conducted, the 
capital, so lost to stockholders, really pro- 
moted agriculture. Instead of confining 
themselves to advances on produce shipped, 
the institutions loaned money to make im- 
provements and build houses that the farm 
profits could not pay for. The result was 
ruin to those accepting such advances, and 
insolvency to the banks making them. 
From 1810 to 1820 six states grew into the 
Union, while in the fifteen years that fol- 
lowed 1821 none were admitted. 

This is an instructive fact, and it indicates 
that western land speculation, so much over- 
done at those periods, was a long time 
in recovering itself. The process of forming 
new states is mostly a speculative one. The 
shrewdest operators get possession of the 
leading " sites " of future cities, and by 
stimulating and guiding the tide of migra- 
tion, become wealthy in the rise of prices that 
the tide creates around them. As the wealth- 
iest names of the eastern cities wero men 
eminent in commercial enterprise, so were 
those of the western cities the earliest and 
most extensive land-holders. The political 
influence which brings the government pat- 
ronage upon the theatre of such locations, 
is a part of the machinery to guide the pop- 
ular movement. When in seasons of specu- 
lation, these operators become possessed of 
considerable tracts, a period of steady and 
healthy migration is required to distribute 
possession among settlers and clear the way 
for a new excitement. Yearly the trade grows 
by reason of the increasing surplus that the 
settlers can send to market, and which 
being sold increases their ability to buy 
merchandise in return. 

There are no data by which to measure 
the growth of trade in those western states 
after the admission of Louisiana, up to 
within forty years, since the accounts were 
kept only for the foreign trade, and when 
Lotiisiana became a state reports were no 
longer made. The sales of lands, and 
population of the new states, progressed 
as follows, however : — 

1790 to 1800 1800 to 1810 
Population, increase, 276,769 492,678 

Sales of land, acres, 1,536,152 3,008,982 



Population, increase, 
Sales of land, acres, 



1810 to 1820 
1,201.248 
8,499,673 



Total, 1820 
2,079.663 
13,044,807 



So rapid had been the settlement from 
1810 to 1820. The agricultural productions 
of that region, as a matter of course, fol- 
lowed this rapid settlement of lands, and the 
exchange of those productions created a 
large trade of which there is little record. 
The mines and manufactures sprung up in 
the several towns, following the wants of the 
people. 

The cession of Louisiana to the United 
States had produced a dispute in relation to 
its boundaries between this country and 
Spain, which then owned Florida. This dis- 
pute became very warm in 1819, when it was 
settled through the mediation of the French 
minister, by a cession of east and west Flor- 
ida by Spain to the United States, in con- 
sideration of being released from claims for 
spoliation of American property to the extent 
of $4,985,599, which the United States gov- 
ernment undertook to pay its own citizens. 
The coast line of the United States thus 
became complete. There were now large 
interests west of the Alleghanies, a popula- 
tion of over 2,000,000 souls, occupying fer- 
tile land, capable of any development, and 
great numbers were interested in the rapid 
appreciation of those lands by settlement. 
The want of communication was a great ob- 
stacle. It required seven weeks to reach the 
newly settled cities of the west; and when 
during the war of 1812 it was necessary 
to send a gun from New York city to Buf- 
falo, it cost six weeks of time and $ 1 ,000 in 
money to do it. There could be litttle trade 
under such circumstances, and the question 
was to open communication. A canal from 
the lakes to tide water on the Hudson was 
commenced in 1817, and completed in 1825. 
This Erie canal cost $7,143,789, and soon 
paid for itself, being the most profitable, as it 
was the greatest of modern improvements. 
It opened the door for the great western val- 
ley to tide water, and by doing so wrought an 
immense change in the condition and pros- 
pects of all that region. In October, 1823, 
New York had also completed the Cham- 
plain canal, running 63 miles, from Albany 
to Lake Champlain, at a cost of 81,179,871. 
Pennsylvania, in 1825, passed an act for the 
connection of Pittsburg, on the Ohio, with 
Philadelphia, a distance of 394 miles. This 
line was not completed until 1834. In 1828, 
a company was chartered to connect the 
Ohio with Georgetown, on the Potomac, by 
the Chesapeake and Ohio canal. These 
works gave three outlets from the great basin 



LAND SETTLEMENT INTERNAL TRADE. 



557 



to tide water. While yet they were in pro- 
cess of construction, however, a new power 
was being developed to supersede them for 
trade and light freights. In 1828, Massa- 
chusetts had 3 miles of railroad ; from that 
nest-egg capital has since hatched 103,000 
miles, which cover the country like a net- 
work. The opening of the Erie canal was 
attended with great results, since it placed 
the produce of western lands cheaply in com- 
petition with that of the valley of the Hud- 
son, and of the less productive states of the 
Atlantic coast. Commerce and manufactures 
increased, for the reason that agriculture paid 
less. The supply of labor changed direction, 
and the increasing numbers in manufacturing 
employments drew their subsistence from the 
west. The natural water courses that dis- 
charged themselves into the lakes were lined 
with settlers, and soon Ohio connected the 
lakes with the Ohio river, by a canal from 
Cleveland to Cincinnati, and also to Ports- 
mouth. Indiana projected a canal from 
Toledo, on the lakes, to the Ohio river, cut- 
ting the state nearly longitudinally; and 
Illinois projected one from Chicago to the 
navigable waters of the Illinois river, thus 
connecting the lakes with the Mississippi 
river, nearly opposite the old French town 
of St. Louis — across the state. These works 
were not completed, some of them, until ten 
or fifteen years after they were undertaken. 
That of Ohio, however, gave a new impulse 
to trade, not only by Cleveland, on the lakes, 
but by way of Cincinnati, down the river to 
New Orleans. These circumstances gave a 
new impulse to the sales of land and the 
settlement of the west. The expenditure of 
money for the construction of canals, and by 
the federal government for the construction 
of the great national road running west from 
the seat of government to the Mississippi, 
inaugurated the speculative movement in 
that direction. The bank fever then raged 
once more in support of the land move- 
ment, as it had done in the six years end- 
ing with 1820, and with the same results. 
$200,000,000 of money went from east to 
west, feeding the flame, until all real capital 
was nearly consumed, and the speculation 
ran wild until it burst in 1837. At that 
time a large quantity of land had passed, 
under the credit sales of the federal govern- 
ment, into the hands of private speculators, 
and the western fever lay dormant up to the 
revival that it experienced in 1846-7, by 
reason of the famine abroad, and the growing 



strength of the migration. Attention was 
then again turned to the lands, and the rail- 
road expenditure began to exert the same 
influence that canal and bank expenditure 
had exercised in 1836, and the movement 
was progressive until the revulsion of 1857. 

The natural water courses of the country 
had been followed by early migrations, and 
the settlement of the land bordering them 
had been stimulated by the bank paper 
speculation of 1810 to 1820. Following the 
excitement came the construction of the 
artificial means of navigation, involving an 
expenditure of some $50,000,000 for canals 
through new lands opened up by their opera- 
tion ; and these enterprises were again at- 
tended with a great bank expansion, that, 
although ending disastrously, nevertheless 
had the effect of drawing capital from Eng- 
land and the wealthier Atlantic states to 
spread it upon the fertile lands of the west. 
The subsidence of that speculation left the 
west in comparative quiet, although of gene- 
ral progress, for some years, during which a 
new and more powerful element of internal 
development was coming into action. This 
was the railroad system. 

The first railroad of the country was three 
miles, built in Quincy, Massachusetts, and in 
operation in 1828, about the time the suc- 
cess of the Manchester railroad in England 
astonished the world with the new phenom- 
ena of locomotion. The example was not 
slow of imitation in this country; and the 
Boston and Providence railroad, uniting those 
cities by forty miles of rail, to connect with 
the steamboats to New York, was soon in 
operation. Its success caused other works to 
be undertaken in New England, and when 
the Western road was projected, to con- 
nect Albany with Boston, it gave the city a 
direct connection with the Hudson river and 
the Erie canal. New York projected the Har- 
lem railroad ; and from Albany several roads 
extended west, connecting city after city, 
until the united lengths of 380 miles made a 
continuous route to Buffalo — afterward, in 
1850, consolidated in the New York Central 
railroad. Another road — the Erie — to con- 
nect New York with Lake Erie at Dunkirk 
(459 miles), through the lower tier of coun- 
ties, was commenced in 1842 and completed 
in 1 853. Baltimore projected the connection 
with Wheeling, on the Ohio, 380 miles, by 
rail, and Philadelphia connected Pittsburg, on 
the Ohio, 329 miles, by a line of works which 
became subsequently a continuous railway. 



558 



WESTERN SETTLEMENT AND TRADE. 



The New York railroads were not allowed 
by law to carry freight until 1800, except 
on payment of the canal tolls. The Canada 
roads connecting Detroit and Buffalo, and 
Detroit with Portland and Boston had had 
the advantage of them, but after 1850 there 
were five routes from the Atlantic to Chi- 
cago. The following was the arrangement 
in 1850, but has been entirely revolutionized 
since that time : 

New York to Chicago, via Erie, Lake Shore, and 

Michigan Southern, 957 

New York to Chicago, via Central, Canada, and 

Michigan Central, 957 

Philadelphia to Chicago, via Pittsburg and Fort 

Wayne 823 

Baltimore to Chicago, via Ohio Central, 942 

Portland to Chicago, via Canada and Mich. Central, 1,133 

There had been, meanwhile, many western 
roads built in important localities, which 
had much favored the export of food in 
answer to the foreign demand growing out 
of the famine of 1846-7. In the year 1850, 
the federal government made a grant of 
land of about 2,500,000 acres to the state 
of Illinois, in aid of the construction of the 
Central railroad, which was to connect 
Galena, on the Mississippi, and Chicago on 
the lake, with Cairo, at the junction of the 
Ohio and Mississippi rivers. The two 
roads leaving respectively Galena and Chi- 
cago, run south, converging until they 
meet at a point 125 miles from Cairo, and 
thence proceed together. The state, not 
being able to do this herself, made over 
the lands to a company, on condition that 
they should construct the road. This was 
commenced in 1852, and finished in 1857, 
at a cost of $35,000,000. The tract given 
by the government was in size equal to the 
whole state of Connecticut, and was a part 
of 11,000,000 acres that had been over 15 
years in the market without finding buyers. 
The fact that the railroad was to run 
through them, and spend $25,000,000, and 
employ 10,001) men in the building of the 
road, rnxle the lands attractive, and excited 
speculation. At about the same time the 
state of Michigan sold the Michigan Cen- 
tral road and the Southern Michigan road 
to two companies, on the condition of their 
finishing them, which was done in 1852, 
establishing a connection between Detroit 
and Chicago. About the same time the 
Galena and Chicago railroad was com- 
menced and finished in 1S52, making a 
direct communication from the river at 
Galena to Chicago, prolonged by the Mich- 
gan roads to Detroit, and thence later by 



the Lake Shore to New York, by the Erie 
or the Central railroads, or via the Canada 
route to Portland or to Boston. Subse- 
quent connections have been made with 
the Pennsylvania and the Baltimore roads ; 
and the western connections of Chicago 
and Milwaukee have been pushed under a 
vast expenditure of money. The inaugura- 
tion of land grants by government, in the 
case of the Illinois Central, has been fol- 
lowed by grants to other states for the 
same object, until all the grants amount to 
144,000,000 acres ; of this amount 45,- 
150,000 acres had been patented up to 
July 1, 1880, and nearly 20,000,000 acres 
since. These grants rapidly developed 
southern connections, until several routes 
are now complete between Chicago and 
New Orleans. Other roads formed a con- 
tinuous route from Eastport, Maine, to 
New Orleans, 2,100 miles. 

The progress of the construction by miles 
in each locality has been as follows, in peri- 
ods of ten years : 



1S28. . 
1830.. 
1840.. 

1850.. 
1860. . 

1870.. 
1880.. 



3 
3 
. 444 
.2,396 
.3,824 
4,274 
.6,018 



38 

1,436 

2,925 

8,176 

10.791 



6 

461 

1,415 

5,552 

11.132 



us -. 

c 9 

3 
43 

2.369 

7,777 
28.270 



28 
1,041 
10,718 
22,664 48,861 



O 

$2-31,101 

3.501,100 

9s, 170,1101 

891,482,101 

1.009,172.000 

2.212.412,719 



15,991 14,911 56,728 93,647 5,126,000,000 

The quantity of railroad iron imported 
in ten years, to 1850, was 242,449 tons, at 
a cost of $9,603,587. In the thirty-two 
years ending with 1881, the quantity im- 
ported was 6,135,148 ton^, at a cost of 
$379,786,769. This number of tons suffi- 
ces for 52,285 miles of road, at 70 lbs. to 
the yard. From 1855 (which was about 
the beginning of our production of iron 
rails in this country) to January 1, 1882, 
the production of iron and steel rails in 
this country has been 14,720,282 net tons 
— more than 21 times the quantity im- 
ported. This fact, never heretofore pub- 
lished, shows that we have not been so 
entirely dependent on Great Britain for 
railroad iron as our free-trade friends 
would have us believe. Our iron and steel 
rails have been at all times superior in 
quality to the British, and if we estimate 
them at the same value, we are certainly 
not exaggerating their price. This would 
make the total value of American rails for 
this period of 27 years about $747,000,000, 
more than sufficient for 120,000 miles of 



LAND SETTLEMENT INTERNAL TRADE. 



559 



railway. The money expended upon the 
roads in the employment of men and in 
the manufacture of superstructure, rolling 
stock, etc., of itself caused an immense 
activity and demand for produce, which, 
as a matter of course, became scarce and 
high upon the theatre of such expenditure. 
The manufacture of superstructure, cars, 
locomotives, stations, etc., were the means 
of employing great numbers of men. The 
railroad iron, of which the manufacture 
requires the investment of much capital, 
was alone imported to the extent we have 
shown. The remaining portions of the 
railroads were manufactured at home. The 
first locomotives in the United States were 
imported from England in the fall of 1 829 
or spring of 1830. The first Stephenson 
locomotive ever imported was the "Robert 
Fulton," in 1831, for the Mohawk and 
Hudson railroad. The first locomotive built 
in this country was constructed at the 
West Point foundry in 1830, for the South 
Carolina railroad. Since then the im- 
provement in the manufacture of locomo- 
tives has been so successful as to admit of 
the export of thousands of American ma- 
chines. As the roads were completed, and 
the hands, numbering at least 200,000 men 
so employed, were discharged, they nat- 
urally turned their attention to the agricul- 
ture of the neighborhood where they had 
been employed, and production thus suc- 
ceeded to consumption. The effect of the 
railroad expenditure upon the grain crops 
is to some extent indicated in the following 
table of miles of roads in operation in the 
western states at the periods named, and 
the population and corn product of those 
states : — 



1S50. 



Miles of 
Road. 



Ohio 


299 


Induing, 


S6 




22 


Iowa 




Michigan, .. . 


344 


Wisconsin,.. 




Missouri, 





Popula- 
tion. 

1,980,380 

982,405 
861 ,170 
193,814 
897,654 
806.891 
683,044 



Bushels of 
Coin. 

59,078.095 
53,964,363 
57.040.9S l 
8,050,799 
5,041,420 
1,988,379 
36,214,537 



Bushels of 
Wheat. 

14,487,851 
6,314,468 

9,414.575 
1,530,581 
4.935,869 
4,386,181 

2,981,052 





751 


5,391,507 


222,191,177 


43,840,037 


187". 
Ohio 


3.724 


2,075. 168 


65, 250.005 


87,883,159 


Indiana 


2.977 


1,668.169 


78, ono. in io 


87,747,133 




4,708 


2,507.030 


121.500.000 


80,188,405 




2.141 


1,181,859 


7S.500.000 


89. 185,693 


Michigan, .. 


1.200 


1,184.658 


1 1,100,000 


16.365,778 


Wisconsin,. 


1,491 


1,055 501 


9,600.000 


85,606.34 I 


Missouri,. . . 


1,887 


1,735,658 


80,500.1 MM) 


1 1,816,936 



Tola!.... 
Increase, 



18,008 18,051,844 
17,317 6,000,337 



445,850,006 171,681,431 

223,158,828 127,540,784 



1880. 

Ohio 7,400 3,198,062 111,877,121 48.014.869 

Indiana,.... 5,009 1,978,301 115,4*2,300 47 2 

Illinois 9,388 8,077,871 886,792,481 51 

lo«'a, 8,853 1,021,015 275,024,247 31] 

Michigan,... 8,6t»7 1,030,937 82,401,452 

Wisconsin,.. 5,034 1.315,497 34,280,579 -•(--- !»;-•» 

Missouri,.... 8,876 3,168,880 202,485.723 -r< 

Total 37,227 14.999,003 1,097,853,906 202.9 is 288 

Increase,... 19,109 2,917,817 653,008,901 119,448.888 

In other words, the population of these 
seven states had increased in these 30 
years (1850-1880) 9,608,156; the railroads 
36,476 miles; the corn crop 875,162,729 
bushels, and the wheat crop 219,107,651 
bushels, the value of this increase being 
very nearly $500,000,000 at the ruling 
prices, or the entire cost of all these rail- 
roads in less than two years. 

But meantime there had grown up in 
this bountiful "West five other states and 
two territories, now fast filling with rail- 
roads, whose grain crops are already rival- 
ing those of the first seven, thirty years 
ago. They are follows : — 

States and Railroads, Popula- Bushels of Bushels of 

Territories. 1880. tion, 1880. Corn,1880. Wheat, 1880. 

Minnesota,.... 4.020 780.773 14.^1.741 84,601,080 

Dakota 209 135.177 3.000.864 3,830.389 

Nebraska 2,783 452,102 66,450,135 13,847,107 

Kansas, 1,845 990,090 105,7-9.325 17,334,141 

Oregon 588 174,708 136.863 7,480,010 

Washington, .. 274 75.116 39,183 1,921,333 

California, 3.838 864,694 1,998,836 39,017,707 

Total, 12 553 3,478,900 190,171,435 107,021,506 

In other words, these seven states and 
territories in 1880, had about two-thirds 
the population of the first seven in 1850, 
but with 18 times as many miles of rail- 
road they produced nearly as much corn, 
and two and a half times as much wheat 
as the first seven. Had the comparison 
been made with 1881, the difference would 
have been as much greater as the prepon. 
derance of railroads would have been la i ger, 
the wheat crop alone reaching about 150 
millions. 

We may now observe what had been the 
actual sales of the public lands by the 
ernment in the sixty years ending with 
1880, to June 30th, when the fiscal year 
ends, divided into periods of ten years 
each; the first, being that of recovery from 
the speculation that attended the close of 
the war; the second, embracing the period 
of bank and canal building excitement; the 
third, that of recovery from thai excite- 
ment; the fourth, that of the last g 
railroad building excitement; the fifth, the 
Civil War with its depression and i 
tion; the sixth, the financial depression of 



560 



"WESTERN SETTLEMENT AND TRADE. 



1372, and the great emigration westward 
which followed it. The quantity sold dur- 
ing the fifty years was, it appears, 160,- 
588,005 acres, besides about 286,000,000 
acres granted to agricultural colleges, rail- 
roads, homesteads, military service, etc. 

ANNUAL SALES OF LAND BY THE FEDERAL 





GOVERNMENT. 








Acres. 




Acres. 




Acres. 


1821, 


822.185 


1831, 


2,804,745 


1841, 


1,164,796 


1823, 


763,811 


1832, 


2,411,952 


1842, 


1,129,217 


1823, 


638,749 


1833, 


3,856,227 


1843, 


1,605,264 


1824, 


723.038 


1834, 


4,658,218 


1844, 


1,754.763 


1825, 


871,619 


1835, 


12,564,478 


1845, 


1,843,527 


1826, 


839,263 


1836, 


20,074,870 


1846, 


2,263,730 


1827, 


905,937 


1837, 


5,601,103 


1S47, 


2,521,305 


1828, 


946,660 


1838, 


3,414,907 


1848, 


1,887.553 


1829, 


1,236,445 


1839, 


4,976,382 


1849, 


1,329.902 


1830, 


1,880,019 


1840, 


2,2-36,889 


1850, 


769.364 


Total, . . 


9.627,716 




62,599,771 




16,269,421 


Pop.,*.. 


2,233,880 




3,707,299 




10,454,245 




Acres. 




Acres. 




Acres. 


1851, 


1,846,847 


1861, 


| 


1871, 


7,118,876 


1852, 


1,553,071 


1862, 




1872, 


7,247,904 


1853, 


1,083,495 


186a, 


> 9,109,075 


1873, 


6,386,415 


1854, 


7,0.35,735 


1864, 




1874, 


4,783,819 


1856, 


15,729,624 


1865, 




1875, 


3,791,655 


1856, 


9,227,878 


1866, 


4,629,313 


1876, 


4,291.943 


1857, 


4,142.744 


1867, 


7,041,114 


1877, 


3.-195.030 


1858, 


3.804,908 


1868, 


6,655,743 


1878, 


7.2i 9,541 


1859, 


3,961,580 


1869, 


7,666,152 


1879, 


8,724,371 


1860, 


4.000,000 


1870, 


6,663,441 


1880, 


9,166,918 


Total, . . 


52,385,782 




41,764,&38 




62,216,522 


Pop.,*.. 


15,081,894 




17,217,610 




23,498,715 



* Of land, states and territories. 

The total sales of land, from the open- 
ing of the land offices to 1880, including 
grants under the homestead laws, were 
244,864,050 acres. There have been also 
issued land warrants to soldiers, which 
have taken up large portions of the land. 
These warrants are for 160 acres, 120 acres, 
80 acres, and 40 acres, and have been sold 
in the markets at $1 per acre for the smal- 
ler lots, and about 80cts. the larger war- 
rants, by which means the lands come less 
to the buyer. In addition to the lands 
sold, the government has donated 

acres to schools; 6,851,989 acres to agri- 
cultural colleges; 44,971 to deaf and dumb 
asylums; 12,403,054 to internal improve- 
ments; 2,240,184 to individuals; 146,830 to 
seats of governments; 61,028,430 to mili- 
tary services; 150,756,579 Indian reserves; 
17,645,244 private claims; 175,987,069 
swamp lands, granted to states; 46,343,325 
to railroads, etc. ; reserved for individuals, 
companies, and corporations, 8,955,394 
acres; and there remain unsold lands on 
hand, the trifle of 1,062,231,727 acres. 

The population of the land states had 
increased, it appears, from 2,233,880 in 
1830, to 23,498,715 in 18S0, during which 
period of fifty years, 244,864,050 acres of 



land were sold by the Government. These 
land sales and population are the ground- 
work of the national trade, which grows 
with the surplus produced by the land set- 
tlers. Those people at first make few pur- 
chases of goods, but increase them as their 
surplus produce sells and enables them to 
do so. 

The people who seek new lands on which 
to rear their future homes and fortunes, 
are, for the most part, not possessed of 
much capital, and under ordinary circum- 
stances from $1,000 to $5,000 is required 
for a family to perform a distant journey, 
locate and prepare land and wait until the 
crops are grown. Nevertheless, pioneers 
have ceaselessly pushed forward into the 
wilderness and battled with nature, with 
forests, animals and savages, until twenty- 
one new states and millions of wealth have 
been added to the Union. The great in- 
struments of this progress, have, under 
Providence, and in the hands of skillful 
and determined men, been Indian corn and 
wheat. These grains have been the poor 
man's capital, enabling him to conquer the 
wilderness. It needed on his locating his 
future home but to drop the seed into the 
fertile soil, and while he busied himself 
with his new dwelling, a sure crop grew 
up, which in a few months became food 
for his family and his animals. The husks 
furnish his bed and the cobs his fuel. He 
is thus by the gift of nature furnished with 
capital for the coming year, until his other 
crops and young animals have grown. In- 
dian corn has thus given the pioneer a hold 
upon the land and made his footing firm 
where otherwise he might have been com- 
pelled to succumb to hardships. With 
every such remove on to new land the cir- 
cle of trade has increased. A few months 
only suffice for the settler to furnish a sur- 
plus of production in return for comforts 
that he desires. For this reason chiefly 
corn figures so largely in the agriculture 
of the west. The prolific soil throws out 
quantities far beyond the wants of the 
planter, and in a region where all are plant- 
ers, the supply becomes superabundant and 
must find distant markets only at rates so 
low as to leave little to the grower. Two 
local demands are created for it. The 
most important of them is to feed hogs, 
and pork becomes a leading staple export; 
the other is for distillation, and whiskey is 
largely exported. The quantity of corn 



LAND SETTLEMENT INTERNAL TRADE. 



561 



required to make a certain quantity of 
pork becomes accurately known, and the 
price of meat rises and falls with that of 
the grain, as does whiskey also. Thus out 
of the great staple grain Indian-corn come 
directly the three great articles of ex- 
port, corn, pork and its manufactures, and 
whiskey. Wheat, on the other hand, is 
of late years a grain commanding more 
promptly a cash return for labor, and hence 
in the newest states and territories, many 
of which are not so well adapted to corn, 
it is the favorite pioneer crop. Lumber 
in most new countries is also an important 
export. As the settlements progress, beef, 
wool, wheat and other grains, soon follow, 
and trade, increases. While Indian corn 
has been largely the instrument of settle- 
ment at the West, the nature of the coun- 
try and the fertility of machine inventions 
have been no less necessary in securing a 
surplus for sale. If the corn grows readily 
it could not under the old system be so 
readily harvested in a region where land 
belonged to every man, and every man's 
labor could be applied only to his own ser- 
vice. At the same time no man's labor 
more than suffices for the wants of his own 
family. Here machinery steps in, and 
favored by the level nature of the soil, 
operates to a charm. A man who could 
with the scythe cut from one to one and 
a half acres of grass per day, may ride 
round a field and cut ten acres in a day 
without fatigue. Instead of a gang to 
rake and turn and cock, his horse and 
himself may with a patent rake perform 
all that labor and more effectually when 
driven by a shower of rain, than any gang. 
His grain is cut by the same means and 
light labor as his grass. It is threshed out 
by a similar process; his corn is husked 
and shelled by machines ; and when drawn 
to the railroad depots it is elevated into 
vast receptacles to be transported rapidly 
and at small cost to the best market. All 
these machine aids enable the man whose 
own labor would scarcely supply the de- 
mands of his family to turn out a vast 
surplus. This surplus seeks the river and 
lake cities by rail, canal, and steam, to be 
transported to the Atlantic markets for 
consumption or export, or may now leave 
Chicago and Milwaukee on the lakes, or 
St. Louis and Cincinnati on the rivers for 
Liverpool direct without breaking bulk. 
The table of land sales above gives a very 



good indication of the accumulating force 
behind the forwarding cities to push for- 
ward the trade. As every bushel of grain 
they receive requires an equivalent from 
them in goods, each grows under the dou- 
ble demand. Their combine 1 growth is 
the basis of lake and river trade, distribu- 
ting the produce for consumption, and 
bearing back goods in return, while the 
foreign commerce of the country grows 
with the aggregate surplus to be exported 
and the consequent increase of the mer- 
chandise received in exchange. Having 
glanced at the settlement of the western 
lands, it becomes no matter of surprise 
that the cities which were the focus at 
which such large quantities of surplus pro- 
ducts concentrated grew rapidly, and grew 
in proportion to the rapidity of settlement 
and the perfection of the means of internal 
communication. It may be worth while to 
sketch the leading ones, first those of the 
lakes. 

Buffalo, on Lake Erie, was laid out 
originally in 1804, but was of small import- 
ance until in 1825 by the opening of the 
Erie canal, it became the gateway from the 
great valley to the Atlantic states. Its 
population was then 3,000. As the li great 
valley " at that time had, however, but little 
to spare, the importance of Buffalo was to 
swell with the growth of the west, which 
was rapid indeed. In 1832, thirty-one years 
from its settlement, Buffalo became a city 
with 8,653 inhabitants. In the thirty-eight 
years that have since elapsed the popula- 
tion has risen to 155,159. In 1825. the 
tonnage belonging to the port was 200 tons. 
It has grown to 99,544 tons, valued at 
$54,000,000, besides 1,250 canal boats. 
The entries and departures of vessels at 
Buffalo in 1880 were 10,308, aggregating 
5,995,747 tons. The experts and imports 
of Buffalo by canal in 1880 were $92,231,- 
558. The railroads carried larger amounts 
of grain than the canals, and almost all the 
live stock, which amounted to 786,386 
cattle, 2,251,815 hogs. 1,033,200 si 
and 20,768 horses. The lake commerce 
was also larger. 

The opening of Dunkirk to New York 
over the Erie road created a rival to Buf- 
falo, and the Welland canal round the falls 
permitted vessels to go to Oswego, where 
they take either canal or railroad on a 
shorter route to New York, also rivaling 
Buffalo. It is obvious that a few miles 



562 



WESTERN SETTLEMENT AND TRADE. 



longer trip adds little to the cost of a 
loaded ship, and by reducing the canal and 
railroad transportation the cost is dimin- 
ished. Hence Oswego has some advantage 
over Buffalo. 

The imports into Buffalo by lake and 
railroad, showing the relative and aggre- 
gate values, indicate the gain of " rails " 
over "sails." They were, for a number of 
years, as follows: 





Lake. 


Railroad. 


Total. 


1850, 


$22,525,781 




$22,525,781 


1851, 








1853, 








1853, 


36,881,230 


$2,234,273 


39,115,503 


1851, 


42,030,931 


6,397,923 


48,428,854 


1855, 


50,346,819 


10,968,384 


61,313,203 


1856, 


42,681,079 


16,422,505 


59,106,584 


1857, 


36,913,166 


15,020,580 


51,933,746 


1870, 


87,419,381 


95,183,721 


182,602,102 



The gain continued, though the compar- 
ative increase was not large in the decade 
from 1870 to 1880, but as the reports are 
in quantities and not in values, it is impos- 
sible to make the comparison with previous 
years. 

Oswego, settled in 1797, on Lake Onta- 
rio, has been mostly the creation of the 
Oswego canal and of the railroad commu- 
nication since established, which makes 
its position on the lake with reference to 
the Canada and lake trade very desirable. 
The canal was completed in 1828, the 
"Welland canal in 1830, and the Oswego 
and Syracuse railroad in 1848, when Os- 
wego, having 10,305 inhabitants, was in- 
corporated as a city. The modification of 
the English colonial trade system, and the 
admission by the United States of goods 
in bond under the warehouse system, laid 
the foundation for a great development of 
the business of Oswego on the occasion of 
the famine of 1847, when the trade of the 
place took a sudden start, which it has 
since maintained. The Welland canal, con- 
necting Lakes Erie and Ontario, gave Os- 
wego a line of communication with the 
west, by which freight coming thence to 
the east, would have via Oswego less canal 
navigation than by other routes. In May, 
1857, the Welland railway, running along 
the banks of the canal, was projected, and 
completed in 1860, thus giving a commu- 
nication all the year round. By these 
means Oswego draws its supplies from 
every western state. The imports from 
foreign countries in 1881 were $5,652,705, 
and the exports $1,177,013; the tonnage 



of the port amounted in 1880 to 22,219 
tons exclusive of 772 canal-boats, measur- 
ing 84,411 tons. Pop. in 1880, 21,116. 

Cleveland. — The place was settled by 
one family in 1799, but its population did 
not increase beyond 500 in 1825, when the 
Erie canal was opened. Its greatest im- 
pulse was derived from the construction 
of the Ohio canal, connecting it with Cin- 
cinnati; the Pennsylvania and Ohio canal, 
connecting it with Pittsburg, and the Wel- 
land canal in Canada, connecting Lake 
Erie with Lake Ontario. Since that event 
a considerable Canadian trade has sprung 
up in Cleveland. The canals of Ohio 
brought down the increasing quantities of 
produce that were then exported in ex- 
change for the merchandise that was 
delivered by lake for the consumption 
of the interior. In 1832 there were 26 
sail vessels and one steamer belonging to 
Cleveland; there were in 1880 55 steamers 
and 120 sail vessels, with an aggregate 
tonnage of 67,597 tons owned there. The 
multiplication of railroads has, however, 
added since 1855 more to the city busi- 
ness than either canals or tonnage. There 
are twelve roads running into Cleveland, 
of an aggregate length of over 2,000 miles, 
and their annual receipts are more than 50 
million dollars. These, crossing Ohio in 
every direction, connect the city with 
Toledo, Columbus, Pittsburg, and New 
York. With these advantages, and an 
active commerce with Canada, a large for- 
eign trade sprung up. In 1881 the im- 
ports and exports were as follows: 

Vessels. Tons. Coastwise. Foreign. Total. 
Exports, 3,653 1,579,278 $76,187,890 $652,816 $76,782,598 

Imports, 3,585 1,561,010 108,249,861 155,543 108,819,845 

The trade between Cleveland and Lake 
Superior has also become important within 
fifteen years, in which time it has risen to 
more than 1,150,000 tons, mostly in iron 
and copper ore. In 1856-1861, Cleveland 
had, in common with several of the other 
lake ports, a growing and flourishing di- 
rect trade with Europe through the Wel- 
land canal. Ten vessels, of 300 or 400 
tons, ran regularly for some time between 
Cleveland and Liverpool. Owing to the 
war and the unprofitableness of this trade, 
it has now very much declined, but the 
city has become largely interested in manu- 
factures, having over $14,000,000 capital 
invested in them, with an annual product 
of nearly $36,000,000. The refining of 






LAND SETTLEMENT INTERNAL TRADE. 



503 



petroleum oils is carried on to a great ex- 
tent here, the city being the headquarters 
of the Standard Oil Company. The man- 
ufacture of sewing machines is also very 
extensive here. The coal trade of Cleve- 
land has become large for the supply of 
the steamers and factories on and around 
the lakes; the supply is about 917,000 
tons per annum. Population in 1880, 
160,142. 

Detroit. — This is the oldest of the west- 
ern cities, having been early occupied by 
the French, but its progress, like the 
others, was slow until the opening of the 
Erie canal. Its first permanent settlement 
was made in 1701, but in 1820 it had a 
population of only 1 , 4 4 '2 . Its progress since 
has been largely due to the Michigan sys- 
tem of railroads which centre there and to 
its facilities for certain branches of manu- 
factures, particularly iron, copper, lumber, 
glucose, and chemicals. The product of 
these in 1880 was $25,455,773. The rail- 
roads running into the city from all direc- 
tions are over 3,000 miles in length. The 
annual shipment of cereals from Detroit 
exceeds 10,400,000 bushels. It is also a 
great wool market. Its population in 
1880 was 116,342. 

Chicago is the most remarkable of the 
western cities for its growth. Its location 
was good, at the southern extremity of 
the lake, but though it had a fine harbor, 
sufficient for any lake trade, it could not 
thrive until the back country supplied it 
with produce to sell, and required of it 
merchandise in exchange. Though occu- 
pied as a garrison in 1812, and a trading- 
port in 1823, it had less than fifty inhabi- 
tants till 1832. The Illinois and Michigan 
canal, connecting the lake with the navi- 
gable waters of the Illinois, was commenced 
in 1836, 100 miles in length. In aid of 
this work the federal government donated 
alternate six-mile sections of the public 
lands. The state had also projected a 
large system of railroad improvements on 
a scale far beyond its means, and it failed 
in 1840. Subsequently the means was 
raised to complete the canal, which was 
effected in 1850. The yearly arrivals and 
clearances of vessels in the port were 8,- 
673,638 tons in 1880. In 1880 there 
were 19 trunk and about 50 other rail- 
roads, with an aggregate mileage of over 
20.000 miles, radiating from Chicago as 
their common centre. The expenditure of 



about $1,500,000 in the construction of 
these roads, and the great development of 
the country through which they pass, has 
made the growth of Chicago rapid beyond 
all precedent. The vast grain, live stock, 
lumber and mining products poured into 
it have made it a great commercial 
even beyond what its population would in- 
dicate. Over the 20,000 miles of railroad, 
much of it traversing the finest grain 
country in the world, the cereals have 
come in such quantities as to make Chi- 
cago the first primary grain port in the 
world, shipping as it does about 136 mil- 
lion bushels of grain per annum eastward, 
importing and exporting to the amount of 
$250,000,000. Chicago is only sLx or 
eight feet above the level of the lake, 1 mt 
the harbor has a depth of thirteen feet of 
water, and will always be ample for the 
commerce of the lakes. The number of 
vessels arriving here in 1880 was 12,806. 
with a tonnage of 4,334,393 tons. The 
clearances were 12,913 vessels, 4,339,245 
tons. The Canadian rules in relation to 
navigation enable Chicago vessels to clear 
direct for Europe, and there are a number 
in the trade by which produce and 
goods are shipped direct to Europe. The 
total value of produce exported direct 
in 1870 was $4,189,255, and imports 
$860,108. But this is the merest trifle in 
comparison with its immense shipments of 
breadstuffs, provisions, lumber, and ma- 
chinery in ail directions east, west, and 
south. The shipments of br< 
provisions, etc., are given in the following 
tables: — 

SHIPMENTS OF FLOUR (BBBDCED to whbat) AND 

WriEAT AND OTHER GRAINS 

From Chicago for specified yean from 1S3S to 18S0. 





Bushels. 




Bushels. 




Bushels. 


183S, 


7S 


1861, 


4.646,291 


1870, 




1839, 


3.673 


1868, 


6,418,181 


1871, 


71,800,789 


1840, 


10,000 


1864, 


18,9 


1878, 


.. 


1841, 


40,000 


1866, 


16,688,700 


1875, 




1848, 


686,901 


1866, 


81,688,881 


1876, 


87,241,80 1 


1843, 


688,907 


1860, 


81,108,769 


i-:;. 




1844, 


928,494 


1861, 


60,481 


1878, 




1846, 


1,034,690 


1868, 


56,477,110 


1879, 




1846, 


1,699,819 


i 66, 


66,481 






1847, 


8,248,801 


1868, 








1848, 


8,001,740 




'.515 







The following are the shipments 
pork, provision, and cut meats, lard, beef, 
wool, and lumber, i from 18! 1 

18S0:— 



564 



WESTERN SETTLEMENT AND TRADE. 



Year. 


Pork. 

Barrels. 


Provisions and 

Cut Meats. 

Pounds. 


Lard. 
Pounds. 


Beef. 
Barrels. 


Wool. 
Pounds. 


Lumber. 
Feet. 


1861 
1862 
1863 
1865 
1866 
1870 
1872 
1874 


65,196 
193,920 
449,152 
284,734 
257,470 
165,885 
208.664 
231,350 
313,713 
315,448 
193,236 
207.912 
205,004 


69,748,388 

71,944,010 

95,300,815 

65,026,609 

73,011,584 

112,433,168 

238,727,684 

263,932.000 

362,142,000 

465,404,000 

818,461,401 

940,084,542 

1,109,143,569 


16,400,822 

64,505,123 

58,030,728 

28,4b7,407 

26.758,368 

48,299,349 

86,040,785 

82,210,000 

115,616,000 

137,072,000 , 

201,376,033 

209,780,410 

226,751,428 


50.154 

151.631 

137,302 

103,604 

67,762 

65,369 

39,911 

72,562 

60,464 

72,004 

58.712 

98,997 

106,468 


1,360,617 
2,101,521 
3,435,056 
9.923,069 
12,391,9:33 
15,826.536 
27,720,089 


189,379,445 
189,277,079 
221,709,330 
385,353,678 
422,313,266 
583,490,634 
*417,980.507 
*580,694,000 


1875 




*628,485,000 
*450,092.000 


1878 
1879 
1880 


42,053,907 
45.582,352 
37,109,339 


*460,450,000 
*480,796,000 
*650,140,000 



* During all these years more than one-half of the receipts of lumber were consumed in 
the city or were shipped westward as planed lumber. 



Milwaukee is one of the chief cities of 
the western shore of Lake Michigan. It 
was settled in 1834, and up to 1840 could 
boast of but 1,700 inhabitants. The popu- 
lation had grown to nearly 20,000 in 1850, 
to 71,499 in 1870, and to 115,578 in 1880. 
The growth has been most rapid under the 
settlement of the country west of it, by 
means of the large expenditures there 
made in the last fourteen years for rail- 
roads. These in the state (Wisconsin) had 
in 1880 an aggregate length of 5,034 
miles, and have been constructed mostly 
in the last twenty-five years at an expense 
of $150,000,000. The expenditure of 
this large sum of money, in addition to 
that laid out by speculators and emigrants, 
imparted an impulse to the prosperity of 
the city which is reflected in its popula- 
tion and valuation. The circle of fertile 
country poured into the city products 
which were exported from it to the value 
of £35,890,288 in 1870; and in return $59,- 
180,000 worth of goods were imported. 
The manufactured products of the city in 
1880 were, according to the census, $33,- 
738,977. The quantity of grain shipped 
from Milwaukee in 1880 was 29,691,524 
bushels, and from other lake ports of Wis- 
consin 1,561,881 bushels. The grain 



movement, which is the basis of the city's 
commerce, indicates the ratio of its growth, 
and is as follows: 

Bushels. Bushels. Bushels. 

1851, 576.580 1858, 6,155,507 1876, 31,678,433 

1852, 1,029.379 1859, 6,438,038 1877, 31,867,348 

1853, 1,476,998 1862, 18,730,000 1878. 84,088.546 

1854, 2,534.617 1866, 16,700.000 1879, 34.344.542 

1855, 3,758.965 1870, 23,100,000 1880, 29,691,524 

1856, 3,720,103 1874, 35,170.580 

1857, 3,727,468 1875, 34,770,315 

Milwaukee exports other articles in 
large amounts; e.g. Wool to the extent 
of 6,000,000 pounds; iron, product about 
$10,000,000, nearly half exported; butter, 
about 9,000,000 pounds; cheese about half 
that amount; Wisconsin tobacco, over 10,- 
000,000 pounds; lager beer of the value 
of $5,000,000; hops from 12,000 to 15,000 
bales. 

We may recapitulate these lake cities in 
the following table, showing the date of 
settlement, of incorporation, and popula- 
tion at that date, with the population and 
valuation from 1850 to 1880:— 

o-MJ-j Incorpo- Pnri Populnt'n Total Vnlua- 
bettieci. rate(L rop. in 18 - tion in ]85() 

Buffalo, 1801 1832 8,653 49,764 $18,427,000 

Oswego 1820 1848 10.305 12,205 9,107. 002 

Cleveland, ...1799 1836 4 000 17,034 12,102.101 

Detroit 1682 1802 700 21,057 10.741.657 

Chicago, 1833 1835 800 29,963 31,205,(<00 

Milwaukee,... 1852 1840 9.655 31.077 18,431,000 

Total, 34,113 161,100 $100,003,960 





Populat'n 
in 1860. 


Total Valua- 
tion in 1860. 


Populat'n 
in 1870. 


Total Valua- 
tion in 1873. 


Population 
in 1880. 


Valuation in 

1880. 


Annual Manu- 
facturing Prod- 
nets. 1880. 


Buffalo, 


117,715 
20,910 
93,918 
79,588 

298.983 
71,499 


$112,920,150 
19,485,800 
92,325.000 
79,809,951 

358,783,515 
57,805,772 


117,714 
20.910 
92.829 
70,577 

398,977 
71.440 


$110,100,000 
18.600,000 

65.000.000 

86,743.947 

375.986,(550 

48,559,S17 


155,134 
21,117 
160.146 
116.310 
508,186 
115.5S8 


|93,2B6,316 
21,8*8,500 

73.647.104 

97,50(l.i w ill 

868,750,000 

67.325,000 


$38,820,560 








35.803,592 


Detroit, 


25,466,778 




263.405.695 




33,738.977 


Total 


682,613 


$712,370,138 


681,447 


$604,989,314 


1,071,509 S571 1.302. 009 


$387,224,597 


1 — : : — 









LAND SETTLEMENT INTERNAL TRADE. 



>65 



Thus these prominent cities have grown 
up, so to speak, in 50 years, as points 
where farm produce is received from the 
country for sale, and where goods are fur- 
nished in exchange. The whole value of 
the lake trade has been estimated at $1,- 
200,000,000 per annum, and the transaction 
of this business has, it appears, created six 
cities, with a population of 1,071,536 and 
a taxable valuation of $711,302,009. The 
manufactures have gradually increased in 
those cities in order to produce a local sup- 
ply instead of importing, and new inven- 
tions in sewing and other machines have 
promoted that change, as machinery aided 
the development of surplus produce. The 
aggregate trade poured upon the lakes 
from all these sources has been increasing- 
ly large. 

Great fluctuations follow the course of 
western business. In 1857 there was a 
heavy decline under the influence of the 
panic of that year. In 1858, the specula- 
tive consumption of the interior having 
ceased, the quantities that sought market 
were less than in 1856. In 1873 there 
was a falling off of trade from the panic, 
and the pressure produced by the losses of 
the great fire in Chicago in 1871; but the 
great development of the West caused this 
to be felt less sensibly there than in the 
Eastern cities, and these lake cities are 
now in the full tide of prosperity. 

The rapid settlement of the States of 
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wiscon- 
sin, and later of Minnesota, led the Cana- 
dians to make very strenuous efforts to at- 
tract a large portion of the transportation 
of products to their magnificent water- 
way, the St. Lawrence river. It was neces- 
sary, however, that there should be consid- 
erable expenditure to facilitate this trans- 
portation. There were rapids on the St. 
Lawrence which were at all times trouble- 
some to heavily freighted vessels, and at 
some times dangerous; there was a differ- 
ence of level between Lake Erie and Lake 
Ontario of 331 feet, which could only*be 
overcome by a canal with locks, and these 
locks must be sufficiently long, wide, and 
deep to admit of the passage of vessels of 
from 700 to 1400 tons burthen, and of cor- 
responding length, width, and draught. 
The canals for these purposes, as well as 
one connecting Montreal with Lake Cham- 
plain, were carried on to sufficient com- 
pleteness to answer the first demands as 
30 



early as 1846. They have since been 
greatly enlarged at several times, and the 
Welland canal to be opened anew the 
present season, (1882,) can pass through 
its locks vessels of 1,360 tons; and the 
rapids of the St. Lawrence are now passed 
in safety by lateral canals. The Welland 
Canal has been of great service to the 
commerce of Oswego, and the canal from 
Montreal to Lake Champlain in connection 
with the enlarged Champlain Canal in 
New York, connecting with the Hudson 
River, has brought vast amounts of grain 
and provision to New York City with 
more celerity and at lower prices than any 
other route. The lower St. Lawrence and 
its broad gulf are not safe for vessels of 
moderate tonnage and of no great sea 
worthiness, as its upper waters, and hence 
there was a strong tendency to leave the 
river at Montreal and take a straight line 
for New York, the transportation being 
much less than that by a sea voyage. 

But the canals had hardly begun to de- 
velop their capacity for this vast carrying 
trade before the Canadians found it neces 
sary to commence extensive railway lines 
to obtain their share of the travel and 
transportation north of the lakes. They 
had the advantage of shorter lines than 
were possible in the northern United 
States, but they had the disadvantage of a 
colder climate and a greater liability to ob- 
structions in the winter. Their first con- 
structed line was the Grand Trunk from 
Montreal to Toronto, begun in 1852. and 
in 1853 amalgamated with the Main 
Trunk line, which connected Montreal 
with Portland, Me., and crossed the St. 
Lawrence at Montreal over the Victoria 
bridge, while on the west it was extended 
to Sarnia and Detroit, Michigan. The 
Great Western Railway extending from 
Toronto, Hamilton, London, and Windsor 
opposite Detroit, and several branches ex- 
tending to Collingwood, Simcoe, Goderich, 
etc., was another important line, and the 
Canada Southern from Bulfalo to Detroit, 
along the northern shore of Lake Erie, 
formed a connecting link in another Trunk 
line to the west. These roads have con- 
ducted a large and profitable busimss to 
the west, and have carried their fair share 
of passengers and freight, But the Cana- 
dians were not yet satisfied; they were 
connected by these roads and other branch, 
and affiliated roads, with Lake Huron and 



566 



RIVER CITIES ATLANTIC CITIES. 



the chain of northwestern lakes (by steam- 
ers) on the west, and with Toronto, Ot- 
tawa, Montreal, Quebec, Portland, and 
Boston on the east; and in connection 
with United States railroad companies 
they had extended their lines through 
New Brunswick and Nova Scotia to St. 
John, Shediac, Pictou, and Halifax, and as 
far as Metis on the S. Quebec peninsula. 

But they had seen the completion of the 
Union and Central Pacific in IS 69, and re- 
membering their colony of British Colum- 
bia on the Pacific, they were filled with an 
intense desire to push a transcontinental 
road across their territory and thus fore- 
stall the Northern Pacific, which was 
already begun. The struggle for this 
road has been persistent for the last twelve 
or fifteen years, and large sums have been 
expended on it. It is now to be com- 
pleted, but by an American company, and 
the Northern Pacific will be also completed 
at about the same time. The Canadian Pa- 
cific will traverse Manitoba, the northwest 
territories, following Fraser river, British 
Columbia", to Fort Fraser and thence de- 
scending to Vancouver Island in latitude 
50°. The road is completed from Kee- 
watin to Battleford. 



CHAPTER II. 

RIVER CITIES— ATLANTIC CITIES. 

The development given to the lake 
cities by the canal and railroad construc- 
tion, was participated in to as great an ex- 
tent by the river cities, the course of 
whose trade flowed downward toward New 
Orleans as an outlet. 

Pittsburgh is situated at the point 
where the junction of the Monongahela 
and Alleghany forms the Ohio river, which 
thence flows to the Gulf of Mexico. The 
origin of the place dates from its occupa- 
tion by the French as a post, and its 
growth is due to its commanding position. 
It is 301 miles east by north from Phila- 
delphia, and is 130 miles from Lake Erie. 
The traveler descends the river 450 miles 
to Cincinnati; 583 to Louisville, Kentucky; 
977 to Cairo, where the Ohio pours into 
the Mississippi; 1,157 to St. Louis, and 
2,004 miles to New Orleans. That vast 
valley collects in its course the produce 
coming right and left by streams, canals, 



and railroads, to deliver it at New Orleans, 
whence ascend the merchandise, tropical 
products, and materials of manufacture, to 
be distributed at the commercial and man- 
ufacturing ports. The position of Pitts- 
burgh was the most important, commer- 
cially, until the opening of the Erie canal. 
Its resources were highly favorable to 
ship-building, and it supplied the first 
boats that descended the Ohio. The com- 
merce and ship building prospered largely 
during the war of 1812, but after the 
peace it declined. Since that period manu- 
factures have taken the place of commerce, 
and it ranks next to Philadelphia as a 
manufacturing town. The population in 
1S00 was 1,565, and in 1816 it was incor- 
porated as a city with about 6,150 inhabi- 
tants. The population of Pittsburg in 
1880 was 156,389; while Alleghany City, 
across the river, had 78,682, and other sub- 
urbs really forming part of the city, about 
35,000 more, making a total of about 270,- 
000. The progress of the city has been as 
follows: 





Population. 


Value of manufacture 


1816, 


6,182 


$1,896,366 


1836, 


15,481 


15.575,440 


1850, 


46,601 


55,287,000 


18(i0, 


49,220 


70,000,000 


1870, 


8G,2:J5 


111.8S1.000 


1880, 


150.389 


138,163,000 



Cincinnati was located at the mouth of 
the Licking river in 1788, in the centre of 
an area which commanded the commerce 
of the Miami, the Wabash, the Scioto, the 
Muskingum, and the Kanawha rivers. 
These streams delivered large quantities of 
produce to foster the trade of Cincinnati, 
which grew with great rapidity, cor- 
responding mostly with New Orleans, to 
which its merchants sent the produce, and 
made purchases of goods in the eastern 
states, which came up the river fr< »m New 
Orleans by a long voyage, charged with 
expenses for freight, insurance, etc. The 
exchanges ran on New Orleans against the 
produce sent down, and these credits were 
the means of payments for goods. The 
opening of the Ohio canal to the lakes, to 
correspond with the Erie canal to tide- 
water, gave a new outlet for produce of 
the northern part of Ohio by way of Cleve- 
land, and aiso a better channel for the re- 
ceipt of goods. The net-work of railroads 
has still further multiplied the means of 
communication. Portland, Boston, New 



LAND SETTLEMENT — INTERNAL TRADE. 



507 



York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, are 
almost equidistant from Cincinnati, which 
by the same means has its markets ex- 
tended in a broader circle west. The pro- 
gress of the city has been as follows: — 

Population. Imports. Manufactures. Exports. 



1800, 


750 








1810, 


2.540 








1820, 


9,644 


$1,619,030 


$1,059,459 


$1,. 334,080 


1830, 


94,881 


2,528,590 


1,850,000 


1,063,560 


1836, 


31.207 


8,270,000 


12.388.2iK) 


8, 101,000 


1840, 


40.338 


16,972.oi mi 


17,780,033 


15,480,000 


1850, 


115.43.J 


41,266,189 


54,550,134 


88,284,896 


1860, 


101,044 


96,213.274 


112,254,000 


66,007,707 


1870, 


218.(100 


312.97W.00.-, 


127.459.021 


198,517,690 


1880, 


255,139 


256,137,902 


148,957,280 


253.827.207 



It should be remembered that the values 
of 1870 were currency values, and inflated 
from 33*- to 50 per cent. ; those of 1880 are 
specie values, and at a time when prices 
were at their lowest point. The 658 mil- 
lions of values of 1880 represent in the 
currency of 1870, and at the prices then 
ruling, more than 950 millions, against 
about 634 millions in 1870. The manufac- 
turing products, in 1881, aggregated over 
175 millions. The Cincinnati Southern 
railroad, completed in 1879, and now ex- 
tending to Chattanooga, Tenn., witb close 
connections and liberal arrangements with 
all the leading southern roads, and a per- 
manent connection made with the Texas 
and Southern Pacific, has already become, 
and will be henceforth to a much greater 
extent, a potent factor in the growth of 
Cincinnati, which had almost ceased after 
the war, under the intense competition of 
its rivals. It opens to it a wide southern 
trade, and gives it the advantage of its im- 
mense capital, and shorter lines of distribu- 
tion. 

Louisville, Kentucky, was a port early 
in 1781, and it made little progress as a 
city. Its population grew but to 600 in 
1800, and was only 4,012 in 1820. The 
difficulties of navigation were a drawback 
upon its commerce, until the Portland 
canal, two miles long, which had been au- 
thorized in 1804, around the falls of the 



Ohio, was opened in 1 830. The cost of the 
work, $600,000, was paid, one-third by the 
United States, and the balance mostly in 
eastern cities interested in getting goods 
up the river. A bridge over the Ohio was 
built in 1836, at a cost of §250,000. The 
city was incorporated in 1828, and its pop- 
ulation was tlien 10,336. In 1836 the 
population was 19,967, and the annual 
amount of business transacted was $29 
001,202. In 1840 the population was 
21,210, and in 1850 it had again doubled, 
reaching 43,194. 

St. Louis was occupied as a French 
trading post in 1763, and the town was 
laid out in the following year, with the 
name of St. Louis, in honor of that Louis 
XV. who had so little claim to saintship. 
The first impulse to its growth was, how- 
ever, the annexation of Louisiana to the 
United States, when emigrants poured into 
the new country, bringing with them a 
spirit of enterprise which soon produced its 
effect upon St. Louis, the commerce of 
which struggled against the difficulties in- 
herent in barge and keel boat navigation. 
In 1817 the General Pike, the first steam- 
boat, arrived at St. Louis. That event 
marked a new era, and in 1822. the popu- 
lation being 4,598, the city was incorpo- 
rated. It was not until the settlement of 
the northwestern states, under the influence 
of the canals and railroads, that the pros- 
perity of St. Louis became marked. In 
1836 the sales of merchandise in St. Louis 
were given at $6,335,000 ; in 1858 the 
local insurance was $31,800,232. The 
population of the city, which had been 
63,491 in 1848, rose to 350,518 in 1880, 
and the city valuation was $163,813,920. 
The settlements of the upper Mississippi, 
east and west, pour naturally ah increasing 
trade into the city, and its railroad connec- 
tiors are now complete in four lines to the 
Pacific. We may recapitulate the leading 
river cities as follows : — 





u - 


[ncorp. 


1840. | 1850. 


1860. 


1870. 1880. 




Date. 

Pop. 


Pop. 


Pop. 


Valuation, 


Pop. 


Valuation. 


Pop. Valuation. Pop. Valuation. 


Pittsburg 

Cincinnati, . . . 
ille, .... 

St. Loui- 


1784 

1788 
1773 

1701 


1816 6,160 21.115 10 0,01 $27,960,600 19.220 $46,866,600 86,070 

1802 890 46 888116,486 55,670.681161.044 91,861,978216,289 175,084,296255,189 COt 
182810.886 21,210 18.194 17,277,600 69,740 80.042.800 100.758 71,000.000123,758 65. 
1S22 4,598| 16,469 77,860 88,921,201151.780 78,468,875 | 810,864 147.969,600^ 


Total, 


— |ai,974|105,281 288,091 $189,880,082 431,784$S 17,284,768 718,982 $ 192,829, Iff! • 12.309 



568 



RIVER CITIES — ATLANTIC CITIES. 



The numbers and wealth of the river 
cities have increased in a ratio, nearly as 
large as the lake cities. They divide with 
the latter the trade of country lying be- 
tween the lakes and the Ohio river, draw- 
ing produce and shipping merchandise, 
while they have also a strong hold upon 
southern trade. The business of all those 
cities, as well lake as river, is but a reflec- 
tion of the growth of the great seaports. 
The canals, streams, and railroads that 
pour forth their products in a southerly 
direction, and feed the river cities, com- 
bine with the other business points of the 
region to swell the trade of New Orleans, 
the common correspondent of all ; the 
roads, rivers, and streams that deliver their 
trade in a northerly and easterly direction, 
glut the great trunk lines with the mer 
chandise which they pour into Boston, New 
York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. 

The city of New Orleans, at the Delta 
of the Mississippi, is commercially the sec- 
ond city of the Union. Its position is 
very advantageous, and its growth has 
been proportional to the development of 
the country, the resources of- which supply 
it with produce and depend upon it for 
merchandise in return. The city itself was 
founded by the French in 1717, and passed 
into the hands of the Spanish in 1762. By 
them it was reconveyed to the French in 



1800, and was sold by Napoleon to the 
United States in 1804. At that time its 
population, mostly French, was 8,036, and 
it was rapidly increased by the fact of an- 
nexation, which not only carried enterpris- 
ing men thither, but settled the upper 
country, which was the source of trade. 
The city was chartered in 1805. In 1820 
the population had increased to 27,176 
persons, but the exports of the city still 
consisted mostly of the produce of the up- 
per country, which a population increased 
rapidly by the influence of war and specu- 
lation, had greatly developed, although the 
valley of the Mississippi had not yet at- 
tracted cotton planters. In 1830 the trade 
of the city marked a larger production of 
farm produce. In the succeeding ten years 
the migration from the Atlantic cotton 
states to the new lands of the valley pro- 
duced a great change in the trade of New 
Orleans. The cotton receipts rose from 
300,000 bales in 1830, to 954,000 in 1840, 
and tobacco from twenty-four to forty- 
three thousand hogsheads, and the sugar 
crop also had risen to 85,000 hogsheads. 
The exports were now swollen by the sales 
of cotton and tobacco, but with the opera- 
tion of the canals and railroads in the upper 
country, the supplies of home produce had 
again become important. The progress of 
New Orleans has been as follows : — 



Year. 


Population. 


Imports. 


Exports. 


Receipts from 
Interior. 


Receipts of 
Specie. 


Valuation. 


1804, 


8,056 




$1,392,093 


.... 






1810, 


17,242 




1,753,974 








1820, 


27,17d 


13,379,717 


7,242,415 




.... 




1830, 


46,310 


7,599,083 


13,042,740 








1840, 


102,193 


10,673,190 


;14,2:J6,936 


$45, 761*, 045 






1850, 


116,375 


10,760,499 


38,105,350 


96,897,873 


$3,792,662 




1851, 




12,528,460 


54,413,963 


106,924,083 


7,938,119 




1854, 




14,402,150 


60,172,628 


115,336,798 


6,967,056 




1856, 




17.183,327 


80,547,963 


144,256,081 


4,913,540 




1857, 




24,981,150 


91,514,286 


158,061,369 


6,500,015 




1859, 


168,472 


18,349,516 


101,734,952 


172,952,664 


15,627,016 


$111,193,892 


I860, 


168,675 


22,922,773 


107,812.5*0 


278,617,315 






1865, 


172,000 


1,475,657 


3,259,882 


15,114,563 




121,038.650 


1868, 


184,000 


11,386,858 


58,538,524 


101,523,331 




98,7«8,385 


1870, 


191,418 


14,993,754 


107,658,042 


203,865,461 






1875, 


203,000 


12,356,487 


71,461,272 


160,321,516 




139,844.204 


1878, 


210,000 


11,253,255 


85,368,466 


177,245,116 




118,637,715 


1880, 


216,090 


10,842,254 


90,249,874 


216,475,023 






1881, 


223,100 


12,213,920 


103,743,986 









This table embraces the official figures 
for population, trade, and valuation. The 
most marked feature is the small amount 
of imports as compared with exports. 
This is not the case with New York ; the 
imports and exports there being almost 



e^ual ; the trade of the two cities for the 
past year (1881), having been as follows : 

New York. New Orleans. 

Imports $435,450,905 $12,213,920 

Exports, 407,181,024 103,743,986 

Before the war the cotton of Tennessee 



LAND SETTLEMENT INTERNAL TRADE. 



569 



Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana, the Indian 
Territory, the hemp and tobacco (with 
some cotton) of Kentucky and Missouri, 
the sugar of Louisiana and Texas, much 
of the grain of Illinois, Indiana, and 
Ohio, and the coal of Western Pennsyl- 
vania and Illinois, found their way princi- 
pally by river, though, to a gradually 
increasing extent by rail also, to New Or- 
leans, and as the producers of these articles 
bought their goods mainly from New York 
or Philadelphia, and drew on New Orleans 
for the pay. The New Orleans merchants 
shipped the cotton, hemp, tobacco, sugar, 
and grain to Europe, and drew on the 
New York representative of the consignees 
for the amount at 60 days; the New York 
importer either bought the bills of the con- 
signees on London or Liverpool at sixty 
days more, and remitted them in payment 
of his goods, or bought the bills of the New 
Orleans exporter, who drew direct. In 
either case the New Orleans merchant ob- 
tained the use of his money for three or 
four months, and a fair profit besides, by 
this roundabout method of payment. 

The war changed all this and for some 
years nearly destroyed the trade of New 
Orleans. Now much of the Tennessee, 
Mississippi, and Arkansas cotton either goes 
to St. Louis or Memphis, and is shipped 
thence direct to Europe or to the eastern 
states ; a considerable amount is also 
shipped from Galveston, Mobile, and Pen- 
sacola, or from Charleston, Savannah, or 
Fernandina, and for the remainder the 
New Orleans banks are compelled to fur- 
nish the money to make advances to the 
growers before the cotton plants are fairly 
out of the ground. Hemp is not largely 
grown, and tobacco finds its chief market 
at St Louis and Louisville. Sugar and 
Louisiana rice are more fully under the 
control of New Orleans, and within the 
past three or four years great efforts have 
been made to increase the shipments of 
grain to that city, by fleets of grain barges 
towed down from the northern states to be 
exported thence to Europe. There are 
some obstacles in the way. Grain, and 
still more flour, are very often injured by 
the heat and moisture of the climate, and 
this prejudices the producer against the 
route ; while the freight to New Orleans 
is much less than to New York, gram 
freights from thence to Liverpool or Havre 
are about 25 per cent, higher than from 



New York, and the shipping arrangements 
are not as perfect. The misfortunes of 
prevailing sickness from yellow fever, chol- 
era, etc., and of extensive flo< de, have also 
had some effect, in checking the lull devel- 
opment of its commerce ; but the city is 
admirably situated for commercial su- 
premacy, and with the removal of the 
obstructions at the mouth of the Missis- 
sippi and the increased railroad facilities it 
now enjoys, it cannot fail to btccme a 
great commercial city. It still retains the 
second place in the amount of its exports, 
though Boston and Baltimore are ciowding 
it pretty closely ; but it no longer lays any 
claim to be first in the amount of its exp i ts 
of domestic products of the soil, for the 
breadstuffs exports of New York alone, 
exceed its entire exports, and the cotton, 
wool and live animal exports from that city 
are nearly equal to the cotton exports of 
New Orleans. The imports have alwavs 
been small and have varied very little "in 
fifty years. 

While New Orleans thus expanded its 
trade, and grew in wealth under the influ- 
ence of western production, the proportion 
that it enjoyed was by no means the larg- 
est, Each Atlantic city had made efforts 
to obtain a share, and, with more or less 
success, Canada sought to attract it down 
the St. Lawrence. New York has built 
four or five roads to connect the lakes and 
the west with tide water. Boston has 
tapped the Canadian roads, reached the 
lakes at Ogdensburgh, connected at three 
points with the Hudson River, and finally 
reaching across Michigan, Wisconsin, and 
Iowa, has extended her iron fingers to the 
Pacific. Philadelphia, by two routes, has 
connected itself with Pittsburgh, Cincin- 
nati, Chicago, and St. Louis. Baltimore 
has crossed the Alleghanies to Wheeling 
and Huntington, and built her own road 
to the western cities, and another line con- 
necting Richmond and Norfolk with the 
west and southwest is now just on the 
point of completion. 

In 1840, the Erie canal, then the only 
route and means of transportation, except 
the huge Conestoga wagons, between the 
great lakes and tide water, carried 859,549 
tons of freight in a year. In 1880, forty 
years later, the New York canals carried 
6,462,290 tons, but three railroads, the 
New York Central & Hudson River, the 
New York, Lake Erie & Western, and the 



570 



RIVER CITIES ATLANTIC CITIES. 



Pennsylvania, carried in the same year 
36,363,714 tons more, and with ten other 
roads, carried 78,150,913 tons, receiving for 
the freight $143,388,178, the value of the 
freight being not less than $4,000,000,000. 

The exports of the southern ports 
have grown mostly with the direct export 
of cotton, and those at the north have 
added gradually food and manufactures 
thereto. The general course of trade has 
been to centralize imports in New York. 

Charleston owes its origin to a stock 
similar to that of New England, since a 
colony of French Huguenots, flying from 
persecution, settled there in 1690. It was 
not chartered as a city, however, until 
nearly a century later, viz.: in 1783, when 
its population was nearly 16,000. The 
commerce of Charleston is not extensive, 
but its facilities for internal communications 
are large, and it enjoys the trade of the 
whole state, together with much of that of 
North Carolina and Georgia. A canal, 
twenty-two miles long, connects the Coo- 
per with the Santee river. It has a fleet 
of steamboats that are running to the 
neighboring cities, and several lines of 
packets running to New York regularly. 
It has railroad connection by several lines 
with all points northeast, north, west, and 
south. The population and business have 
been as follows: — 





Population. 


Imports. 


Exports. 


1790, 


16,359 


$4,516,205 


$2,693,268 


1820, 


24,480 


3,007,113 


8,882,940 


1830, 


30,289 


1,054,619 


7,627,031 


1840, 


29,261 


2,318.791 


11,042,070 


1850, 


42,985 


1,933,785 


11,447,800 


I860, 


51,210 


2,070,249 


16,888,262 


1870, 


48,956 


617,094 


11,184,208 


1880, 


49,984 


440,240 


26,498,825 



The importations have decreased, but 
the exports have more than doubled since 
1870. They consist mainly of cotton, and 
the city is slowly but surely recovering 
from the depression and ruin caused by 
the war. 

Baltimore was laid out as a town, by 
Roman Catholics, in 1729, and up to 176 > 
it contained but fifty houses. It is situat- 
ed on the Patapsco river, fourteen miles 
from Chesapeake bay, and two hundred 
miles from the ocean. The harbor is a 
very fine one. The city enjoys great facil- 
ities for commerce, and possesses the trade 
of Maryland and part of Pennsylvania, 
while it has of late obtained a good share 
of that of the western states. It was the 



great tobacco market of the country, but 
Richmond now rivals it in that respect- 
As a flour market, it has few equals. The 
building of railroads to connect with the 
interior has greatly promoted the city 
trade, which has progressed as follows: — 





Population. 


Imports. 


Exports. 


1790, 


13,503 


$0,018,500 


$2,239,691 


1800, 


26,514 




12,264,331 


1810, 


46,555 




6,489,018 


1820, 


62,738 


4,070,842 


6,609,364 


1830, 


80,625 


4,523,866 


3,791,482 


1840, 


102,313 


5,701,869 


4.524,575 


1850, 


169,054 


6,124,201 


6,907,353 


1860, 


212,419 


8,930,157 


10,442,616 


1870, 


267,354 


19.512,468 


14,310,508 


1880, 


332,313 


19,745,989 


76,257.566 



The imports consist of coffee, iron, and 
steel, and manufactures of these, tin, 
chemicals, sugar and molasses, fruits, cop- 
per, flax, wool, earthen and china wares, 
cotton goods, salt, hides and skins, etc. 
The exports are breadstuffs to the amount 
of over $56,000,000, raw cotton, provisions, 
oysters, tobacco, petroleum oil, manu- 
factures of wood, tallow, coal, hair, tanner's 
bark, seeds, etc. The exports have had a 
wonderful increase, — more than five-fold 
since 1870, and most of the advance has 
been made since 1876. Its manufactured 
products in 1880 were reported at $71,- 
324,970. This does not include the sub- 
urbs or all branches of manufacture in the 
city itself. 

Philadelphia, at the close of the last 
century, was the first city of America, and 
though it has not ceased to expand since 
that time, yet New York, by force of nat- 
ural advantages, has come to exceed it as 
a commercial city. Its resources for man- 
ufacturing are such, however, as to have 
given it a high rank in the interior trade 
of the country. The water power of the 
neighborhood is very important, and rails 
and canals give it command of limitless 
supplies of raw materials, coal and iron in 
particular. The position of the city was 
early improved by the construction of 
canals to the extent of 336 miles, at a cost of 
$24,000,000; and seven lines, composed of 
12 railroads, of 567 miles in length, radi- 
ated to every point of the compass, having 
cost $53,716,201. The canals and roads 
have swollen the coal receipts of Philadel- 
phia from 365 tons in 1820, to more than 
tons in 1870, valued at $ 
per annum. The population and ex- 
ternal trade of Philadelphia have been as 
follows: — 



1 



LAND SETTLEMENT INTERNAL TRADE. 



571 



1084, 
1T90, 

18-20, 
1840, 
1850, 

1858, 
1870, 
18S0, 



Population. Imports. 
2,500 



13,630 

108,110 
258,037 
408,162 

550,000 
(174,022 
847,170 



$8,158,922 
11,680,111 
12,066,154 
12,802,215 
17,355,825 
85,961,294 



Exports. 

$3,436,893 
5,743,549 
3,841,599 
4,501,606 
6,036,411 
10,649,828 
49,649,093 



Total 

Valuation. 



$40,487,239 
9y,321,881 

155,097,009 
607,987,900 
659,213,282 



The city of Philadelphia was first set- 
tled in 1627 by the Swedes, but was regu- 
lated and laid out in 1682 according to the 
views of William Penn, and its population 
in 1684 was 2,500. The city is one hun- 
dred miles from the ocean, eighty-seven 
miles from New York, and 130 miles from 
Washington. It is five miles from the 
junction of the Schuylkill and Delaware 
rivers, extending from one to the other, 
and its harbor is on the Delaware, or east- 
ern side. Vessels drawing more than 
twenty feet water cannot reach Philadel- 
phia, and the navigation for large ships 
below is a little difficult. Pilots take in- 
ward bound ships at sea. These circum- 
stances have aided to give Philadelphia a 
moderate foreign commerce as compared 
with the commanding harbor of New 
York. 

But if the foreign commerce of Phila- 
delphia is moderate, owing to physical dif- 
ficulties, the internal commerce, from sales 
of manufactures and goods imported at 
New York, is very large — and the real 
growth of the city is indicated by her ex- 
ternal trade less than that of, perhaps, any 
other city of the Union. The census of 
1870 showed a population of 674,022. 
The manufacturing industry of Philadel- 
phia has increased in a remarkable ratio. 
In 1845 the capital employed in the city 
proper was $18,000,000, the production 
$21,000,000, and of the neighborhood 
$33,000,000. 

In 1870 the capital invested in the vari- 
ous manufactures was given at $204,340,- 
637, employing 152,550 hands, and pro- 
ducing $362,484,698 of annual value. The 
advance in manufactures in the decade 
1870-1880, was very great, and in many 
different directions. The Centennial expo- 
sition promoted its manufacturing interests 
largely. Thompson Westcott, Esq., one 
of its most eminent publicists, declared in 
1876, as the result of extended inquiry, 
that the capital invested in manufactures 
to January, 1876, had increased 33 1 per 
cent, since 1870, and the value of produc- 
tion nearly 50 per cent. This was un- 



doubtedly true so far as intrinsic values 
were concerned ; but it is to be remembered 
that 1870 was a period of great inflation, 
and that the currency values of that jrear, 
shrunk more than 50 per cent, as compared 
with the specie values of 1880. The value 
of manufactured products of Philadelphia 
and its immediate suburbs reached the 
neighborhood of $400,000,000 in 1880, 
which is equal to over $600,000,000 
in the currency and inflation of 1870, 
for the value of goods produced. Its 
manufactures have a wide range, and in- 
clude every description of textiles, machin- 
ery of all sorts, locomotives and steam 
engines, everything that can be made of 
iron, steel, copper, brass, silver, or other 
metals; leather in all forms, oils of all 
sorts, printing, newspapers and books, 
paper, etc. 

Its trade is larger in some directions 
than that of New York, though smaller in 
others, but is remarkable for the magni- 
tude of its operations, and for the system 
and order with which they are conducted. 
The coal trade and the oil trade (petroleum) 
are perhaps the largest items of its int< rnal 
commerce. 

Boston was settled early in the seven- 
teenth century, and in 1 6M4 was the most 
populous of the Atlantic cities, having 
6,300 inhabitants. It is 216 miles from 
New York, and although possessed of one 
of the finest harbors on the coast, it had 
no facilities for reaching the back country, 
which w T as for the most part rocky and 
mountainous, until railroads were con- 
structed. Its early trade was in naviga- 
tion and the fisheries. Its first adventure 
was in 1627, when a sloop, loaded with 
corn, was sent to Narragansett to trade, 
and made an encouraging voyage. Its in- 
habitants soon became rich by doing the 
trade of others in their celebrated ships, 
until manufacturing became possible. The 
energy and intelligence of the race, when 
turned in that direction, soon drew large 
profits from their industry, and more 
freight for their coasting tonnage, which 
increased as the numbers engaged in man- 
ufacture required more food and raw ma- 
terials. The greatest start was given to 
the trade of the city when railroads had 
laid open even the remotest regions of the 
interior to its enterprise. The general 
course of its population, trade, and valua- 
tion has been as follows: — 



572 



NEW YORK TELEGRAPH EXPRESS GOLD. 



Population. Imports. Exports. Valuation. 

1684, 0,300 

1790, 18.048 $5,519,500 $2,517,051 $0,900,390 

1820, 4.3,298 14,820,732 11,008,922 88,288,200 

1880, 61,892 10,453,544 7,213,194 01,780,210 

1810, 93,883 13,300,925 9,104,802 102,101,201 

1850, 136,881 30,374,084 10,081,703 180,000,500 

1855, 162,629 45,113,774 28,190,925 249,202.500 

1S00, 177,84,) 39,300,500 13,530,770 278,314,800 

1805, 203,000 21,540,494 19,219,499 

1870, 250.520 47,524,845 14,208,829 584,089,400 

1875, 325,003 51,982.220 29,187,105 570,000,000 

1880, 302,839 08,009,058 5:1,238,341 613,322,091 

1831, 371,000 01,900,103 73,433,077 

The commerce of Boston has increased 
very rapidly since 1850, and it is now run- 
ning neck and neck with Baltimore for the 
second place as a commercial city in the 
United States. But her internal commerce 
has grown with still greater rapidity; her 
railways stretch to the Pacific, and these 
and her steamers put her in direct connec- 
tion with every important town in the 
Union. As the headquarters of the cot- 
ton, wool, boot and shoe, and other promi- 
nent manufactures, it has a very large 
trade in all parts of the country, as well 
as abroad. Its retail merchants even 
solicit and obtain a large custom trade by 
mail in New York city and Brooklyn. It 
suffered a loss of about 88 millions by fire 
in 1872, but rapidly recovered from its 
losses. 



CHAPTER III. 

NEW YORK— TELEGRAPH— EXPRESS- 
GOLD. 

Tue city of New York, at the close of 
the revolution, was the second city of the 
new world, taking rank after Philadelphia. 
Its internal trade was limited to the capac- 
ity of the Hudson river, but its traders 
pushed across to Lake Champlain, and 
even to Lake Ontario, whence they drew 
skins and furs from the Indians, and 
brought down some of the produce of 
Vermont and New Hampshire. At this 
date there was little trade west of Albany. 
The trade was mostly with the towns on 
the east side of the river, and with Rut- 
land, Burlington, and other Vermont 
towns, as well as the western towns of 
Massachusetts. Remittances were made 
from these towns in ashes, wheat, etc., and 
during the embargo and war, smuggling 
was very extensively carried on, taking 
pay in specie. The goods went up the 
river in sloops. The New England cities 
had equal commercial advantages, and 



Philadelphia enjoyed many others in addi- 
tion. The valley of the Hudson furnished, 
however, large supplies of farm produce 
during the wars of Europe, which gave a 
preponderance to the New York trade, 
and it began to gain strength. In 1807 
the passage of Fulton's steamer to Albany 
gave a great impulse to the river trade. 
Her statesmen, however, soon saw the ne- 
cessity of a more extended inland commu- 
nication, and the canal, which had been 
projected before the peace, became a legal 
reality in 181 7, and a physical fact in 1825. 
The capital of the New York merchants 
began to be invested in enterprises which 
resulted in centering trade in the city. 
The canal connection opened the vast 
circle of the lake trade to New York 
city, and poured into its basin the western 
farm produce at rates far below what the 
same articles could be raised for at the 
east. As a necessity, therefore, New York 
became the point of supply, not only for 
the foreign trade, but for the neighbor- 
ing states. The growing manufactures of 
Philadelphia and Boston found cheaper 
food in New York than in their own 
neighborhood, and North river sloops and 
schooners continued the Erie canal to the 
Delaware and Charles river. As new 
routes to the west, and more extended set- 
tlements in that region opened new sources 
for the supply of produce, and new mar- 
kets for goods, the tendency was to New 
York. The capital engaged in commerce 
at that point being the largest, produce 
found readier advances and more prompt 
realization, while the large imports and 
consignments of foreign goods made the 
assortment larger and the average cost 
less there than elsewhere. The same cir- 
cumstance that drew produce into New 
York bay, also drew eastern manufactures 
to the same point, and this increased the 
assortment which was to be found at the 
common center. The fact that produce 
tended generally to New York, as a matter 
of course made it the center of finance. 
The United States government, and bank, 
and mint had been established at Philadel- 
phia. Those circumstances could not, 
however, control the currents of trade. 
The pork, and corn, and wheat of tho 
west, the manufactures of the east, the 
tobacco, cotton, and rice of the south, be- 
ing sent to New York to obtain advances, 
it followed that from all quarters bills 



LAND SETTLEMENT INTERNAL TRADE. 



573 



drawn against produce ran on New York. 
Those bills found buyers among the coun- 
try dealers, who, in all directions, wanted 
to remit to New York to pay for goods 
there purchased. Capital could not keep 
aloof from the focus of transactions, and 
all loans to be made or financial operations 
to be conducted, sought New York. For 
the same reason all funds seeking invest- 
ments went there to find them. Produce, 
goods, raw material, capital, all operated 
in reference to New York, and the foreign 
trade was the motor which kept up the cir- 
culation. This tendency to a center once 
commenced, cannot be turned, but it 
strengthens with the general increase of 
the country. The other cities strive to 
turn a portion of the current each in its 
own direction, but the result of those 
efforts is only to increase the aggregate 
trade of the whole. 

The lines of communication with the in- 
terior, and the facilities for advancing on 
produce, drew to New York a considerable 
portion of the western produce, and opera- 
tions are now there carried on which are 
largely of a speculative character. Pork, 
flour, etc., are often sold largely for future 
delivery on the New York exchange; and 
much of the cotton shipped from southern 
ports direct to Europe, is resold in New 
York many times before it arrives out. 
"When the cotton is put on board ship for 
Liverpool, samples and bills of lading are 
sent to New York, and the cotton sold 
"m transitu" — that is, during its passage 
to Europe. Since the ocean telegraph has 
come into operation, this system has been 
carried to a much greater extent, since 
news from the Liverpool market is re- 
ceived at least fifteen days after a cargo is 
shipped before its arrival out; and in spec- 
ulative times, other articles are subject to 
the same operations. The export of corn 
first became a large business in the fam- 
ine years of 1847-8, and the sub-divis- 
ions of qualities, round and flat, yellow, 
white, etc., then manifested themselves. 
In 1859 the crops were greatly beyond 
any former experience, and every available 
means of transportation was taken up to 
convey them to market. The realization 
on them depends upon the quantities that 
Europe may require, and this depends 
upon the events of a few weeks. The 
steamers now give intelligence in eight or 
ten days, when formerly thirty were re- 



quired. Since the ocean telegraphs have 
worked, the price of corn in Liverpool is 
known simultaneously in New York and 
Chicago, and water transportation is pressed 
to the utmost before the frosts cloi 

The proportion which each of the cities 
named enjoys of the aggregate es 
trade of the whole country, is seen in the 
table on the following page. 

The opening of the Erie canal in 1825, 
gave the first decided impulse to the city 
business, and produced a powerful effect 
upon its prosperity. The impulse was pro- 
longed under the bank excitement that 
exploded in 1837. The effect of railroad 
extension at the west has, in the last 
thirty-five years, had a still more power- 
ful influence upon its growth. The follow- 
ing table gives the population, imports, 
exports, and taxable valuation for a long 
period : — 

Population. Imports. Exports. Valuation. 

1684, 2,f)()0 $4,579 $10,093 

1760, 10,3S1 207.130 

L790, 33,131 10,739,250 2.505,415 

1800, 60,489 86,901,000 14,045,079 $25,645,867 

1820, 123,706 38,639,346 13,160.918 (19,530,753 

1830, 203,007 36,624,070 19,697,983 185.888,518 

1840, 312,710 60,440.750 84,364,080 358,888,515 

1850, 515.517 111,123,524 58,712,789 886061.816 

1855, 629.904 164,776,511 113,781,388 486,91 

1860, 813,668 233,718.718 188,036,550 577,830,656 

1870, 942,310 315.200.022 254,131,205 965,86 

1875, 1,041,886 868,687,680 889,801.918 1,100,948.699 

1880, 1,206.299 459.937,153 888,441,664 1,219,849,285 

Up to the year 1840 most of the business 
of the west passed through the canal or 
by way of New Orleans. The city held 
then a kind of monopoly, but. like all mo- 
nopolies, it cramped the producers. The 
large expenditure at the west for bank 
capital, in the years 1836-37, caused a 
great credit demand for goods upon New- 
York, which was generally met. The 
facilities granted in those years by the 
American bankers in London, for the {air- 
chase of goods on credit, placed these 
within the reach of any dealer who could 
make a fair show: and the goods obtained 
on credit required to be sold on the same 
terms. The rivalry thus produced among 
those who could command goods, was wry 
great, and the utmost efforts were made 
to obtain paper in exchange for goods. 
The banks showed the same eagernee 
discount the paper that the merchants did 
to obtain it. and the mass grew in a n 
ratio, from the small country dealers to 
city jobbers and importers, and London 
bankers, until the Bank of England, in 
August, 1836, issued a warning to those 



574 



NEW YORK TELEGRAPn EXPRESS GOLD. 



EXPORTS OF TIIE LEADING ARTICLES OF DOMESTIC PRODUCE FROM FIVE ATLANTIC CITIES AND 

FROM TIIE WHOLE UNION IN 1880. 



Boston. Philadelphia. Baltimore 



New Orleans 



New York. 



The Union. 



Rread and Breadstuff's 

Cotton, Raw 

Cotton, Manufactures of. 

Pro\ isions 

Mineral Oils 

Tobacco, Unmanufactured 

Tobacco, Manufactures of 

Wood, and Manufactures of. 

Animals, Living , 

Iron and Steel, Manufactures of. 

Tallow 

Leather and Manufactures of 

Oil Cake 

Furs and Fur Skins 

Drags, ( 'liemicals, Mudiciues 

Vegetable Oils 

Annual Oils 

Sugar and Molasses 

Spirits, Distilled , 

Beer, Ale, Porter, and Gider 

Seeds 

Hope 



Naval Stores (Resin, Turpentine, &c ) 

Agricultural Implements 

Spirits of Turpentine 

Fruits 

Coal 

Hemp, and Manufactures of 

Clocks and Watches 

Carriages, Cars, Carts, etc 

Quicksilver 

Paper and Stationery 

Metals, and Manufactures of, N. E. S. 

Copper, and M anufactures of 

Hides and Skins 

Manures 

Wool and Manufactures of 

Fancy Articles, Combs, etc 

Musical Instruments 

Ordnance Stores 

Glass and Glassware 

Wearing Apparel 

Soap, Common 

Marble and Stone. Manufactures of.. 

Books and Other Publications 

Ginseng 

Starch 

Jewelry 

Sewing Machines , 

All Dnmfrd Articles not Enumerated. 
All Mfrd. Articles not Enumerated... 



$14,987;617 
7,033,844 

1,174,024 

18,772,674 

645,047 

999,668 

860,860 

1,161,251 

5,533,771 

841,568 

1,482,745 

89(1,808 

87,378 

186,152 

210.521) 

E0,966 

124,729 

384,204 

37S,146 

21,111 

S8.043 

68,726 

29,326 

176,818 

17,155 

402,781 

8,251 

91,249 

17,871 

109,894 

17,010 

55,336 

6,071 

8,086 

147,998 

3,685 

919 

20,572 

152,840 

13.095 

40,928 

38,652 

71,491 

88,774 

.33,517 



5,321 

500 

8,411 

53,775 

439,397 



Totals of 1880. 
Totals of 1870. 



$58,023,587 
12,251,267 



Increase. 



$88,987,818 

2,075,' 92 

90,271 

6,295,658 

0,578,702 

980,583 

148,400 

770,557 

382,960 

303,446 

633,096 

212,102 

471,492 

109,904 

97,272 

0,522 

81,334 

257,091 

320 

1,948 

32,505 

73,075 

35,721 

5,523 

508 

10,105 

108,190 

293 

848 

3,842 



10,477 

439 

360 

9,050 

28,325 

982 

3,575 

441 

745 

1 ,105 

6,816 

15,546 

11.209 

10,329 



3,057 

050 

17,507 

89,868 

268,995 



$56,364,054 
6,768,755 

34,050 

4,208,727 

1,528,888 

4,107,405 

88,894 

252,116 

852,035 

64,510 

230,776 

8,867 

23,442 

2,295 

14,026 

3,849 

87,258 

30.476 

15,700 

18 

114,481 

28,207 

19,870 

688 

251 

29,750 

152,172 

870 

17 

208,204 



$9,291,558 

75,553.195 

39,000 

95,472 

5,159 

61,272 

1,189 

803,067 

89,805 

17,987 

70,893 

3,024 

1,687,158 



2,907 

28,329 

47 



69 

2,594 
270 
867 

49.377 
1,774 
3,550 
3,256 

5,228 



7,202 

2,487,283 

210 

856 

562 

24,729 

1,049 
35 

8.378 

3,708 
105 

1,105 
120 

1,144 
395 
502 

1,040 

1,325 
461 
015 
320 

6,656 
424 
505 

1.857 
748 
842 

1.039 

37,003 

340 

212 



28,781 

505 

111 

27,979 

391,357 



in 



769 
6,488 

23,091 



$134,671,45: 

30,213,941 

7,442.898 

90,303,926 

27,178.159 

8,898,270 

1,399,019 

5,410,152 

7,341,750 

8,070,724 

4,957,120 

5,175,480 

3,798,805 

4,971,047 

2,817,283 

905,521 

1,277,987 

2,443,105 

2,584,050 

162,022 

2,254,001 

2,349,990 

000,390 

1,980,687 

364,033 

1,398,364 

180,173 

1,150,750 

1,107,927 

858.784 

89.515 

919,866 

429,741 

800,218 

267,789 

174.811 

53.890 

603.305 

609,787 

438,534 

492,738 

338,752 

513.000 

897,810 

420.200 

29.31 

381,8119 

147,948 

1,502,580 

423.057 

4,145.631 



$288,086,886 

21 1 .535.905 

9,981,418 

127,013.212 

86,218,686 

10,379.107 

2,003.106 

10. 237,336 

15,888,190 

14,710.521 

7,089,232 

6,760,186 

6,259,827 

5,404.418 

3,580,450 

3,470. 40 

1,676.079 

3,258.230 

3,027,545 

298,818 

2,770,823 

2.573.292 

2,452,908 

2,245,742 

2.132.154 

2,090,634 

2,068,080 

1.029.259 

1.153,237 

1,407,425 

1.300,170 

l,183.i40 

970,079 

819.218 

019.074 

608.668 

888,568 

875,866 

811.177 

777,341 

7 19.860 

7' 17.906 

• 90.122 

052,903 

020(130 

533,042 

117,842 

231.531 

1.019.307 

782,661 

6.518,888 



$49,012,195 
16.903.072 



$70,220,870 
14,380,248 



$90,249,874 
107,658,042 



$388,441,664 
209,972,491 



S823.9 10.353 
455,208,341 



..$45,772,320 $32,709,123 $61,890,032 *$17,408,168 $178,409,173 $308,738,012 



♦ Decrease. The cotton export of New Orleans in 1870 was larger than that of any year since 1860, and was 
never equaled except in that year. 



houses co curtail their credits. This was 
the "hand writing on the wall" — settling 
day had come. The business south and 
west had then been eagerly sought after 
by the jobbing-houses, who employed 
drummers to haunt the New York hotels 
and beset every new-comer with tempta- 
tions to buy. The drummers of the day 
had usually no limit placed upon their 
expenses, which were intended to cover 
the "attentions" shown to the country 
dealer. These revelled in the dissipations 



of the town at the apparent expense cf 
their entertainer, and they could do no 
less than buy of such attentive friends, 
when the bill, whether they discovered it 
or not, would often cover their own and 
other people's expenses. The mode of 
business then in vogue, when banks were 
multiplying so rapidly all over the country, 
was to take the paper of the dealers, pay- 
able at their own local bank. It was sup- 
posed that the dealer would be sure to 
keep his credit good at home. The result 



LAND SETTLEMENT — INTERNAL TRADE. 



575 



showed that the dealer, in order to pay the 
New York bill, got an accommodation 
note done at his bank, which thus became 
the debtor of the New York collecting 
bank. By this means, although tin; New 
York merchant got his money, the west 
was still in debt to the east; and tins con- 
tin ued as long as capital was sent from the 
east to the west to start banks. The whole 
system exploded in 1837, and the bank 
capitals were sunk in these credits. From 
that date there was to be " no more credit," 
a threat which has often been repeated 
without being put in practice. The only 
permanent change seemed to be to require 
notes payable in New York. Those were 
given at dates longer or shorter, but the 
system was an improvement on the old 
mode. With 1840 also began the railroad 
building, which brought stocks and bonds 
to New York for negotiation, and the 
money being expended west promoted 
consumption of goods, which caused a 
greater demand in New York. The ex- 
ports of produce increased at higher 
prices, and the sales of these gave the pro- 
ducers the means of buying more goods. 
In 1838, thirty-one years after the first 
successful steamboat, arrived the first 
ocean steamer, the Sirius, at New York, 
marking a new era in foreign trade, since 
communication with Europe was now re- 
duced to half the time, a circumstance 
which was equivalent to an increase of 
capital engaged in commerce, because it 
could be turned oftener. From that date 
ocean steam navigation rapidly increased. 
The electric telegraph of Morse began a 
few years later to exert its influence in 
facilitating intercourse, and the express 
system was also introduced. It is some- 
what singular, that with the breakdown of 
the old credit system and the adoption of 
the plan of making notes payable in New- 
York, four important elements, having the 
highest centralizing tendencies, began to 
operate. These were, first, ocean naviga- 
tion ; second, the more extended construc- 
tion of railroads; third, the invention and 
construction of telegraphs — there are now 
105,000 miles of lines, that have cost over 
$60,000,000, consolidated in one company, 
with a capital of 80 millions, and New 
York is the center for the whole: and 
fourth, the express system. All th. se, 
centering in New York, came into active 
operation at about the same time. The 



express business is peculiarly American, 
and has grown with a vigor which places 
it among the most important trading facil- 
ities of the country. In the spring of 
L839, a year after the arrival of the £ 
at New York, W. F. Harnden, then out 
of employ in Boston, \ ed by bis 

friends to get a valise and take: small pack- 
ages and pai-eels from his acquaintance 
Boston to their correspondents in New 
York, and return with what they had to 
send, making a small charge for his ser- 
vices. He did so, and discovered that a 
great public want was to be supplied. .He 
soon contracted with the railroad to Bend 
a car through with his goods, and opened 
offices, employed messengers, pushing the 
business with American energy. In 1840 
an opposition was started by Adams. In 
1841 new fields were explored by Harn- 
den, who ran an express between Albany 
and Boston, and one between Albany and 
New York. Route after route was then 
opened to express agents, penetrating fur- 
ther and further, and multiplying their 
lines in the densely settled portions of the 
country; not only between cities, lit be- 
tween different portions of the same city. 
In 1845, Buffalo was reached by Wells & 
Co. In 1849, the gold lever brought Cal- 
ifornia within the scope of express opera- 
tions, and from San Francisco "pi ny " ex- 
presses ran to the diggings with gr< al bu 
placing the solitary miners of the Si< ri I 
vada in direct connection with the mint and 
with Wall street. As these busy ag< nts con- 
tinued to increase, and lessen the difficulty 
of communication, trade multiplied as a 
consequence. The telegraph had also pen- 
etrated most direct routes between i 
and that instrument came in aid oi the 
express which executed an order transmit- 
ted by telegraph. Instead of waiting the 
slow course of the post for a reply, the 
telegraph gave an instantaneous order for 
goods that the express conveyed. I 
the three months that would oner bave 
been consumed in coming from < lincinnati 
for goods and returning, was reduced to 
three days. All the cities of the Union 
were broughl within similar Bpeaking dis- 
tance. In 1850 it was estimated thai the 
expresses travelled twenty thousand i 
daily, and the service has Bince incn 
twenty-fold. Steam, the telegraph, and 
the express, had thus greatly facilil 
trade, by making the long semi-annual ex- 



576 



NEW YORK TELEGRAPH EXPRESS GOLD. 



peditions to the large cities, for the pur- 
chase of goods, unnecessary. The small 
dealers could now buy frequently in small 
parcels the goods they found most in de- 
mand, instead of buying a six months' 
stock, and taking the risk of the goods 
being well selected for the market. This 
also brought with it another change. It 
had been the case, that most of the goods 
sent to America formerly were the surplus 
stock of the British manufacturers. That 
is, where patterns had been got up for the 
home consumption and the regular trade 
supplied, there would remain a stock that 
had become comparatively dead by age. 
This dead stock was " good enough for the 
American market," and was sent out al- 
most for what it would bring, and being 
transported into the interior for six months' 
sales, became a sort of Hobson's choice 
for the consumers. When, however, fre- 
quent arrivals of new goods came to be 
laid before the customers, they immediate- 
ly displayed a taste and exercised a choice. 
Ill-assorted goods would not now sell at 
all. English refuse became of no value, 
because American taste was developing 
itself. The customer would no longer 
take what was laid before him; but in 
order to sell, the dealer had now to exer- 
cise his sagacity, as to what would please 
his taste in selecting it, and his judgment 
in buying it. The manufacturer of dry 
goods was obliged to follow in the same 
direction, and the employment of design- 
ers became important. It was now that 
the sagacity and taste of the factory 
agents were felt to be an indispensable 
element in the success of a concern. The 
production of a design was promptly fol- 
lowed by the judgment of the public, and 
manufacturing became, as it were, one of 
the fine arts. 

The joint operation of these new agen- 
cies manifested itself in 1850, when the 
west had become enriched with the large 
sales it had made of its produce during 
the famine years, and the railroads and 
canals, then in operation, had profited 
largely by the high freights and tolls paid 
by produce on its way to market. The 
gold of California soon began to add a new 
stimulus to the business of the city. In 
1852 the Michigan roads had opened 
through to Chicago, and New York was, 
by rail, within thirty-six hours of that city, 
The projection and construction of rail- 



roads went on rapidly, constantly adding 
to the business of New York — the com- 
mon center, whence the means to build 
were drawn, and to which these means re- 
turned in the purchase of goods. The 
Crystal Palace, in 1853, drew great num- 
bers of persons to the city, and gave a 
start to retail trade, which had an import- 
ant effect upon the value of leal estate and 
the location of business. In the above 
table we find that the imports into the city 
from abroad rose fifty per cent, in the five 
years to 1855, and the total valuation was 
two hundred millions. This valuation fol- 
lowed the changed location of business. 
In the speculative times of 1836-7, the old 
Pearl street house, in Hanover square, was 
the headquarters of country dealers, and 
that square the center of the dry goods 
trade, around which all others clustered. 
The great fire of December, 1835, by 
which the lower part of the city and a 
value of $18,000,000 was destroyed, broke 
up the location, which, however, was 
.-peedily rebuilt, and, with the rebuilding, 
the Merchants' Exchange was enlarged 
and reconstructed at an expense of $1,800,- 
000. The usual fate overtook occupiers in 
the inordinate demands of landlords, and 
the leading firms pushed across Wall 
street and made Pine and Cedar streets 
the great center. Gradually firm after 
firm ventured upon Broadway, which, in 
1845, was visited by a fire that caused the 
rebuilding of the lower portion, no longer 
for dwellings, but for substantial stores. 
One firm went up to the corner of Rector 
street, one-quarter of a mile from the Bat- 
tery, and took the site, long vacant, of the 
old Grace church, at a lease. '• Too high 
up," said conservatism, as the crowd rushed 
by, and the great retail firm of Stewart 
& Co. took the old Washington hotel at 
the corner of Chambers, and occupied the 
block with a marble store which then had 
no equal in any city. Here importing and 
jobbing were carried on to the extent of 
$50,000,000 by one who, by his energy 
and enterprise, had increased a capital of a 
few hundreds to millions, and employed 
twelve hundred and fifty clerks and others. 
There were handsome stores before this 
was built, but this commenced the era of 
expensive structures. The demands of 
luxury led to the erection, up town, of ele- 
gant trade palaces of iron, marble, and 
freestone, for the leading firms in the dry 








COOPER INSTITUTE, CONTAINING BOHOOL OF DESIGN, 
lli> which Foirag Ladiea an- taught l>ra« ing and Engraving. J 




T^rfsJ 



GOV. STUYVESANTS MANSION, N. Y., 
(In olden time.) 



FIRST CLASS DWELLINGS IX EXCHANGE PLACE, 1 (190. 




jtmn ii ■■' * 



A. T. STEWART'S RESIDENCE, FIFTH AVENUE, N. Y., FIRST CLASS I)WKLL1N<;. 1870. 




NEW CITY 11 \l.l,. v. jr. 




\ JTOHK STOCK I Xl II Wi.l 



LAND SETTLEMENT INTERNAL TRADE. 



;,m 



goods, jewelry, clothing, porcelain, and 
other branches of trade; while the whole- 
sale dealers, invading the old college 
ground, covered it with stores of great 
size and beauty. The center of business, 
which thirty years since was within a 
fourth of a mile of the Battery, is now 
three miles distant, and the value of real 
estate has followed like a "ground swell,'' 
reaching incredible rates. A marble store 
on Broadway was rented in 1860 for 
$50,000 per annum, and in 1807 for 
$75,000. A lot on Broadway, near 
Broome, sold in 1859 at private sale for 
$110,000; it had been bought at auction 
in 1852 for $35,000. An elderly gentle- 
man present remarked, " This lot was part 
of the old Colonel Bayard farm, and was 
given by the colonel to his barber for a 
hair-dressing bill. I have seen it sold four 
times, and each time people decided the 
buyer crazy to give such a price." The 
Society Library lot, corner of Leonard 
a'jd Broadway, sold with the building in 
1849 for $60,000; after the costly stores 
erected on it were burned in 1867, it was 
sold for $650,000, and a building costing 
about $1,100,000 erected on it. The 
"Central Park," covering 843 acres, was 
projected, and has since been completed, at a 
cost of over $1 2,000,000, having employed 
in the fourteen years, over 50,000 men. 

The city spread toward the upper wards 
through the agency of railroads, which 
enabled workmen and merchants to live 
further from their places of occupation. 
The importance of consuming as little time 
as possible in coming from and going to 
occupation, made it requisite formerly, 
that persons should live near their busi- 
ness. The old cities of Europe are thus 
built with narrow streets and very high 
houses, to accommodate many in a little 
space. Modern cities are built on a broad- 
er scale. Omnibuses first came into play 
to give a greater breadth to the dwellings 
of the people, and horse-railroads still fur- 
ther expanded the area. Manhattan island, 
forming a point at the Battery, runs north- 
erly between the North and East rivers. 
From the City Hall park the city spreads 
in a fan-like form east and west, and from 
that point radiate twelve railroads, includ- 
ing the Harlem, which runs by the Fourth 
avenue to Albany. The eleven other 
roads run on as many routes, and carry 
their passengers from three to twelve 



miles, returning with them to a common 
center every morning to business. '1 
eleven railroads cost about $12,500, 
In 1869 they transported about 131,000,000 

passengers. There are in New York 
thiiteen other railroads not having their 
terminus at the Bark, which cost somewhat 
more than the eleven, and carry altogether 
nearly as many passengers. But 
railroads did not carry the people fast 
enough to and from their homes, and now 
there are five elevated railway routes, all, 
however, consolidated under one corpora- 
tion, which carry passengers to Hai 
Fordham and Kingsb ridge, by steam, at the 
rate of 20 miles an hour or more. These 
cumber many of the streets, and will some 
day be replaced by something better. In 
Brooklyn there are thirty horse-railroads 
which have cost nearly $25,000,000, and 
carry about 150,000,000 passengers, 
telegraph and the telephone play an im- 
portant part in the city business. Many 
large firms whose offices are in the lowi r 
part of the city, and warehouses and man- 
ufactories in the upper part, connect the 
two by telegraph and telephone, to trans- 
mit orders and for information. All the 
police stations connect by telegraph to give 
alarms of robbery, and fire alarms are also 
conveyed by the same means. The " time 
ball " also operates by telegraph. On the 
top of the Custom House, sixty feet 1 
is a mast on which slides a black ball some 
twenty feet in diameter. This can be seen 
from any part of the bay. It is h< i 
to the top of the pole, and is so arranged 
that the moment the sun reaches the zenith, 
by observation, at Albany, it is released by 
electricity and falls, marking twelve o'clock, 
by which every ship master in the port 
may set his chronometer. 

All these railroads, horse, motor, and 
elevated, continually running night and 
day, aided by six stage routes, bring the 
business and working population to their 
occupations, and back at night; yet all 
these routes are insufficient to trans] 
the hundreds of thousands who need con- 
veyance, within a reasonable time, and 
new routes, elevated and viaduct, are con- 
stantly projected, with cars drawn by 
steam power, to facilitate rapid transit. 

The aggregate of passengers conveyed 
each year by the railroads and 
New York and Brooklyn, is about ten 
times the population of the United States ; 



582 



NEW YORK TELEGRAPH EXPRESS GOLD. 



the greater number going to and coming 
from their business by these conveyances 
every working day. This facility of transit 
allows business men to concentrate their 
stores and warehouses around certain 
points, thus affording better opportunities 
for purchasers from distant cities and vil- 
lages to purchase their stocks without 
spending much time in going from one 
warehouse to another to select the great 
variety of goods which go to make up a 
general assortment. The importers, job- 
bei*s, and large dealers reside, of course, 
at a distance from their warehouses, but 
they are brought promptly and readily to 
them by cars, stages, or steamers. Yet 
these centers of trade change materially 
every four or five years. The wholesale 
jobbers and importers in most descriptions 
of goods, and especially in dry goods, are 
none of them lelow the Park, and while a 
few of the oldest houses are in the vicinity 
of Worth and Canal street, the great ma- 
jority are now established between Tenth 
and Twenty-third streets. The great jew- 
elry, silver-plate, electroplate, watches, pub- 
lishing houses, sewing-machines, carpets, 
etc., etc., have almost without exception, 
located themselves between Bond and 
Twenty-third streets, and most of the build- 
ings down-town are either occupied in the 
heavier trades, as offices or banking and 
insurance houses. 

The great retail houses in the dry-goods 
trade are now almost entirely above Ninth 
street. They are not all on Broadway, 
several of the largest being on Sixth ave- 
nue or on Fourteenth, Nineteenth, Twen- 
tieth, Twenty- First, Twenty-Second and 
Twenty-Third streets. The change is a 
very great one from the time when even 
large dealers lived in the dwelling-houses 
over their stores and boarded their clerks. 

Perhaps the greatest difference which 
purchasers who come to the New York 
market are called to observe, is in the di- 
vision of labor. Formerly a dry-goods 
jobber kept a full assortment of everything 
in his line, and it required no little tact 
and exercise of memory to keep each line 
full. Now, the trade is largely subdivided. 
One house deals only in woolen goods, 
and these only of certain classes ; the trade 
in cotton goods is divided into sheetings, 
shirtings, cambrics, etc. ; colored cambrics, 
prints, twilled goods, jeans, tickings, etc., 
silks into dress silks, ribbons, handker- 



chiefs, fringes, etc. Then there are dealers 
in sewing silks, cotton and linen spool 
thread, hosiery, knit goods, water repel- 
lents, braids, bindings, passementerie, arti- 
ficial flowers, feathers and birds, beetles, 
etc, for ornaments, buttons, Berlin wool, 
corsets, and every description of ladies and 
gentlemen's underwear. Some of the 
largest jobbing and importing houses do 
indeed keep up separate departments for 
each of these classes of goods, but it 
requires a large capital and a special head 
of each department to do this effectively. 
Long credits which have always been the 
ruin of the jobbing houses in any time of 
financial panic, are not now so generally 
the rule as they were in the past. Many 
houses sell only for cash, or on thirty or 
sixty days. Four months is generally the 
longest limit. The methods of selling have 
materially changed. Formerly the country 
merchants and those from the smaller cities 
journeyed to New York and Philadelphia 
twice a year, and spent from two to six 
weeks there in purchasing goods, many of 
them indulging meanwhile in a round of 
dissipation at the expense of the jobbers 
and importers. They were charged high 
prices for their goods and bought on long 
credits ; but they charged their customers 
in turn from 100 to 300 per cent, profits. 
As the western cities, Cincinnati, Chicago, 
Louisville and St. Louis became independ- 
ent of the great eastern cities, they had 
their large wholesale houses and drew to 
themselves much of the jobbing trade. 
To hold their customers the New York 
jobbers and importers were obliged to send 
out traveling salesmen, or commercial 
travelers, to make their prices lower and 
to take orders at all seasons of the year to 
be sent by express or fast freight. This 
mode of selling has been carried to a great 
extent, between 200,000 and 300,000 com- 
mercial travelers being on the road most 
of the time in the different branches of 
trade, and reaching every hamlet which is 
near a railroad. This business has been 
overdone, the salesmen being so numerous 
as to annoy the country merchants and 
hinder their business. A new method is 
to some extent taking its place. The im- 
porters and jobbers send out weekly or 
monthly catalogues, accompanied often 
by dress goods, ribbons, etc., with samples 
and prices (usually written in), to all their 
customers, and receive their orders often 




INTERIOR OF A CARPET IIOrsE. 




INTERIOR OF A DRV GOODS HOUSE. 



LAND SETTLEMENT INTERNAL TRADE. 



585 



by telegrams. This method is less objec- 
tionable than the others and may with a 
great deal of labor be made as effective. 
Most of the largest retail houses are also 
sending out samples, and receiving orders 
by mail or telegraph. The importers and 
jobbers rely for their credits, to some ex- 
tent, on the mercantile agencies, though 
less than formerly, but the largest houses 
have now a confidential credit clerk, whose 
business it is to find out the standing of 
every customer of the house. 

The supplies of goods for the country 
dealers are derived from various sources ; 
small wares from city manufacturers ; do- 
mestics from the mills or agents ; foreign 
goods from importers or agents of foreign 
manufacturers. The local manufactures 
are generally purchased by the jobbers to 
make good their assortments, as is also the 
case with hardware, and most articles of 
domestic manufacture, except the produc- 
tions of the large mills, which have agents 
in the city for their special sale. 

The supply of capital in the city brings 
to it the largest assortment of goods, and 
of course it is the best point at which to 
buy, the more so that at times there is an 
over supply of goods, which, being worked 
off at auction, realize a loss sometimes of 
25 to 30 per cent, to the importer and for 
eign owner, and of course to the advantage 
of the country buyer. The general attrac- 
tions offered to buyers make it to the ad- 
vantage of sellers elsewhere to send their 
merchandise to New York to meet the pur- 
chasers. Boston made, recently, an attempt 
to break up this, by establishing sales of 
her manufactures there, instead of sending 
them to New York. The force of central- 
ization is, however, difficult to overcome, 
and the imports at New York show a rap- 
idly increasing share of the arrivals into 
the whole country. Thus, in 1840, New 
York imported $60,000,000 out of an ag- 
gregate of $121,000,000 ; in 1870, at specie 
values. £293,990,006, out of $435,958,408 ; 
in 1880, $543,595,398 out of $(i67,954, 746. 
The proportionate imports at the Atlantic 
ports will be observed on the following 
page. 

The increase in the ratio of both imports 
and exports at New York to the whole 
amount is very remarkable. In 40 years 
its imports had increased from less than 
one-half of the whole to five-sevenths of 
the whole, and every year gives it a larger 



proportion. Those ports which have made 
specialties of certain articles, and have at- 
tempted to control the trade in th< m, find 
that without any apparent effort, and with 
out having any specialties, Now York 
receives four or five times as large a quan- 
tity of these very articles as they do after 
the most strenuous effort. The great mass 
of the goods for the consumption of the 
interior passes into the port of New York. 
It is to be borne in mind, however, that 
many of the importations at New York 
are really for Philadelphia, Albany, and 
other cities, even western ones. They are 
entered at the custom house by a broker, 
who pays the duty and forwards them by 
express to their destination for a small 
commission. The express, the rails, and 
the telegraph and telephone facilitate such 
operations. 

The gold and silver imported at New 
York are from various sources. The bulk 
of the gold that forms the amount export- 
ed, is direct from California. 

The gold extracted from the earth by 
the miners of California has a considerable 
degree of purity, and before refining estab- 
lishments were set up in the state, sold at 
from $18 to $20 per ounce. Much was 
used as a currency. It was carried in lit- 
tle leather pouches, and weighed out to 
shopmen in exchange for goods. A large 
portion of it was carried to New York, in 
the pockets of home-bound adventurers, 
and sold in New York at such rates as 
were possible. The buyers m< stly had it 
sent to Philadelphia, by « x press, at an ex- 
pense of § per cent. It was then assayed 
and coined at the public mint, and the 
proceeds returned to the owner. This ex- 
pensive and round-about process led to the 
establishment of a mint in San Fram 
and an assay office in New York, where 
the miners themselves could deposit the 
dust and get the full value in return. 
When the dust is deposited, a certif 
r\' weight is given and the gold in 
returned. There are a number of pi 
assaying houses in San Francisco, where 
the dust is cast into bars of large size. 
Most of these are connected with banking 
houses, and the bars are the basis ol ex- 
change. The ex] resa companies deal in 
this gold. The mine]- now having a I 
dust, sells it to an express agent, orsendfl it 
down to a banker in San Francisco, who 
has it assayed t into bars. The 



iS6 



NEW YORK TELEGRAPH EXPRESS GOLD. 



IMPORTS OF CERTATN GOODS INTO THE FIVE GREAT ATLANTIC PORTS, AND ALSO THE TOTAL 
IMPOSTS INTO THE UNION IN 1880. 



Articles. 



Gold bullion and bars 

Gold coin 

Silver bullion 

Silver coin 

Chloride of lime 

Cocoa, crude and leaves and shells. 

Cochineal 

Coffee 

Cotton, raw 

Cotton, manufactured 

Cutchee and terra japonica 

Dye-woods in sticks 

Fish not of American fisheries 

Fur skins, undressed 

Furs and dressed fur skins 

Gums 

Hair unmanufactured 

Hair and manufactures of 

Hides and skins, not furs. 



Household and wearing apparel, f . o. d 

India rubber, &c, crude and manufactured . . . 



Indigo. 

Oils, mineral, chemical and vegetable. 

Paintings 

Paper materials 

Paper and manufactures of 

Silk, raw 

Silk, manufactures of 

Soda and salts of 

Sulphur, crude and refined 

Sugar and molasses, etc 

Tea. 



Tin in bars and manufactured 

Wood, manufactured and unmanufactured . . . 

Animals living 

Spirits and malt liquors 

Books, pamphlets, etc 

Barks, medicinal and other 

Articles prod, or manuf. of U. S. brought back 

Chemicals 

Breadstuff's and other farinaceous food 

Bristles 

Buttons and button materials 

Clothing 

Coal, bituminous 

Copper and manufactures of 

Earthenware, stone and china ware 

Fancy Goods 

Flax and manufactures of 

Fruits of all kinds 

Glass and Glassware 

Hemp and manufactures of 

Iron and steel and manufactures of 

Jute and other grasses, manufactures of 

Lead and manufactures of 

Leather and manufactures of 

Marble and stone, and manufactures of 

Metals and manufactures of , n. e. s 

Musical instruments 

Opium and extract of 

Paints 

Precious stones 

Provisions, including vegetables 

Salt 



Seeds 

Spices of all kinds 

Straw and palm leaf, and manufactures of. . . 

Tobacco and manufactures of 

Watches, watch movements, etc 

Wool. Goat's hair, etc., and manufactures of. 

Zinc, spelter, etc.. and manufactures of 

Argols 

All other articles, f. o. d 

All other dutiable articles.. 



Totals. 



Boston. 



$17,911 
8,553 



80.158 

407.423 

138,7:24 

218,300 

235,106 

50,480 

1,007.570 

486,79'" 

491.593 

778,816 

12.771 

151.226 

91,493 

329,389 

140,4» 

7,391.303 

08.321 

1,005.788 

054.540 

022,779 

99.039 

1,040,013 

93,598 

3.245 

587,754 

1,140.228 

184,187 

13,402.19(1 

13.298 

1. 72 1. 155 

337.950 

3,170 

660,39(i 

194.139 

4,900 

205.251 

1,094.088 

90.012 

239 

75.018 

109,658 

163,595 

13,920 

950.950 

182,543 

2,129,237 

873.101 

411.074 

038.029 

0,755.725 

490.021 

2,366 

1,674,716 

182,524 

1-3.ii 15 

18,429 

38,88a 

106,847 

If 0,100 

118,033 

230.710 
32,0 13 
214,521 

4 1.213 
13,291 
17.407 
15.205.512 
21.707 
0,819 



Phila. 



10.152 



640 

140.00' 

1,750 

51,185 

145,053 

5,000 

1,328.021 

20. 2! 14 

199,060 



2,320 
85,129 
85,906 

4,140 
42. 

182.182 

13.242 

637,664 

34.309 

40.121 

5S.000 

219.027 

92,073 

12.001 

559,975 

994,107 

254,892 

8,701.411 

103 

2,033.370 

88,089 

980 

313,212 

133,470 

389,333 

27.220 

1.0 15. 331 

12,459 

801 

141.508 



8,008 

19.055 

550.0221 

100.479 

1,301.201 

934.225 

105,081 

76,«91 

8,023.811 

1.549,707 

15,982 

313,7:5 

70.372 

58, ! 1 1 

20.555 

318,448 

30.705 

202 207 

29,830 

196,998 

32 I 9 

68.700 

38.501 

3.17T 

7.704 

3,051,970 

53.051 

91,540 



Baltimore. N.Orleans. 



$1,631 



8.030 
7,720 



95 

1,473,698 

14 

155,613 



New York. 



$3,355 
5,286 



222,200 
11,603 



9 
3,701 



1.089 
1,931 
7,835 
3,248 
140,730 
21,005 
7,946 



8,946 

10,098 
23.749 
11,441 



4,010,100 
' '386.727 



35,240 
432,476 
313,342 

1,105.334 

1,502 

1,449.410 

12,387 

09 

77,380 

21,415 

490 

702.724 

176.145 

10,978 

373 

2.887 

10,285 

1.488 

334.223 

109,720 

113.347 

252,293 

28: 1. 1 173 

33.00,) 

2,1 21 

3.710.031 

2,748 

375 

25,337 

00.500 

10,0 

28,1.7 

"" L245 



1,917 

153,771 

3,150 

3,105 

35.700 

391 

1,914 

213.au 

2,010 



1,022 
51 



1.439 
21,044 



30 

90,015 

3,159 

90,403 



50,805 
771 

"9,01.9 



36.271 

224.657 

7,121 

817,050 

173 

364.023 

100,490 

60 

551,409 

4,191 

9.473 

48,022 

39,186 

17,791 



2.100 

8,514 

11,441 

301 

175,0 S 
33400 
235.907 
301.171 
55,510 



1,728,051 
71,606 
54 
22 513 
30.101 
7,860 
25.413 



2.203 



14,097 

107.217 
1,695 

13.182 

2.343 

258,321 

4,380 

120,419 



$19,298,528 

57,S94,107 

145,103 

6,320,357 

403,709 

1,120,770 

534,511 

43,612,094 

458,021 

20.314.501 

1,290,451 

1,082,089 

817,343 

1,471.227 

3,640,325 

2,232,020 

586.927 

729,421 

20,430.171 

278,983 

8.142.905 

2.1:03,301 

1.810.024 

2,019.408 

4,783,619 

1.282.592 

1.909,057 

30,758,133 

4,418.089 

l,0a3,814 

58,328,413 

13.715,368 

16,181,330 

2,392,448 

33,979 

6.132.377 

2,090.059 

1,932,726 

4,188,223 

10,038,912 

549.412 

1,007,972 

3,638,866 

1,192.523 

100,004 

852.616! 

3,485,789 

5.-45.124 

19,303,375 

10.588.054 

4,389,638 

2.237,040 

30,291.091, 

5,70 1,567 

299,710 

10,035,891 

530.057 

1,358,641 

751,819 

1,427,637 

935.477 

6,291,492 

077.9 6 

517.215 

3.012,220 

2.' .".I. .->!•': 

3,768,216 

0.577.020 

1,493,880 

37,517.398 

50S.537 

2,004,088 



Total in the 
Union. 



$20,336,445 

60,420,951 

1,981,425 

10,394,489 

985.5S5 

1,306,239 

890,168 

60,360,769 
501,120 

29.929,366 
1,803,643 
l,80s,730 
2,168,208 
2.496.277 
3,927.835 
2,444,302 
900,077 
923,881 

30.OO-J.254 
3,078,841 
9,918,290 
2,752,900 
2,S-21 .003 
2.319.352 
0.0.,7,107 
1.071.120 

12,024,099 

32.188 090 
7,648,069 

1,933,08 

88,771.105 
19,782,631 

23,507.250 
9.535.777 
3.739.990 
8,42 ,017 
2.487,888 
3,818,051 
5,044,274 

12.807,018 
8,856,491 
1.000.405 
3.877.105 
1,44",899 
2,071,022 
1,415.212 
5,650,267 
5.9-3.103 

23,730,320 

13.270.078 
5.221.511 
3,291,679 

53.714,008 

7,931,486 

.",27 113 

12,2 15.033 

838,874 

l,087.«f5 

1 17.778 

2,786 606 

1.10N.S.H 
0.098.4S8 
1.511.440 
1.837 432 
3 270.228 
2.428.057 
3.947.002 
7.302.300 
1,523,948 

57.03s.713 

053.390 

2.10". 403 

11,080,486 
8,234,188 



$68,710,380 $35,978,084 $19,900,523 $11,07,3.155 $027,253,643 $760,989,056 



LAND SETTLEMENT INTERNAL TRADE. 



587 



value is credited to the depositor, less the 
commissions. The bars are mostly shipped 
to New York, and the bankers draw bills 
against them in favor of those who have 
remittances to make to the bank. The 
competition among the bankers reduces 
the rate at which these bills can be sold 
to a point that leaves apparently no profit, 
and it is charged in some cases that they 
draw at a loss, in the view of monopolizing 
the business. The refining leaves a small 
profit. The cost of shipping the gold to 
New York may be thus stated: freight, 
etc., $1.57; state stamp on bill, 20 cents; 
insurance, $1.50 — making $3.27 on $100. 
But the insurer gets from the Mutual com- 
panies scrip, worth on an average 35 cts., 
which reduces the cost to $2.92. The 
bars sometimes command a higher price 
in New York than in San Francisco. 
Thus, a bar of 100 ounces, 880 fine, is at 
this moment worth par in San Francisco, 
and 900 fine is worth 87-£ cts. premium 
in New York. This price has reference to 
the gold only of the bar. There is some 
silver in each. Thus, in the bar 880 fine 
there is 88 ounces of gold, 114 of silver, 
and ■£ oz. copper. In the other 90 oz. 
gold, 9^ silver, and a half copper. This 
makes the gold worth -| per cent, more in 
New York than in San Francisco, and re- 
duces the cost of the bill to $1.92 per cent. 
It is evident that he who sells his bills at 
2 per cent., makes but 8-10 of 1 per cent., 
or, including other items, a small loss. If 
the house feels strong enough to insure it- 
self, it saves the insurance; but this must 
be more or less a risk to those who take 
the bills. Thus the operation is one of 
mere cost of shipment of the gold; but 
the control of so much gold on paper 
issued is an object with large firms. The 
higher value of gold at New York arises 
from the fact that it is the financial center 
of the Union. The exchanges of the 
country with Europe and with the interior 
of the states turn there. The south ships 
its cotton, and tobacco, and rice; the west 
its produce; and the Atlantic states their 
manufactures. These, as we have seen, 
give an aggregate value of over $300,000,- 
000 sent abroad in a year. The shippers 
of these goods draw bills against them, 
and offer them for sale. The market of 
sale must be where the greatest demand 
for remittance exists. New York imports 
five -sevenths of all the goods received into 
31 



the country, consequently the demand is 
there the greatest for the bills, and they 
are sent there for sale. It happens that 
the great majority of bill-drawers are un- 
known to the buyers, hence there is hesi- 
tation in taking their bills. To obviate 
this, a number of large banking houses 
connected abroad, and having preat capi- 
tal, buy the bills that have " bills of lad- 
ing " attached, and the goods are sent to 
their correspondents abroad. In the sea- 
sons of the year when shipments are most 
active, these bills are plenty and low. 
They are then purchased and endorsed, 
and sold with the endorsement at a higher 
rate when the season advances and the 
cotton bills run short. If the demand is- 
active, and the rate of money higher here 
than abroad, the bankers draw on their 
own resources, and lend them the proceeds- 
of the bills they sell on stocks or other 
securities. They are also the buyers of 
the gold bars as they arrive from Califor- 
nia, and pay such rates as the demand for 1 
exchange, or the rate of money, or the 
price of gold on the continent, present or 
prospective, will warrant. A demand for 
silver to go to Asia, causes a demand for 
gold with which to buy it on the continent, 
and this demand draws upon New York, 
and indirectly upon the whole country. 
It is obvious that the bill business is thus 
mostly in the hands of large bankers. 
This grows out of the fact that there is 
abroad no market for bills on New York. 
Thus, the New York importer of goods, in 
order to pay for them, buys a bill on ships' 
specie, instead of ordering his creditor 
abroad to draw upon him, which would be 
done if a bill on New York were salable 
in the London market. It is understood, 
that when such amounts of bills from the 
south and elsewhere are sent to New York 
for sale, the proceeds of those sales form 
a large fund due by New York to those 
sections. These funds are deposited in 
the New York banks, and by them em- 
ployed in loans upon stocks, or in. such 
other ways as will pay an interest. Thus 
the whole country contributes to the sup- 
ply of capital at that common center. 
The New York banks, some fifteen years 
since, in order to encourage that centraliz- 
ation, allowed interest of 4 per cent, on 
the funds so deposited. This caused a 
greater sum to be so employed, and im- 
posed on the banks the necessity of lend- 



588 



NEW YORK — TELEGRAPH EXPRESS GOLD. 



ing it, in order to make a profit. The 
amount of funds lying in New York varies 
from $50,000,000 to $90,000,000, accord- 
ing to the season of the year. The banks 
in all sections of the country that have 
such funds in New York do not draw 
against it directly in favor of those who 
want to remit to New York, but they use 
the funds to buy up their own or other 
paper cheap. The effect is to swell the 
supply of funds in New York, and at 
times foster speculation there. 

The funds that accumulate in New York 
make it also the mart for stock operations; 
and these are very large, as well for regu- 
lar investments as for merely gambling 
operations. 

With the creation of any commodity 
whatever, there springs up almost simul- 
taneously a class of persons to deal in it, 
and to appropriate more or less capital to 
its prosecution. This capital is most gen- 
erally applied to the purchasing of it when 
it is thought to be cheap, in order to hold 
it until it can be disposed of to better 
advantage, or in advancing money to the 
needy seller. The persons so engaged, by 
devoting their time and attention to the 
subject of their traffic, reduce it to science, 
and soon determine and classify the kinds 
and qualities adapted to the markets and 
wants of the public. The dealing in 
• stocks is comparatively of modern origin, 
and commenced with the credit system of 
the European governments, at the close 
of the seventeenth century, when William 
of Orange avoided the dangers that beset 
the throne of the Stuarts, by borrowing 
money instead of extorting it by illegal 
taxation like Charles I., or stealing it like 
Charles II. The moment that government 
stocks — or certificates of debt issued to the 
government creditors — made their appear- 
ance, they became subjects of traffic, and 
with the certificates of stock in corporate 
companies, formed the material for specu- 
lation, and the exchange markets, where 
the surplus wealth of communities seek in- 
vestment, became the theatre for opera- 
tions in securities. The American colonies 
had no stock debts or corporate companies, 
since little surplus capital existed for such 
investments. The paper money that they 
issued, however, afforded by its fluctua- 
tion many opportunities of jobbing at the 
expense of the public. When the revo- 



money of the federal government gave a 
larger field for these operations, which were 
based mostly on the rapid depreciation of 
their value. Thus, a person would borrow 
a sum, returnable in the same description 
in a fixed time. Its value in that time 
having fallen, he could return it at a profit. 
Supposing the money to be par, a person 
would pledge a bag of $1,000 for paper ; 
a fall of eight or ten per cent, in sixty days 
would enable him to redeem his dollars 
with $100 profit. In the time of the rev- 
olution, a stage driver, having a talent that 
way, made money in the traffic, and subse- 
quently became the head of the largest 
bank and stock house of his time in New 
York, ending a long and respected life by 
suicide. This paper soon perished, and 
was succeeded by the government stock 
representing the public debt. This was 
soon accompanied by United States and 
other bank stock, insurance, canal, mining, 
railroad, etc., to an immense amount. Up 
to 1825 the majority of the stocks were 
banks and insurance, but there was no 
regular stock market. There were brokers 
who bought and sold stocks, but there was 
no concentration of operations. In that 
year the legislature of New York author- 
ized the New York stock board, which has 
since continued to be the stock market. 
Within the last twenty years, boards of 
brokers have been started in most of our 
large cities. Their operations are, howev- 
ever, to a very great extent, based upon 
those of New York, with which they com- 
municate by telegraph. The board of 
brokers sits with closed doors from 10 1-2 
a. m. to 12 m. ; an irregular session is held 
about 2 1-2 p. m. There is a president, a 
treasurer, and a secretary ; the latter keeps 
a list of all the stocks dealt in in the mar- 
ket ; the members are admitted by ballot ' 
after notice of nomination by one of the 
board. Each member must have been at 
least a year a broker, and on his admission 
pay a fee of from $1,000 to $5,000. Some 
of the boards or exchanges require even 
higher sums. When the membsrs are 
assembled, the president proceeds to call 
the list, and as each stock is named in suc- 
cession, those who have orders to buy or 
sell make their offers, and the transactions 
are recorded, when they become binding 
upon the members. If any of these de- 
fault he loses his seat until he can pay or 



lutionary war broke out, the continental i arrange the claim. The theory of the 



LAND SETTLEMENT INTERNAL TRADE. 



589 



board is that it is the reservoir where all 
stocks held by the public are brought for 
sale, and where all buyers come, through 
brokers, to purchase. The number of 
brokers is over 1,200, and the commission 
charged is a quarter of one per cent., that 
is to say, $25 on $10,000. The board 
requires each member to charge not less 
than a quarter, but as most of them sell 
again for their customers for nothing, the 
charge is practically one-eighth. 

The quantities of stocks to be dealt in 
have greatly increased of late years. They 
are so constantly changing, and their num- 
ber increases at so rapid a ratio, that a state- 
ment which would be perfectly correct to- 
day, would be wide of the mark three 
months hence. There has been, moreover, 
a division of stocks into classes, most of 
which have now their special boards of ex- 
change ; thus there is a mining board deal- 
ing only in mining stocks and bonds, and 
bank and insurance boards, while the 
stock exchange confines itself almost exclu- 
sively to railroad stocks and bonds, govern- 
ments, telegraph stocks and bonds, with 
rarely a few state bonds, bank stocks, and 
the best known coal and mining stocks. 
The amount of the transactions in stocks 
and bonds is enormous. Many of the 
transactions are private, and of a speculative 
character. Where they are bona fide, and 
a consideration passes between the parties, 
other than that of mere margins or differ- 
ences, the result appears in the Clearing 
House operations. The magnitude of 
these astonishes even the wealthiest of 
European cities. The exchanges for a year 
in the New York Clearing House, have 
nearly equalled the entire true valuation 
of the country. Thus the exchanges and 
balances were in — 



180!), 
1870, 
1874, 
1876, 
1878, 
18S0, 



$37,407.0-28,986.55 
87,8"4.689,405.76 
2II.850.K81 .063.82 
J 9,874.815,360.61 
19.982,788.946.59 
87,182,188,631.09 



$1,120,318.307 87 
1,086,484,821.79 

971.281,280 78 
1,009.582.087.19 

951,970,454.86 
1,616,588,681.29 



In 1881 the exchanges exceeded forty 
billions. 

The speculative transactions far exceed 
those of other kinds. The actual invest- 
ments of capital are not large at the board. 
Those who take stocks for income do so of 
the issuers when the proposals are put out. 
and they hold them like the United States 
and state stocks, which rarely come on the 
stock exchange. The mass of the trans- 



actions then are of non-dividend paying 
stocks, -that are the foot-ball of speculation, 
and so pay the operators profits. The 
brokers are mostly cliques of operators, 
who, when the market is dull and prices 
are low, combine, as " bulls," to purchase, 
producing a rapid rise, in the hope, sel- 
dom disappointed, that the speculative 
community will be tempted by that rise to 
come in and buy ; as they do so the bro- 
kers unload themselves upon the buyers, 
and then become "bears," combining to 
depress the market, and to compel a fall at 
least equal to the rise, skinning the outsid- 
ers in the process. The speculators gen- 
erally buy on time, that is, to pay for the 
stock at their option, any day within thirty 
or sixty as the case may be. In this way 
the buyer pays interest on the purchases. 
He may also sell to deliver at any day he 
pleases within a specified time, or "seller's 
option," or to deliver at the "buyer's op- 
tion ;" he may borrow stock and sell it in 
the hope of buying it back cheaper on de- 
livery ; he may buy a privilege to deliver 
a stock at a certain price at a specified 
time, or not, as it suits him; or he may sell 
or buy a privilege of taking and paying for 
a stock, or not, as it suits him; he may buy 
cash stock and sell on time. To produce a 
fall, cliques will sell for cash all the stock 
they have or can borrow, and then offer 
time contracts without limit, until other 
holders are frightened and sell. Confed- 
erates keeping up a clamor to alarm the 
public at such times, all offers to buy are 
smothered, and orders to purchase are 
suppressed. On the other hand a combina- 
tion for a rise is accompanied by the most 
astonishing prophecies of a "good time." 
Considerable quantities are bought on 
time, the sellers hoping to get them cheaper. 
Meanwhile the cash stock is bought up and 
pledged for more money to repeat the 
operation ; the demand for the stock 
bought on time runs up the rate, and the 
public are expected to come in with suffi- 
cient strength to let the clique all sell out 
at a profit, when they will be ready for a 
bear operation. There are numberless 
modes of varying and combining specula- 
tive operations, which would iill a volume. 
All these time operations were illegal until 
1850, when they were all legalized, and a 
stock debt may now be collected like any 
other. 

The amount of the transactions is im- 



590 



NEW YORK TELEGRAPH EXPRESS GOLD. 



mense. In 1840, the aggregate of sales 
for the month of June was $3,684,460; of 
this one-half was bank stock and one-half 
Delaware and Hudson canal. In June, 
1857, previous to the panic, the sales 
reached $250,000,000, mostly railroad 
stocks. In 1871 the sales for May were 
considerably over $600,000,000. These 
transactions require a great deal of money 
to conduct them, and these funds come to 
New York to a considerable extent from 
neighboring cities as • well as from the 
west. They also employ a large portion of 
the funds of the banks put out "at call," 
and also the proceeds of bills sold by large 
exchange houses. Thus we may suppose a 
house sells on the departure of a steamer 
$500,000 of sterling bills. This money is 
paid into bank, and is loaned out on stock 
securities at 7 per- cent, on call, until, by a 
succeeding steamer it may be called in and 
remitted in gold to Europe. This opera- 
tion, on a large scale, will induce the banks 
to call in their loans tp protect their specie, 
and the value of money will rise in the 
market. The rule in stock speculation is 
loss, and the experience of the most fortu- 
nate dealers is that the interest and com- 
missions absorb the whole average profits. 
The funds sent to New York, therefore, 
for stock-dealing, only contribute to the 
central profits. 

The number of strangers that are drawn 
to the city in a year by ocean steamers is 
more than 500,000, and they fill the hotels 
that have of late taken such splendid pro- 
portions, and have been carried up to 
Forty-Second street, a distance of four 
miles from the old business center. The 
march of hotels up-town has been steady. 
The Astor House was, in 1833, the up- 
town house. From the Astor House to 
Chambers street was a long remove, in 
1840. In 1852 the St. Nicholas advanced 
a mile to Spring street, and became not 
only the up-town, but the "upper-crust" 
of all hotels. In 1854, Niblo's Garden, on 
Prince street, was occupied by the Metro- 
politan ; and, soon following, the Everett 
House, taking ground a mile higher, opened 
on Sixteenth street ; and in 1859. superior 
in distance, size, magnificence, and expense, 
the Fifth Avenue Hotel opened on Twenty- 
Third street. The Southern, the Grand 
Central, the Hoffman, the St. James, 
Windsor, Brunswick, and a score of others 
have since been added, besides the family 



hotels, like the New York, St. Denis, Clar- 
endon, St. Germain, Spingler, Sturtevant, 
Prescott, etc. Extravagance is only an 
allurement. Indeed, the hotel-keepers 
seem to have followed the advice of Boy- 
den, when he first gave popularity to the 
Astor. His cracker-baker complained that 
the waiters were inattentive : " Kill me 
two of them, and put it in your bill," he 
briskly replied. And to his partner, who 
spoke of the exactions of guests, he replied. 
"Furnish a gold dust pudding, with diamond 
plums, if they require, but charge accord- 
ingly." That is the secret of hotel-keep- 
ing in New York — let nothing be want- 
ing, not even a sufficient charge. Im- 
mense waste, no doubt, attends the system, 
but it attracts. The splendid arrange- 
ments tempt many city families to take up 
their abode in them; and a small family, 
even at $3.50 per day per head, do better 
than to pay the extravagant rents demand • 
ed for fashionable houses, with the at- 
tendant expenses. The numerous visitors 
to New York from the south and west, as 
well as the constant current of traders, 
better class of emigrants, and California 
passengers, fill the hotels of the lower 
parts of the city; and the whole mass, by 
their purchases for personal use, make an 
important part of the city retail trade, 
which has overflowed Broadway, and has 
sought Fourteenth street, Union Square, 
20th, 21st, 2 2d, and 23d streets, and Sixth 
and Eighth avenues. The records of ar- 
rivals show the average number per day 
at all the hotels is not far from 5,000, or 
the immense number of 1,800,000 per an- 
num. This, at an average of $3, gives 
$5,400,000 for hotel bills alone, but all the 
expenses cannot be estimated under $20,- 
000,000. The facilities of railroads and 
ferries also induce a great deal of trade 
from surrounding cities and towns within 
a reasonable distance. Within an area of 
75 miles there are few who do not do their 
shopping in New York, and very many of 
the small local shops send daily messages 
to the city to complete orders they may 
have received. On the other hand, a large 
quantity of manufactures that were for- 
merly confined to the city are now sent 
long distances into the coiintry, particular- 
ly in the winter, where they are made at 
less prices by those who are not depend- 
ent upon them for a living. The large 
circle of country thus loses its rural char- 






LAND SETTLEMENT — INTERNAL TRADE. 



591 



acter, and partakes of the metropolitan na- 
ture. It follows that, as city localities be- 
come known for particular business, and 
visitors seek them to trade, all of that class 
of dealers seek business places there, and 
thus concentrate the business. The fixed 
population of the city is given by the cen- 
sus at 1,206,299, and, with the neighbor- 
hood more or less connected, the wants of 
3,500,000 require to be met from the re- 
tail stores of the cities, in addition to the 
crowds of visitors from abroad. The re- 
tail trade is therefore a very important 
one, and its vigor, apart from the pur- 
chases of visitors, depends in some degree 
upon the cheapness of food. "Where im- 
migration has reached over 3,000 souls per 
day, composed of persons skilled in almost 
all employments, and all eager to obtain 
work, competing with those in the city 
who live by their occupation, and with 
those in the country, who are, so to speak, 
amateurs, it is evident the wages cannot 
be extravagant, and the amount that can 
be spared from them, after deducting 
house-rent and food, is not much in the 
average. Food is, however, the important 
item. "When that is cheap, trade is more 
active. "While cheap food is an import- 
ant item in the ability to purchase, yet em- 
ployment is the main consideration, and 
this depends upon the prosperity of those 
sources on which the city depends for its 
business. These in the long run are pro- 
gressive, notwithstanding the reactions 
that sometimes take place, and the diffu- 
sion of employments which machine inven- 
tions tend to bring about. 

The general prosperity of the whole 
country, does not, however, depend upon 
any locality: all production and all busi- 
ness is constantly seeking the conditions 
under which it can best thrive. These 
cannot be dictated ; but, being found, the 
general welfare is as a consequence the 
greater, and with the general prosperity 
the common center must only become the 
more magnificent. 

In this full account of the great com- 
mercial metropolis, we must not forget its 
sister city, Brooklyn, which, though long 
regarded as New York's bedroom and sub- 
urb, has within the past two decades blos- 
somed into an independent city of more 
than 600,000 inhabitants. A very consid- 
erable proportion of the foreign commerce 
of New York comes to the wharves and 



piers of Brooklyn; most of the grain, pro- 
visions, etc., shipped, is first stored in its 
warehouses and loaded upon the outgoing 
vessels by its elevators. Its manufact - 
produced in 1880 over $190,000,000 of 
goods. It is the great center of the petro- 
leum trade, and has the largest navy yard 
in the United States. It has borne two- 
thirds of the expense of the great suspen- 
sion bridge over the East River, which is 
now nearly completed at a cost of $15,- 
000,000. It maintains its rank as the 
third city in the United States, and is 
growing more rapidly than any other with 
the possible exception of Chicago. ■ 

We should not do full justice to this 
subject of the growth and commercial in- 
fluence of our larger cities, if we failed to 
notice those cities of the interior and the 
far west which, mostly within the past ten 
or at farthest twenty years, have grown up 
to be centers of distribution and of accu- 
mulation of exports over a wide extent of 
territory. 

These are of two classes. The Pacific 
ports and the large towns west of the 
Rocky Mountains which are tributary to 
them; and the interior cities which have 
no direct foreign commerce, but are yet 
largely engaged in interior commerce. To 
the first class belongs San Francisco, much 
the largest port on the Pacific coast and 
ranking in its foreign commerce the sixth 
of American cities. The following table 
gives the exports, imports, and total ex- 
ports and imports of San Francisco for the 
years named: — 

, Domestic and Total 

Years. Foreign Exports Imports. Imports and 
and Specie. Exports. 



1860, $10,206,016 

1866, 80.118,813 

1870, 85,976,894 

1875, 81,988.848 

1880, 40,858,909 

18S1, 41,977,968 



Eportf 

$0,577,921 $19,878,987 

15,568,416 46,681,798 

91.884,108 57,810,497 

84,085,481 65,328,894 

41,965,817 81.694,919 

44,668,381 86,645.549 



San Francisco has also large manufac- 
turing industries, and is the headquarters 
of all the mining interests of California, 
Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, and 
Washington Territory, and of some farther 
east, and has concentrated the fisheries 
and fish products, the lumber and timber 
trade, the wine-growing and grain trades 
of the Pacific coast. The population of 
San Francisco in 1880 was 233,959: in 
1870, 149,473. Portland, Oregon, is an 
enterprising and rapidly growing city on 
the Willamette, a short distance above its 



592 



NEW YORK TELEGRAPH EXPRESS GOLD. 



587), contends manfully with Chicago for 
the supremacy in the grain trade. The city 
has also a large lake trade and extensive 
manufactures. Iowa has no large cities, 
and for the most part only a local trade. 
DesMoines, Dubuque, and Davenport have 
each a population of about 22 or 23,000. 
In Minnesota we find two wide awake 
cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul, one large- 
ly engaged in the flour trade, the other in 
other manufactures, and both bidding high 
for the trade of Dakota, Manitoba, and 
Maritoba. Minneapolis had in 1880, 46,- 
887 inhabitants, and claims 60,000 now, 
and St. Paul with 41,473 in 1880, is con- 
tent with nothing short of 55,000 now. 

Omaha in Nebraska, long the terminus 
of the Union Pacific, with large machine 
shops, smelting works, and manufactories, 
and a population of 30,518, is a city of 
considerable importance, but St. Joseph, 
Mo., with 32,431 inhabitants, has of late 
years passed it in the race, to be itself in 
turn passed by Kansas City, the most 
wide awake city west of St. Louis. Kan- 
sas City had 55,785 inhabitants in 1880 
against 32.260 in 1870. It is the center 
of a network of railroads radiating in all 
directions, and is growing very rapidly. 
Its assessed valuation (at less than 50 per 
cent, of the true) was $13,378,950 in 1880. 
Its grain receipts average over 10,000,000 
bushels, number of hogs received 676,477; 
number packed 539,097; cattle received 
244,709. Denver, Colorado, is the latest 
addition to the distributing points in the 
west, and is making very rapid progress. 
Its population in 1880 was 35,629, against 
4,759 in 1870. It claims 50,000 now. 
The young city has not only all the appli- 
ances of the highest civilization in its 
schools, churches, gas and waterworks, 
drainage, etc., but has numerous manufac- 
tories and smelting works, and a very 
large jobbing trade over an extensive 
section. 

Leadville in the same State is the cen- 
ter of the great mining region; it has a 
population with its immediate suburbs of 
30,000, but is too high up in the moun- 
tains to become a point of distribution for 
anything except mining stocks. Santa Fe, 
New Mexico, is an old trading post and is 
trying to maintain its position, but finds it 
hard to shake off its old Spanish dignity 
and slowness, and may yet be passed by 
some of the newer towns. Tucson, Ari- 



junction with the Columbia. The largest 
steamers can come up to its wharves. Its 
exports in 1881 were $3,082,805 and 
its imports $610,187. It is an important 
distributing point for Oregon and "Wash- 
ington. Its population in 1881 was about 
25,000. Oakland, the Brooklyn of San 
Francisco had a population of 34,555 in 
1880, against 10,500 in 1870. It is re- 
ceiving considerable commerce and inter- 
nal commerce independent of San Fran- 
cisco. 

Sacramento, the capital of California, on 
the Sacramento river, has also a consider- 
able internal commerce. It had in 1880 a 
population of 21,420 against 16,283 in 
1870. Salt Lake City, the capital of Utah 
and of Mormondom, is a town of consider- 
able importance as a distributing point for 
Utah, Idaho, Western Montana, and East- 
ern Nevada. It had a population of 20,- 
768 in 1880 against 12,854 in 1870. 

The interior cities which are concentrat- 
ing the travel and the receipt and distri- 
bution of produce and goods over wide 
sections of country are more numerous; 
many of them are of recent growth, others 
are older but have only recently attained 
a prominent position. We can only give 
their names and population with occasion- 
ally a word respecting their specialties. 
Columbus, population 51,647 in 1880; To- 
ledo, an active lake port, population 50, 137 ; 
and Dayton, a great railroad center, popu- 
lation 38,678, are the leading cities of 
Ohio after Cincinnati and Cleveland. In- 
dianapolis, a large manufacturing city with 
75,056 inhabitants, Fort Wayne with 26,- 
880, Evansville with 29,280, and Terra 
Haute with 26,042, are the principal towns 
of Indiana. 

Illinois has no very large towns except 
Chicago, Peoria, with some manufactories 
and many railroads, population 29,259. 
Quincy, also a railroad city, with 27,268 
inhabitants, and Springfield, the capital, 
with 19,743, are the most important towns, 
but are not distributing points of much 
importance. 

Michigan has besides Detroit only Grand 
Rapids with 32,016, Bay City with 20,- 
693, and the two Saginaws. Saginaw City 
and East Saginaw, with about 25,000 in- 
habitants between them, and in the heart of 
the great lumber and salt region. Crossing 
the lake, Milwaukee, of which we have al- 
ready spoken incidentally (population, 115,- 



LAND SETTLEMENT INTERNAL TRADE. 



593 



zona, is likely to be a railroad center, and 
may gather the trade of Arizona, but the 
heat of the climate is against it. 

Galveston (population 22,248), San An- 
tonio (population 20,550), Dallas (nearly 
20,000), Houston (about the same), and 
Laredo, the new and growing city on the 
Rio Grande, with 8,000 or 10,000, are the 
principal distributing points in Texas. 

Little Rock in Arkansas, Memphis and 
Nashville in Tennessee (populations respect- 



ively 33,592 and 43,350), are the centers 
of trade in these two states, as Mobile (pop- 
ulation 29,132), and Montgomery, are for 
Alabama and Mississippi. 

The Eastern cities though very numer- 
ous and populous, are mostly tributary to 
the great cities, and supply only local dis- 
tricts of no great extent. Their wealth 
and populousness are generally due to 
manufactures or to some specialty of trade. 



BANKS m THE UNITED STATES. 



CHAPTER I. 

BILLS OP CREDIT— GOVERNMENT ISSUES- 
UNITED STATES BANK. 

The use of paper money is a modern in- 
vention, and may yet be considered but as 
an experiment, since, from its first emission 
in the colonies to the present day, paper 
money has constantly changed its form and 
the conditions of its circulation. It is not to 
be inferred that paper money originated on 
this, continent, since it was used long before 
in the countries of Europe. Its nature has, 
however, been more developed here, and 
every phase of it has had full scope of action. 
The circulating paper is of many forms, such 
as bills of exchange, promissory notes, gov- 
ernment bonds bearing interest, government 
bonds bearing no interest and not converti- 
ble into coin, but receivable for taxes and 
dues, and lastly, corporation or bank prom- 
ises to pay coin on demand. There are many 
other descriptions of circulating paper, but 
these are the chief that are used. The last 
two are those which have figured most as 
money. The intention of paper money is to 
supply the place of coin where that article is 
not sufficiently abundant, as was eminently 
the case with the early colonies. The colo- 
nies were none of them rich, and had not 
been able to import and keep as much of the 
precious metals as would serve for a currency, 
that being as much an instrument of com 1 
merce as a road or a ship. t In substituting 
paper for coin there is no difficulty as long 
as the quantity emitted does not exceed the 
demands of business for a currency. If there is 
no trade — that is, if no one wants to exchange 
his commodities fur others — there is no want 
of currency. As the desire to trade increases, 
a want of money to represent commodities 
is experienced, and the want is proportioned 
to the numbers, wealth, and activity of the 
traders up to a certain point; because when 
trade is very active, money itself changes 
hands rapidly and performs more transfers 



than when it is sluggish. There must be, 
however, great confidence in the value of the 
money, because doubt in that respect in- 
stantly checks traffic. The early colonists 
were in that position. They had commodi- 
ties which they had raised and made, but 
they had no currency, or not enough. In 
this position, in 1690, it became necessary for 
Massachusetts to send a military expedition 
to Quebec to drive the French out of Canada. 
The expedition failed, and the troops came 
back clamorous for pay. The colony had no 
money to pay with, and it adopted the expe- 
dient of issuing promises in convenient 
amounts. The faith of the colony was 
pledged for the payment of these, and they 
would be received for taxes and dues. It 
will be observed, that these bore no interest, 
and were not convertible into coin. They 
were, in fact, mere orders of the government 
upon farmers and others for food, clothing, 
etc., in favor of the soldiers, to be called in 
by taxes, not to be paid in money. The 
paper was worth nothing to export. Its only 
value consisted in its being good to pay taxes 
with. It is at once obvious that no man 
wanted more than would suffice for that pur- 
pose. The aggregate amount that could be 
issued was then measured by the sum of the 
taxes. In order to increase the amount, the 
colonial government made it a legal tender, 
that is, compelled creditors to take it for pri- 
vate debts. This was so palpably unjust, and 
was productive of so many evils, that the 
home government suppressed it. Neverthe- 
less, the same necessities produced similar 
devices, and other colonies followed the ex- 
ample of Massachusetts with similar results. 
In 1745, Massachusetts, to defray the ex- 
pense of an expedition to Louisburg, again 
issued bills of credit to the extent of 
£3,000,000. This paper speedily deprecia- 
ted to 11 for 1: that is, £l in silver Mas 
worth £11 in those bills. The English gov- 
ernment then sent out £180,000 in silver, to 
pay the cost of the expedition, and with this 



BILLS OF CREDIT GOVERNMENT ISSUES UNITED STATES BANK. 



595 



the thrifty colony bought up its own paper 
at 11 for 1. New York, during the period 
1709 to 1786, made thirty-four issues of bills 
of credit, amounting in the aggregate to 
£1,563,407, and the depreciation was about 
2 to 1 ; in other colonies much more. The 
evils attending these issues were very great, 
but the cause continued to operate, and when 
the war commenced in 1775, the Congress of 
the Confederation was forced upon the issue 
of $3,000,000 worth of" continental money," 
as distinguished from the state issues; and 
to give these issues some firmness, they made 
them a legal tender. This supply of papei', 
in addition to the colonial emissions, in- 
creased the difficulties, and some of the colo- 
nies went a step further and made jjersonal 
property a legal tender, according to apprais- 
als to be made for the puipose. Notwith- 
standing the general discredit, Congress was 
obliged to push the issues. In 1779 the 
amount outstanding was $160,000,000, and 
by 1780 it reached $200,000,000, when the 
value fell so fast that before the end of the 
year the bills ceased to circulate. There are 
those still living whose parents had, be- 
tween 1780 and 1800, given $100 for "a 
cake of gingerbread," or $10,000 for a hat 
cocked in the fashion of the day. The 
whole amount issued by Congress was 
$359,456,000, and on the formation of the 
new government they were purchased at 
the rate of 1 cent for $1. The state issues 
met with similar fate. The entire absence 
of money, witli its attendant evils, mainly in- 
duced the adoption of the federal constitu- 
tion, which prohibited the states from ever 
again issuing "bills of credit," or making 
" anything but gold and silver a tender for 
the payment of debts. " These prohibitions 
are a record of the experience derived from 
the colonial experiments in paper money. 

The condemnation of " bills of credit " was 
a great good. The important question was, 
however, what to do next; and this engaged 
all minds. Specie had vanished, and govern- 
ment paper money was dead. Mercantile 
sagacity had, however, on the death of the 
continental money, devised a partial remedy 
in 1781. This consisted of the substitution 
of private corporate credit in place of gov- 
ernment credit, and took shape in the char- 
tering of the Bank of North America, at 
Philadelphia; the Bank of New York, in 
the city of New York ; and the Bank of Mas- 
sachusetts, in Boston. 

It is an erroneous idea, that was enter- 



tained for a long time, that banks, by t lie 
issues of credit, create capital, and on this 
idea many new banks were started, impart- 
ing much activity to trade. The good 
effects of their operation were due, however, 
rather to the concentration and application 
of capital to mercantile uses, than to an in- 
crease in the quantity of capital. Before the 
establishment of banks, individuals kept the 
money they received in their own houses, 
tempting robberies, and subjecting them- 
selves to loss of interest, and to risk and 
trouble in seeking small investments. The 
shopkeeper and merchant who received 
money in the course of business in small 
sums, kept it by him until he made his 
wholesale purchases, when he paid it out 
altogether. The aggregate sum thus lying 
entirely idle was very large. On the estab- 
lishment of a bank, the owners of money 
deposited it in the vaults. The institution 
thus became the common receptacle for all 
idle funds. Inasmuch as that, although all 
the depositors were entitled to draw their 
money whenever they chose, yet but a small 
proportion did so, the banks might safely 
lend the money so deposited on notes at 
short dates, sixty to ninety days, and still 
have as much within their control as would 
meet the probable demand of the depositors 
for payment. It was necessary, however, 
that the notes discounted should be prompt- 
ly paid at maturity, in order that the bank, 
itself subject to be called upon to pay on 
demand, might have control of the means of 
payment. The discount of mercantile notes 
with two good endorsers then became the 
business of banks ; and we may here remark 
in passing, that this wrought a change in the 
mode of borrowing money in the communi- 
ty. Up to that period, good character, in- 
dustry, and sobriety were security for loans. 
An illustration of this is afforded in a be- 
quest of Dr. Franklin in trust to the city 
(then town) of Boston, of a sum of money 
□Tom which young mechanics of the above 
characteristics were to be loaned two hun- 
dred dollars to start them in business. They 
were to repay the money with Interest, and 
the sum, with its accumulation, w;?s to con- 
tinue a fund for the same purpose. The 
fund still continues to exist, but without 
accumulation. Under the newly established 
banking system, character was no longer an 
element of credit. A note with two good 
names became indispensable. The capitals 
of the banks were seldom paid in loanable 



596 



BANKS IN THE UNITED STATES. 



money. They were notes of the subscribers, 
or deeds and mortgages of real estate, and 
were mostly designed to inspire confidence. 
A portion of the capital was necessarily 
kept on hand in specie to meet the calls of 
depositors and note-holders. The banks, in 
order to increase their loanable funds, is- 
sued their own promises to pay specie on de- 
mand, they to circulate as money. The old 
colonial issues of credit bills did not pretend 
to be payable on demand, and the applica- 
tion of that principle, it was now supposed, 
would obviate the evils that had grown out 
of the old system. The bills were freely 
taken and circulated. The institutions were 
not limited in the amount that they might 
issue, and they increased the currency al- 
most at pleasure. It became obvious, how- 
ever, that if one bank issued a larger quan- 
tity in proportion than the other banks, its 
notes, paid into the rival institutions, would 
immediately be sent back to it for redemp- 
tion, and it would have to pay in specie the 
balance above what it held of their notes. 
Hence the laws of trade compelled each 
bank to keep its credits within a safe ratio 
to those of other institutions. This, how- 
ever, did not prevent all from increasing 
their issues to any extent as long as their 
mutual balances were adjusted. When, 
however, the whole of them increased their 
circulation, the mass of currency became 
cheap, a fact which manifests itself in a rise in 
prices of all commodities. The effect of this 
is, that the produce of the country ceases to 
be exported, because it is too high to pay a 
profit to the merchant, while, on the other 
hand, goods are imported to avail of the high 
prices. This state of affairs involves an ex- 
port of specie, which drains the banks, and 
forces back upon them their bills for re- 
demption. Hence, if the banks regulate 
each other by their balances, the foreign 
trade becomes the common regulator of all. 
Kept within a certain limit, governed by 
produce and business, the bank circulation 
is useful. Although it does not in any de- 
gree create capital, it supplies the place of 
the precious metals as currency. If we sup- 
pose a miller wishes to purchase grain ; he 
gets a note or acceptance at sixty days, on 
New York, discounted at a local bank, 
which pays out to him circulating notes. 
With these he purchases wheat of the farmer, 
flours it, and forwards it to New York for 
sale, and the proceeds are applied to the 
taking up of his draft that the bank had dis- 



counted. In the mean time the farmer has 
paid away the notes he took for his wheat, 
probably to the storekeeper in discharge of 
his bill. The storekeeper has now to remit 
to New York to pay a note that falls due for 
merchandise previously purchased, and fur- 
nished to the farmer. To do so he goes to 
the bank, and buys of it the draft on New 
York that the institution had discounted for 
the miller. This he remits to his merchant, 
who gets it paid from the proceeds of the 
flour. The transaction is thus closed, and 
by it farm produce has been got to market, 
and merchandise, in return, has passed from 
the manufacturer to the consumer, effecting 
an exchange of commodities without the use 
of any money at all. The notes that the 
bank put out on a draft, after performing 
the functions of money, returned to it in ex- 
change for the draft, and all obligations 
were cancelled. This is the operation of 
paper when confined to actual business 
transactions. The number and kinds of 
these are almost infinite, but the principle is 
the same when the paper is only issued on 
actual commodities, the exchange of which 
cancels the , obligations that grow out of 
them. There is, in this, no creation of capi- 
tal, only the facilitating the exchange of that 
already created. Under such circumstances, 
the quantity of currency rises and falls with 
the quantities of produce and merchandise. 
The moment the bank lends its notes to 
speculative operators, who seek to borrow 
capital itself, rather than credits with which 
to interchange capital, it becomes insolvent, 
because it lends what it has not got to spare. 
The early banks mostly confined themselves 
to sound rules, and with the rapid increase 
of business which followed the formation of 
the new government, their business being 
profitable, stimulated the increase of institu- 
tions, mostly in New England, where com- 
merce was concentrated. The three origi- 
nal state banks were eminently success- 
ful, and they suggested a resource to the 
federal government. This was developed 
in the celebrated report of Alexander Ham- 
ilton, Secretary of the Treasury, in favor of 
a National Bank. The proposition at once 
called up the right of Congress to charter a 
bank under the constitution. After a warm 
congressional debate upon the subject, Presi- 
dent Washington demanded Avritten opinions 
of his four cabinet officers. The Attorney 
General and the Secretary of State declared 
the bank unconstitutional. The Secretary 



BILLS OF CREDIT GOVERNMENT ISSUES UNITED STATES BANK. 



597 



of War and the Secretary of the Treasury 
were of a contrary opinion, and the celebra- 
ted paper of the latter upon the subject de- 
cided Washington, who signed the bill, and 
the bank went into operation with a capital 
of $10,000,000, of which $2,000,000 was sub- 
scribed by the government, and $8,000,000 
by individuals. Of this latter amount, 
$2,000,000 was to be paid in specie and 
$6,000,000 in six per cent, stock of the 
United States. The charter was to continue 
until March 4, 1811. Immediately on the 
organization of the bank, the shares rose 25 
to 45 per cent, premium, and the institution 
paid 8 1-2 per cent, dividend. The creation 
of this bank was attended by the rapid mul- 
tiplication of banks in the various states, be- 
coming rivals to each other, and gradually 
consolidating an interest which was strong 
enough in 1811, with other interests, to defeat 
the recharter of the Bank of the United 
States. The recharter was opposed on the 
grounds: 1st, that it was unconstitutional; 
2d, that too much of its stock was owned by 
foreigners ; 3d, that state banks were better. 
It is singular that at a time when capital 
was scarce in the country, objections should 
have been made to its coming in from abroad. 
Nevertheless, the bank was closed, and on 
settlement paid $108 1-2 to each share of 
$100. From that date, gold and silver only 
were by law receivable for government dues. 
The winding up of the National Bank was the 
signal for creating state banks to fill the 
vacuum. The old bank and its business was 
purchased by Stephen Girard, who conducted 
with it a large private banking business with 
great success on a capital of $1,000,000. In 
four years, to 1815, 120 banks, with an ag- 
gregate capital of $40,000,000, went into 
operation. Pennsylvania alone, by act of 
March 21, 1814, created 41 banks. The 
amount of notes emitted by these institutions 
was never known with certainty, but was es- 
timated by Mr. Jefferson, in 1814, as high as 
$200,000,000. A large portion of these, in 
the middle states, were issued as loans to the 
government ; and the war pressure became 
Buch, that in September, 1814, all the banks 
out of New England stopped payment. The 
bills immediately depreciated 20 per cent, 
in Baltimore, and 15 per cent, in New York. 
The news of peace, in February 1815, caused 
some improvement, but in 18*10 the difficul- 
ties were greater than ever. The discount 
in Baltimore was 20 per cent., Philadelphia 
17, New York 12 1-2. This kind of paper 



being the only currency, the government was 
compelled to take it for dues, in violation of 

law. This caused the greatest injustice, swice 

the funds received in one place were more 
depreciated than in another, and Nevi Eng- 
land, where the currency was sound, had 
great cause of complaint. In such a state of 
affairs, although the state banks bad multi- 
plied to 246, with $89,822,422 capital, a new 
National Bank became inevitable, ami Co ti- 
gress, by act of April, 1816, again chartered 
a National Bank, which went into operation 
January 1817. Its charter was to lasl until 
March 4, 1836; its capital was n:}5,000,000, 
of which the United States subscribed 
87,000,000 in a 5 per cent, stock, and the 
remaining $28,000,000 was to be subscribed 
by individuals — one-fourth in gold and silver 
and three-fourths in the funded debt of the 
United States. The debts of the bank, in 
excess of its deposits, were not to exceed 
$35,000,000. The bank was to pay a bonus 
of $1,500,000, and perform the money busi- 
ness of the government free of charge. In 
return it received the public funds on depi >sit, 
and nothing was to be taken for public dues 
except specie, treasury notes, notes of specie 
paving banks, and the National Bank notes. 
When the bank went into operation it became 
necessary for the state banks to resume or 
wind up. Those of New York, Philadelphia, 
Baltimore, and Virginia resumed, and those 
which did not were gradually purged off. 
From 1811 to 1830, 165 banks," with a <• ipital 
of $30,000,000, closed business. The loss 
of the »-overnment by these was estimated at 
$1,390,707, and the public lost much larger 
sums. The bank, in the first few year- of 
its operation, encountered many perils, grow- 
ing out of the foreign trade. Imports poured 
into the country in prodigious amounts, and 
an active demand for silver Bprung up for 
Europe and Asia. The institution had, how- 
ever, in the public stock and in its own stock, 
forming its capital, the means of drawing 
specie "from Europe, which it did to an ex- 
tent that subjected it to a loss of over half a 
million dollars. 

The institution was of much service to 
the government, and enjoyed great facilities 
from thi' use of the public funds. The prin- 
cipal bank was at Philadelphia, with branches 
in most >>\' the large cities. This organiza- 
tion of the bank made it very powerful as a 
means of exchange, and this power was likely 
to grow with the increasing wealth of the 
country, up to the time when railroads and 



598 



BANKS IN THE UNITED STATES. 



telegraphs made communication more rapid. 
The power of the bank was based upon the 
federal finances, of which it was tbe agent, 
and it operated through the growing busi- 
ness of the country, which was conducted 
largely upon the credit system. As the 
country increased in prosperity, other banks, 
under state charters, sprung up, and these 
became the recipients of mercantile deposits, 
or, in other words, of the money which each 
merchant received in the course of his busi- 
ness, and also of private funds. The mer- 
chants who thus placed their funds with the 
banks were constantly debtors of the govern- 
ment for duties and taxes ; these they paid 
by checks on their respective banks. The 
United States Bank, being the common re- 
cipient of all these checks, was thus always 
the creditor of the local banks, and could 
always force them to contract their loans by 
compelling them to pay, or could permit 
them to increase their loans by being indul- 
gent in regard to balances. The govern- 
ment funds thus collected by the United 
States Bank were paid out by it wherever 
the government required. Thus the Boston 
and New York branches would collect the 
largest amounts, but the branches in Rich- 
mond and elsewhere, or the parent bank in 
Philadelphia, would pay the drafts of the 
government. In the first year of the old 
bank it received $3,652,000 of the pub- 
lic money. As business prospered, the 
amount rose annually, until it reached 
817,038,859 in 1808, before the embargo. 
Thus the receipts and payments on govern- 
ment account were thirty-four millions in a 
year, when the whole population was 
5,200,000 souls. The new bank in 1817 re- 
ceived $32,786,662 for accounts of the gov- 
ernment. The sum declined year by year 
to $21,347,000 in the year of crisis, 1825, 
and subsequently continued at about twenty- 
four millions per annum, until 1833, when 
the deposits were removed by the govern- 
ment. These large sums annually flowed in 
and flowed out of the bank on account of 
the government, and a large proportion of 
the payments were on account of the public 
debt. This reached $127,334,934 in 1816, 
and was by annual payments extinguished 
in 1835, a period of nineteen years; the 
average amount paid off annually by the 
government was thus $6,700,000. The 
government bank, being furnished with such 
machinery, was necessarily the best medium 
of collecting bills ; thus the New York mer- 



chants, as an instance, sold their goods to 
the shopkeepers all over the Union, and 
they took notes payable at the local banks. 
The credits thus granted could be collected 
by the United States Bank cheaper than by 
any other bank. Hence, in New York, the 
" branch" would be the receptacle for 
accounts to be collected in all other cities ; 
the bank would forward these to its appro- 
priate branch, say Richmond ; the branch 
there would notify the local merchants of 
the notes it held against them ; these would 
pay in checks upon the local banks where 
they kept their deposits, and all these checks 
collected by the United States branch would 
make it the common creditor of all the local 
banks, whose specie it thus controlled ; it 
would notify the New York branch of what 
collections had been made, and these would 
credit the mercantile owners with the 
amounts. The power of the bank from this 
source, operating through all its branches, 
was much greater than from the use of the 
government funds, and the state banks com- 
plained loudly of the tyranny that they 
alleged it exerted over them. A stormy 
opposition was thus formed against it, while, 
on the other hand, a generation of merchants 
had grown up under its administration of the 
exchanges, and they feared the results of a 
change. Meanwhile, the question became 
political, and a great party, as early as 1829, 
gave indication that the recharter in 1836 
would not be granted. A struggle between 
the bank and the government ensued, and 
in 1833 the President removed the public 
deposits from the bank and placed them 
with numerous state banks. These ran a 
race of expansion with the United States 
Bank ; the consequence was an immense spec- 
ulation, which resulted in general bankruptcy 
in 1837. The government, on removing the 
deposits to the state banks, enjoined them 
to be liberal to the merchants. This was 
done in the view of counteracting the strin- 
gency which the closing up of the United 
States Bank was expected to cause. This 
did not occur, however, since that institu- 
tion also was liberal with its loans. A rapid 
expansion resulted from this rivalry, and 
speculation ran wild, particularly in public 
lands. In the midst of this excitement, the 
government issued the famous " specie cir- 
cular," by which the lands were to be sold 
for cash, gold and silver only. The effect of 
this would be either to kill the speculation 
or to drain all the specie into the land offices; 



BILLS OF CREDIT GOVERNMENT ISSUES UNITED STATES BANK. 



599 



it did the former. This was followed by a 
resolution of the Bank of England to cut 
off credits to American merchants, and the 
revulsion was precipitated. The charter of 
the United States Bank was not renewed by 
Congress, but the same institution obtained 
a charter from the State of Pennsylvania, 
February 18, 1836, under the name of the 
United States Bank of Philadelphia. The 
terms of this charter were very onerous, such 
as no institution could pay from profits ; the 
bank consequently failed, in common with 
all others in the Union, in 1837. It resumed 
its payments, following those of New York, 
January, 1839, and struggled on until Octo- 
ber 1839, when it finally failed. On 
going into liquidation, it was found that 
more than the whole of its large capital, 
$35,000,000, had been swallowed up, sub- 
jecting the stockholders to a total loss. This 
disaster was no doubt brought about by its 
abandonment of sound principles in the vain 
hope of compelling the government to re- 
charter it. But the institution had outlived 
its usefulness ; the country had outgrown 
the circumstances for which such a bank 
was fitted. We have thus sketched the 
outline of that bank before glancing at the 
progress of the state institutions, because, 
up to 1840, that bank was the controlling 
power. The progress of banking among the 
states has been step by step with the grow- 
ing wealth, population, and commerce of the 
country. This growth was manifestly too 
vigorous to permit of the continued existence 
of any regulating power. 

The relative growth of the state banks, 
and the business of the country proportional 
to the national bank, was as follows : — 





No. 


State banks. 


National bank. 




Capital. 


Capital 


1791, 


3 


2,000.000 


10,000.(1110 


1811, 


89 


52,601,601 


10,000,000 


1817, 


246 


89,822,422 


35,000,000 


1837, 


634 


290,772,091 


35,000,000 


1860, 


1,562 


421,880,095 





Thus the national bank, which began 
with a capital five times as large as all the 
state banks, was only one-fifth of their 
aggregate in 1811. In 1817 the state capi- 
tal was two and a half times the new Na- 
tional Bank capital, and in 1 836 it was eight 
times that capital. Had it then been re- 
chartered, with the same amount, it would 
now have been but one-twelfth of the capital 
of the state hanks. 



CHAPTER II. 

STATE BANKS— SUFFOLK SYSTEM-SAFETY 
FUNDS— FREE BANKS. 

The growth of state banks has fluctuated 
from time to time, under different circum- 
stances of local trade, and the general nature 
of banks has changed in obedience to similar 
conditions. The nature of the banking sys- 
tems of each locality has, however, under- 
gone repeated modifications, and the general 
tendency is to the circulation of less paper. 
We shall endeavor to give a sketch of each. 
The first attempt at banking in New England 
was the creation of a land bank in 1 740. 
At that time about eight hundred persons 
subscribed a capital in real estate, and hav- 
ing appointed ten directors, agreed to issue 
one hundred and fifty thousand pounds in 
paper, to circulate as money. This was dis- 
solved by Parliament, and the stockholders 
held individually liable for the bills. In 
1784 a bank was chartered by the Massachu- 
setts Legislature, and the other New England 
states followed the example from time to 
time. In 1805 there were in existence 
forty-seven banks in the six New England 
states, with an aggregate capital of $13,- 
353,000. In 1815, at the close of the war, 
these had risen to sixty-three banks, and 
$19,053,902 of capital, and the circulation 
had become large. In 1860 the number of 
banks in those states had risen to five hun- 
dred and five, with a capital of $90,1 86,990. 
In the course of this increase, the system of 
banking there had undergone less changes 
than in other states- 

The paper currency of New England was 
generally of small denominations, and emit- 
ted by a larger number of hanks with small 
capitals than that of most other sections. 
These institutions were scattered over the 
six New England states, and the bills ><t' 
each bank forming the currency of its neigh- 
borhood, would, in the course of trade, ulti- 
mately find their way to Boston, the com- 
mon centre of business. There being no 
provision for their redemption, tiny circu- 
lated at a discount, and this discount was 
increased in proportion to the issues of each 
bank, inflicting loss upon the community. 
To remedy this, the Suffolk Bank of Boston, 
in 1825, undertook to receive all the hills 
and send them home by an agent to the 
issuing bank, requiring each to redeem in 



600 



BANKS IN THE UNITED STATES. 



specie at its own counter. This compelled 
each bank to keep a large amount of specie 
on hand, at an expense which ate up the 
profits of the circulation. They all agreed, 
in consequence, to keep at the Suffolk about 
three thousand dollars deposited, to redeem 
any balance of notes that might be there 
found against them. To keep down that 
balance each was then compelled to restrict 
its circulation to the actual business wants 
of its locality, that there might be no surplus 
currency ; in other words, that the course 
of trade might carry to Boston no more of 
its bills than would be paid by the produce 
of the locality sent thither for sale, and also 
to send promptly to the Suffolk any bills of 
other banks that might come into its hands, 
as an offset to its own balances. Thus all 
the banks in New England were actively en- 
gaged in running each other, and five hun- 
dred streams poured country money daily 
into the Suffolk receptacle, to be assorted 
and sent back to the issuers. This kept down 
the volume of the currency in that section. 
After the creation of railroads and tele- 
graphs, the difficulty of keeping out an excess 
of circulation was greater. To be " thrown 
out of the Suffolk," or, in other words, not 
be able to meet a balance there, was fatal 
to the reputation of a bank. The system 
worked well up to the civil war. It was 
the case, however, that although those insti- 
tutions could not put out an excessive cir- 
culation in New England, many of them 
lent their notes on securities, on condition 
that the notes should be paid out at the far 
west, whence they would be very slow in re- 
turning for redemption. The Suffolk mode 
of regulation by the laws of trade was, upon 
the whole, very successful. 

In New York the same evils manifested them- 
selves as in New England, and in 1829 a rem- 
edy was attempted in the shape of the " safety 
fund." This did not undertake to restrain the 
issues of the banks, but to protect the public 
from loss by failure. Under it all the banks 
doing business in the state were required to 
contribute one-half of one per cent of their 
aggregate circulation to a fund to be called 
the " Safety Fund," out of which the notes 
of a broken bank were to be paid in full. 
This worked very well during a number of 
years of prosperity, but in the revulsion of 
1837 a number of banks failed under disas- 
trous circumstances, and the fund was found 
to be entirely insufficient — besides being 
wrong in principle, since it called upon the 



honest and well-conducted banks to pay the 
debts of the dishonest ones. It is hardly 
worth while, in a short history like this, to 
enumerate all the restrictions as to discounts, 
specie on hand, and emission of bills, that 
the various states have incorporated in bank 
laws. It may suffice to say, that all are 
powerless to prevent evil. On the failure of 
the safety fund system of New York, how- 
ever, a radical change took place in the policy 
in regard to banks. The privilege of issuing 
notes to circulate as money at their own will 
and pleasure, had been found to be danger- 
ous to the public, and the law of April, 1838, 
called the " free banking law," was passed, 
by which the power to issue bills directly 
was taken from the banks. Under that law, 
the Comptroller of the state prepared the 
plates, and delivered the bills to the banks, 
upon their lodging with him such securities, 
mostly state stocks, as amply secured the re- 
demption of the bills. The name, "free 
banking," was given to the law, because it re- 
moved from the banks the restrictions rela- 
tive to discounts, and the necessity for a char- 
ter. This law was altered in some respects 
almost every year of its existence, but its 
main features remained the same, and it be- 
came in New York the sole law to regulate 
banking. All the old banks, as their charters 
expired, reorganized under it, since the state 
constitution provided that no new charters 
could be granted or old ones renewed. The 
working of this law was so efficient and pop- 
ular, that it spread into most of the northern 
and western states. The progress of bank- 
ing in New York has been as follows : 

NUMBER OF BANKS AND AGGREGATE CAPITAL. 





No 


Capital. 




1801, 


5 


4,720,000 




1811, 


8 


7,522,760 


Expiration of first U. S. bank. 


1816, 


27 


18,766.756 


Recharter U. S. bank. 


1836, 


86 


31,281,461 


Charter U. S. Bk expired ; susp 


1838, 


94 


36,401,460 


Free banking law ; resumption. 


1857, 


294 


107,449,143 


Suspenion. 


1%0, 


3<>3 


111,441,370 


Recovery. 


1861. 


302 


109,982,324 


War commenced. 


1863, 


309 


109,258,147 


Organization of Nat. banks. 



The New York law requires the banks to 
issue the bills at the place of their location, 
and to redeem them at not more than one- 
half per cent, discount in the city of New 
York. These institutions, however, have an 
arrangement with the Metropolitan Bank, in 
New York, by which they are redeemed at 
a less rate. 

Fennsylvania, in the early part of the cen- 
tury, was slow to create banks, and it had 
but three up to 1814, in which year 41 new 



STATE BANKS SUFFOLK SYSTEM SAFETY FUNDS — FREE BANKS. 



601 



banks were incorporated. Subsequently, it 
created numbers, and has probably Buffered 
more than any other state from its abused 
bank credits. The progress of affairs there 
was as fo'bvvs, exclusive of the United States 
Bank, which was situated at Philadelphia; — 



1801, 
1811, 

1815, 
1820, 
1836, 
1839, 
1859, 
1361. 
1863, 



91 



Capital. 
6,000,000 
6,168,000 
15,068.000 
14,681,0ii0 
23,75 1,338 
25,265,788 
24,565,805 
25,843.215 
26,561,337 



Expiration of U. S. bank. 
Low credit ; 41 new banks. 
Twenty-two banks failed. 
State charter U. S. bk ; susp. 
Resumption. 

Recovery from panic of 1857. 
War commenced. 
Organization Nat. banks. 



There was, up to 1830, a great number of 
unauthorized banks doing business in Penn- 
sylvania, and i hey presented a constant suc- 
cession ot bankruptcies. The authorized 
capital down to the present time has not kept 
pare with that of other states, taking the 
wealth and population of Pennsylvania into 
consideration. 

Maryland chartered its first bank in 1790, 
the Bank of Maryland, capital $300,<>00,and 
continued to increase them moderately up to 
the present time. The progress of capital 
there has been as follows : — 



No. 

1801, 2 

1811, 6 

1814, 17 

1820, 14 

1837, 21 

1859, 32 

1862, 33 



Capital. 

$1,600,000 

4,835,402 

7,882,000 

6,708,180 

10,438,655 

12,560,635 

12,505,559 



U. S. Bank expired. 
Banks suspended. 

Suspension. 

War in progress. 



New Jersey has been influenced to some 
extent in her banking operations, by the state 
of things in New York and Pennsylvania, 
and in 1850 it adopted the general banking 
law of New York. Its progress has been as 
fo flows : — 



No. 

1805, 2 

1811, 3 

1815, 11 

1820, 14 

1837, 25 

1850, 24 

1855, 32 

1857, 48 

1859, 46 

1862, 51 



Capital. 
SI, 000,000 
789,740 
2,121,933 
2,130,949 
3,970,090 
3,565,283 
5,314,885 
7,494,«12 
7,356,122 
7,933,933 



U. S. Bank expired. 
Suspension. 

Suspension. 
Free law. 

Suspension. 

War in progress. 



The multiplication of banks in New Jersey 
under the new law, was mostly for the benefit 
of circulating their issues in New York at a 
discount, and they were of but little service 
to New Jersey. 

Delaware has created banks in proportion 
to its size, in the following ratio : — 



No. Capital. 

1801, 1 $110,000 

1815, 5 966,000 Suspension. 

1819, 6 974,000 

1837, 4 817,775 Suspension. 

1849 2 210,000 Gold discovery. 

1859, 12 1,638,185 

1862, 14 1,915,010 War in prog] 

Ohio has been, of all the states, the most 
diversified in its policy in regard to banks. 
Its first bank was chartered in 1803, but it 
did not increase charters much until migra- 
tion set thither after the war of 1812, when 
the new United States Bank established two 
branches, one in Cincinnati and one in Chil- 
licothe. The progress of banks was then 
rapid up to the explosion of 1837, when about 
36 of the banks of that state failed, under 
disastrous circumstances, leaving but few in 
existence on the resumption of specie pay- 
ments in 1840. In 1845, a new system of 
banking was introduced, designed to restore 
that confidence in banks which had been so 
rudely shaken by the previous failures. It 
was called the "safety fund system," being 
composed of thirty-six banks which, together, 
form the State Bank, under a board of con- 
trol, composed of delegates from each bank, 
which furnishes the notes to all for circula- 
tion. Each bank must deposit with the board 
10 per cent, of its circulation in securities. 
Of 42 banks started under this law. 36 re- 
mained with capital of $4,034,525. The same 
law created the "independent system," by 
which the banks doing business under it 
must deposit Ohio or United States stock 
with the State Treasurer to secure the circu- 
lation. There were 7 of these banks. There 
remained the old chartered banks, of which 
the Ohio Life and Trust — whose explosion 
in 1857 precipitated the panic which had 
been prepared for the public mind — was 
the last. In 1851, the free banking law of 
New York was adopted ; under this 13 banks 
were started. In the same year, by the new 
constitution of the state, the legislature \ui- 
deprived of the right to grant banking powers 
until the law for so doing should be approved 
by the people. The general progress in Ohio 
to 1862, was as follows : — 



No. 

1805, l 

1811, 4 

1816, 21 

1837, 32 

1845, 8 

1851, 56 

1854, 66 

1859, 53 



C.apital. 
$200,000 

895,000 
2,061. '>l'7 
10,870,089 
2,171,807 
7,129,227 
7,166,581 
6,701,151 



New U. S. Bank. 
Suspension. 
State t>ank law. 
Free law. 
Free law. 
Recovery. 
1862, 56 5,539,950 War in progress. 



602 



BANKS IN THE UNITED STATES. 



Indiana became a state in 1816, and in 
1819 there were two banks, with a capital 
of $202,857, and so continued until 1834, 
when the State Bank of Indiana was created, 
capital $1,600,000, and with ten branches, 
which were mutually liable for each other's 
debts, and notes under $5 were prohibited. 
The bank stopped, partially, in 1837, and 
resumed payment October, 1841. In 1852 
the general banking law of New York was 
adopted, and under it ninety-four banks were 
speedily organized, and fifty-one of them soon 
failed. The charter of the State Bank of 
Indiana having expired, the legislature char- 
tered a new one, with capital of $6,000,000, 
and twenty branches, which bought out the 
state interest in the old bank, the charter 
being paid up to January 1, 1857. The 
progress of the state has been as follows • 

No. Capital. 

1819, 2 $202,857 

1835, 10 800,000 State bank. 

1837, 11 1,845,000 Suspension. 
1839, 11 2,216,700 Resumption. 

1841, 11 

1852, 44 5,554,552 Free banking law. 

1854, 59 7,281,934 New state bank. 

1859, 37 3,617,629 

1862, 39 4,557,654 War in progress. 

Eighteen of these free banks, capital 
$1,203,454. 

Illinois came into the Union in 1818, and 
in 1819 there were two banks, capital 
$140,910 — one of which had been chartered 
in 1813, under the territory. It stopped in 
1815 and rema ; ned so until 1835, when the 
legislature revived it and increased its capital 
to $1,400,000. The constitution of the 
state in 1818 forbade the creation of any 
new banks except a state bank, which 
was chartered in 1819, with a capital of 
$4,000,000. This was repealed and a new 
bank chartered, which speedily failed. In 
1835 a new bank was chartered, capital 
$1,500,000 to $2,500,000. These banks sus- 
pended in 1837, going into liquidation in 

1842, and no banks existed in the state until 
the adoption of the free banking law in 1851. 
The general progress to 1862, was as follows : 

No. Capital. 

1819, 2 $140,910 

1 835, 2 278,739 State bank charter. 

1838, 2 5,473,050 Failure. 

1843, Liquidation. 
1854, 29 2,513,790 Free banking law. 
1857, 45 4,679,325 Suspension. 
1859, 103 8,900,000 Recovery. 

1862, 18 712,351 War produced a crisis. 

Michigan was admitted as a state in Jan- 
uary, 1837, but there had been already a 



number of small banks authorized by the 
territorial legislature. These rapidly multi- 
plied under the state, during the speculative 
year 1837. In the early part of that year 
there existed 20 banks, with a capital of 
$1,918,361. These *were a total wreck, and 
in March, 1838, a general banking law 
was passed, in order, as was alleged, to throw 
the business open. In one year, 49 banks, 
with a capital of $3,915,000, were projected. 
Of these, 42 went into operation. Those 
banks were not required to redeem their 
issues on demand. The result was utter in- 
solvency, inflicting a heavy loss upon the 
public. In 1849, the " free banking law " 
was adopted, with personal liabilities to stock- 
holders. The progress was as follows ; — 

No. Capital. 

1835, 8 $658,980 Territorial government. 

1837, 9 1,400,000 State and general law. 

1838, 43 2,317,765 Revulsion. 
1844, 3 202,650 Liquidation. 
1 849, 5 392,530 Free law. 
1859, 4 755,461 

1862, 4 786,455 

Iowa was admitted into the Union in 1846. 
It had at Dubuque the Miners' Bank, char- 
tered by Wisconsin before the erection of 
Iowa territory, in operation since 1838. In 
1858 it adopted the free banking law, and 
authorized a State Bank, which, with its 
branches, organized in 1859. In 1862, the 
State Bank and its 15 branches had $720,- 
890 capital. 

Wisconsin was admittted into the Union 
in 1848. It had, during some ten years, two 
banks, that of Mineral Point ar.d the Bank 
of Wisconsin ; these failed, and in 1851 a 
new bank was started at Milwaukee. In 1854 
the free banking law was adopted ; since that 
time the progress has been as follows : — 






1837, 
1839, 

1848, 


No 
2 
2 


Capital. 
$119,625 
139,125 


Suspension. 
State admitted 


1854, 

1857, 
1859, 


10 
38 

98 


600,000 
2,635,000 
7,995,000 


Free law. 

Suspension. 

Expansion. 


1860, 
1862, 


108 
70 


7,620,000 
4,397,000 


Expansion. 
Panic. 



The operation of the free law, by retarding 
the convertibility of the bills of the Wis- 
consin banks, caused, when crops are short, 
exchange on the east to rule high, in other 
words depreciates the currency. The bank 
circulation was about $4,600,000. 

Minnesota has made, as yet, little prog' 
ress in banking. It adopted (he free bank- 
ing law in 1858, and several banks were 



STATE BANKS SUFFOLK SYSTEM SAFETY FUNDS FREE BANKS. 



603 



started under it. In 186'' there were 17, 

but before May, 18b2, 14 of these had failed 
and 2 of the remaining three did no business 
in the state. 

Nebraska, before becoming a state, had 
a number of banks, chartered by the legisla- 
ture, but these all went down, some in the 
panic of 1857 and some afterwards, and in 
1862 she had not one left. 

Kentucky was admitted into the Union in 
1792, and in 1801 it authorized a bank, with 
a capital of $150,000, under the guise of an 
Insurance Company, authorized to issue 
notes. In 1804 it chartered the Bank of 
Kentucky, capital $1,000,000 ; tins bank 
failed in 1814, but resumed in 1815. In 
18l7abatch of forty banks, with $10,000,000 
capital, was authorized to redeem their notes 
by paying out Kentucky bank-notes for 
them instead of specie. The result was a 
flood of irredeemable paper, which stimu- 
lated all kinds of speculation and jobbing, 
and ended in a general explosion and dis- 
tress within the year. To " relieve " the 
people, the state chartered the Common- 
wealth Bank, capital $3,000,000, pledging 
lands south of the Tennessee river, in addi- 
tion to the faith of the state, for the redemp- 
tion of the bills, which creditors were re- 
quired to take at par for their claims, or 
wait two years for their pay. The bills fell 
at once to fifty cents on the dollar, and 
which proportion of their debts creditors 
were thus required to lose. This gave rise 
to party strife, which, at the end of five years, 
resulted in the repeal of the law and the 
suppression of the paper. The United States 
Bank had two branches in the state, one at 
Lexington and one at Louisville. When, in 
1833, it became evident that that institution 
would not be rechartered, three new banks, 
with branches, were authorized, capital 
$7,030,000 ; subsequently another was start- 
ed. These went into operation, but sus- 
pended in 1837, resuming in 1839 with the 
United States Bank, and again suspended on 
the final failure of that concern. In 1842, 
the banks again resumed, and since then the 
number has gradually increased, as follows : 

No. Capital. 

1819, 13 $4,307,431 Irredeemable. 

1833, 2 792,427 New charter. 

1835, 4 4,106,262 With ten branches. 

1837, 4 8,499,094 Suspension. 

1851, 26 7,536,927 

1857, 35 10,596.°°" Suspension. 

1860, 45 12,835,670 Recovery. 

1S62, 57 15,305,500 War time. 

32 



Tennessee commenced banking in 1807, 
with the Bank of Nashville, which soon 
failed with great loss. In 1811 it again 
chartered ten hanks, and a number of others 
were from time to time started, but failed 
disastrously. In 1852 the free banking law 
was adopted, and the progress of affairs to 
1860 was as follows : — 

No. Capital. 

.319, 3 $1,545,867 Disastrous failure 

1820, 1 737,817 State batik charier. 

1835, 3 2,890,381 Four brand,, .. 

1837, 3 5,293,079 Suspension. 

1852, 23 6,881,568 

1857, 45 9,083,693 Suspension. 

1860, 34 8,067,037 

Arkansas had two banks that were started 
upon state bonds. These the state issued 
to the extent of $3,500,000 to the banks to 
form their capitals. The bonds were sold 
through the United States Bank, and the 
money obtained for them was loaned out 
pro rata to the stockholders, who became so 
by filing mortgages on their plantations and 
lands. Speedy ruin, of course, overtook 
both banks. These went into liquidation, 
owing the state some $3,000,00(3 on the 
bonds' which were not paid. No banks were 
started again in Arkansas till after the war. 

Mississippi is a state in which banking 
for a loner time ran riot, but which has had 
but little in the last 20 years. When the 
state came into the Union in 1817 it had 
one bank, which continued with an increased 
capital to 1830. In that year the state 
chartered the Planters' Bank, with a capital 
of $3,000,000, two-thirds to be subscribed 
by the state in stock, which was issued, and 
the bank went into operation. Other banks 
were then chartered, and in 1837 there were 
seventeen, with eighteen branches, and a 
capital of $16,7G0',951. In that year the 
Union Bank was chartered, with a capital of 
$15,000,000 in state stock; of this amount 
$5,000,000 was issued, and repudiated on 
the ground of illegality of sale, and in L852 
the people refused, by a large vote, to pay 
those bonds. All the banks of Mississippi 
failed, and there has since been but little 
movement, as follows : — 

No. Capital. 

1820, 1 $900,000 

1830, 1 950,600 Capital increased. 

1834*, 1 2,666,808 

1837, 17 16,760,951 18 branches. 

1838, 11 19,231,123 Suspension. 
1840, 18 30,379,403 Failure. 
1851, 1 118,460 

1859, 2 1,100,000 

1861, All failed. 



604 



BANKS IN THE UX1TKD STATES. 



Missouri had one bank when it came into 
the Union in 1821, but it failed disastrously. 
T ie State Bank of Missouri and branches 
continued to be the only institution up to 
1836, when a law was passed authorizing 
others, and the progress to 1802, was as 
follows : — 



1819, 
1*37, 
1 839, 
1857, 
1859, 
1860, 
1862, 



No. 

I 

1 

1 

5 
17 

9 
44 



Branches. 

1 
1 
5 
5 
29 



Capital. 
$250,000 

533,350 
1,027,870 
2,620,615 
5,796,781 
9,082,951 
13,884,383 



State bank. 

Suspension. 
Expansion. 



Louisiana came into the Union in 1812, 
with one bank, having a capital of $500,000. 
This was increased to three banks in 1815, 
capital $1,432,000. The progress subse- 
quently was not great until after 1830, when 
the speculative spirit of those years was 
largely developed in Louisiana, and thence 
to 1860, was as follows : — 





No. 


Branches. 


Capital. 


1830, 


3 




$4,665,980 


1837, 


16 


31 


36,769,455 Suspension. 


1840, 


16 


31 


41,711,214 Failure. 


1843, 


6 


22 


20,929,340 Liquidation. 


1851, 


6 


22 


1 2, 370,390 Free bank law 


1857, 


6 




22,800,830 Suspension. 


IS60, 


13 


— 


24,496,866 



The free banking law was adopted in 
1 353, and four banks were started under its 
provisions, which required the banks to 
keep one third of their liabilities in specie 
on hand. 

Alabama has had experience of a disas- 
trous nature in state banking, and there has 
.be j n little enterprise in that direction since 
th'i failure of the State Hank. When she 
came into the Union in 1819 she had one 
bank, with a capital of $321,112. In 1830 
she had two banks. It was then supposed 
• that by embarking in banking, the state 
[.might derive profits enough to pay all the 
■state expenses and dispense with taxation. 
Accordingly, state bonds were issued to form 
the capital of the State Bank, which how- 
ever, soon failed, and the state was saddled 
with a debt of some $11,000,000. 



Virginia chartered a bank as early as 1804 
for 53 years, the Bank of Virginia, capital 
$1,500*,000, since enlarged. In 1»30 there 
were four banks, and the change was not great 
down to 1 85 I , when the free law was adopted, 
but the charters, of the old banks were re- 
newed as they expired. The course of 
events was as follows : — 



1819, 
1830, 
1837, 
1839, 
1840, 
1851, 
1857, 
1860, 



No. Branches. Capital. 

3 $5,112,192 

4 18 5,571,181 

5 18 6,732,500 Suspension. 

5 20 7,458,248 

6 10,363,362 

6 20 9,731,370 Free banking law. 

22 40 14,651,600 Suspension. 

24 41 16,005,156 



North Carolina began her Dank career in 
1804, in granting a charter for $250,000 
capital. From that time the number and 
amount of capital steadily increased, with- 
out any material deviation from a steady 
course, until 1860, as follows : — 



1810, 
1830, 
1837, 
1850, 
1860, 



No. Branches. 

3 

3 

3 

3 
12 



7 
12 
18 



Capital. 
$2,964,887 
3,195,000 

2,880,590 Suspension. 
3,789,250 
6,526,488 



South Carolina was more variable in its 
banking movement. Its first institution 
was the State Bank. In 1820 the capital 
was pledged as security for the state debt, 
and it became a regular bank. The progress 
of the state to 1860 was as follows : — 





No. 


Capital. 




1792, 


1 


$675,000 




1711, 


4 


3,475,000 




1820, 


3 


2,474,000 




1836, 


10 


8,636,118 




1837, 


4 


4,100,000 


Suspension. 


1839, 


11 


9,153,498 


Eight newchartora 


1850, 


14 


13,179,131 




1860, 


20 


962,062 







1" U 3 U 


J50 VVtlO {13 1U 








No 




No. 


Capital. 






1811, 


1 


1S19, 


1 


$321,112 






1816, 


3 


1830, 


2 


781,010 






1820, 


4 


1837, 


3 


10,141,806 


Suspension. 




1833, 


13 


1840, 


3 


14 379,255 


Liquidation. 




1837, 


16 


184 5, 


1 


1,500,000 


Bank of Mobile. 


1840, 


39 


1851, 


1 


1,500,000 


Free banking 


law. 


1846, 


22 


1857, 


4 


2,297,800 


Suspension. 




1857, 


30 


1860, 


8 


4,901,000 






1860, 


20 



Georgia had a regular supply of banks 
after the expiration of the first United States 
Bank in 1811, when she chartered an insti- 
tution with $215,000 capital. In 1820 this 
had increased to four banks, with a capital 
of $3,401,510, and the progress to 1860, 
was as follows : — 



Capital. 

$215,000 Old U. S. Bank expired. 

1,502,000 New " chartered. 

3,401,510 

6,534,691 Deposits removed. 
11,438,828 Suspension. 
15,098,694 

8,970,789 
16,015,256 Suspension. 
16,689,560 



BANKS OF TIIIC U.VIT2D STATES — CLEARING HOUSES — PRIVATE BANKING. 



605 



District of Columbia banks were estab- 
lished as early as 17112, in the district, and 
increased pretty rapidly, as follows : — 





No. 


Capital. 


1792, 


1 


£500,000 


1802, 


2 


1,500,000 


1811, 


4 


2,3 1 1 ,895 


1815, 


10 


4,078,295 


1820, 


13 


5,525,319 


1830, 


9 


3,879,574 


1837, 


7 


2,204,445 


1844, 


6 


1,649,280 



Most of the charters expired, and not 
being renewed, the concerns gradually went 
into liquidation. 

Florida came into the Union in 1845, with 
a load of five banks that had been chartered 
by the territory in 1838, with an aggregate 
capital of $2,113,000. These were mostly 
based upon $3,500,000 territorial bonds, 
issued to the banks for capital, and sold in 
London. The concerns failed almost as soon 
as they got the money, and went into liqui- 
dation, when the state repudiated the bonds, 



and there were no banks in Florida, until 
I860, when two were started, with $300,000 
capital. 

From this sketch of banking in each state, 
it is to be observed that the creation of banks 
has been due more to the desire to borrow 
money through their operation than to lend 
it. The mistaken idea that they c mid sup- 
ply capital, was the temptation to their cre- 
ation, and disastrous failure everywhere at- 
tended the experiment. Gradually a prin- 
ciple of sound banking vindicated itself amid 
numerous disasters, and actual capital came 
to be employed in the business. 



CHAPTER III. 

BANKS OF THE UNITED STATES— CLEAR- 
ING HOUSES— PRIVATE BANKING. 

Having sketched the course of events in 
each state, we may recapitulate the leading 
features of all the state banks : — 



\791, 
1800, 
1811, 
1815, 
1816, 
1820, 
1830, 
1837, 
1840, 
1843, 
1846, 
1854, 
1857, 
1860, 
1863, 



BANKS OF ALL THE UNITED STATES TOTAL OF rMPORTS 

Loans. Circulation. Specie. 



No. 

3 

32 

89 

208 

246 

308 

330 

634 

901 

691 

707 

1,208 

1,416 

1,562 

1,466 



Capital. 

$2,000,000 

23,550,000 

52,601,601 

82,259,590 

89.822,422 

137,110,611 

145,192,268 

290.772,091 

358,442,692 

228, 861, 948 

196,894,309 

301,376,071 

370,834,686 

421,880,095 

405,045,829 



200,451,214 
525,115,702 
462,896,523 
254.544,937 
312,114,404 
557,397,779 
684,456,889 
691,945,580 
648,601,863 



$28,100,000 

45,500,000 

68,000,000 

44,863,344 

61,323,898 

149,185,890 

106,968,572 

58,563,608 

105,552,427 

204,689,207 

214,778,822 

207,102,477 

238,677,208 



$15,400,000 
17,000,000 
19,000,000 
19,820,240 
22,114,917 
37,915,340 
33,105,155 
33,515,806 
42,012,095 
59,410353 
58,349,838 
83,594,537 

101,227,367 



AND EXPORTS — POPULATION. 

Deposits. Imports & Exports. Population. 

$48,212,041 3,929,827 

162,224,548 5,305,925 

144,716,833 7,449,960 

165,599,027 8,353,338 

229,024,452 8,595,806 

144,141,669 9,638,131 

144,726.428 12.866,020 

258,408,593 15.6S1.467 

239,227,465 17,069,453 

149,100,279 18,713.479 

235.180,313 20,515,871 

582,803,445 26,051,890 

723.850,823 28,406,974 

854.500,000 31,443,321 

594,097,046 34,478,633 



535,950,470 

55,559,928 

127,397,185 

75,686,857 

56,168,628 

96,913,070 

188,188,744 

230,351,352 

253,802,129 

393,686,126 



This table shows the number of banks, 
with their aggregate capital, at important 
eras. As in 1791, when the national bank 
and mint went into operation; 1811, when 
the bank charter expired; 1815, when the 
numerous banks that had sprung into being 
on the dissolution of the National Bank, were 
all suspended; in 181G, when the peace, 
bringing with it large imports of goods, and 
a heavy drain of specie to Europe and Asia. 
increased the contusion and aided the re 
establishment of a national bank ; 1820, 
when that bank, in full operation, was stag- 
gerring under adverse exchanges and the ope- 
ration of local banks ; 1830, when five years 
of successful working, after the revulsion of 
182."), and under a high tariff, had given con 
fidenceto the public ; 1837, when the rivalry 
between the state and the national hank- 



had, aided by the state of affairs in Europe, 
stimulated speculation, which resulted in the 
revulsion of that year; 1840, when the 
number of banks had reached the highest 
point, under efforts to restore prosperity 
by paper credits ; 1843, the lowest point of 
depression after the failure of those efforts, 
and the liquidation of the unsound banks ; 
1846, when the bank capital was at a low- 
point, but bank credits had begun to multiply 

under the effects of the famine abroad : 1 85 1. 
when the gold discoveries had prompted the 

creation of five hundred new banks : the 
panic period of l s -">7 ; the partial restora- 
tion ofl860j and the contraction and gen- 
eral upheaval in all financial operations pro- 
duced by two years of war. in 1863. 

The mere figures, showing the magnitude 
of the bank movement, do not indicate the 



606 



BANKS IN THE UNITED STATES. 



changes in the manner of doing business, nor 
do they indicate any unsafe expansion, except 
as in connection with the business they 
represent. Thus, in 1837, the bank loans 
were $525,000,000, and their circulation 
$149,000,000. Events proved that those 
loans were of the most speculative and un- 
safe character. In 1860, the loans were 
8691,900,000, and the circulation $207,000,- 
000. Yet these larger figures were very far 
from being excessive. They represent but 
$6 circulation per head of the people, while 
that of 1837 was nearly $10 per head. The 
imports and exports, were, in 1837, but half 
the amount of bank loans. In 1860 they 
exceeded the amount of bank loans, but 
in 1863 were fifty -four million less. It is 
thus evident, that the larger sum of bank 
loans represents actual business, while those 
of 1837 represented only speculative values. 
This fact of the nature of loans made is the 
key to sound banking. It is a matter Avhich 
depends upon the judgment and skill of the 
banker, and it cannot be regulated by law. 
Hence the futility of all the laws that have 
been devised to prevent banks from breaking. 
It is to be remembered, that the bank loans 
form but a portion of the credits which are 
the great purchasing power in trade. Almost 
all the wholesale business of the country is 
done with the notes of individuals, running 
for a longer or less time. These are entirely 
independent of law or banks. In a time of 
great mercantile confidence and speculative 
activity, business men are disposed to buy 
on credit, and their competition for produce 
and merchandise causes a rise in prices. This 
rise stimulates greater activity, which reacts 
upon prices until revulsion is brought about. 
The agency which the banks have in this 
matter is to discount a portion of the notes 
which a dealer takes in exchange for the mer- 
chandise he sells. The bank in discounting 
does not actually lend any money. It 
merely operates a canceling of credits by 
book accounts. Thus, a merchant buys goods 
and gives his note at six months. He then 
deposits what money he receives in the 
course of business to await the maturity of 
the note. As the period approaches, he finds 
that he has not money enough, but he has in 
his pocket-book a number of notes that he 
has taken for goods. These he takes to the 
bank and offers as collateral security for his 
own note, that he offers for discount. The 
bank making the discount places the amount 
to his credit. He draws a check against that 



credit in favor of the note he has to pay, and 
the two entries cancel each other. There 
has been no money used, but one kind of 
promise has supplanted another. As the 
crops come forward from the country, the 
drafts drawn against them pay the notes held 
by the merchant and lodged as collateral. 
Dearness or scarcity of money in the market 
depends mainly upon the disposition of the 
banks to facilitate the canceling of credits, 
and in this the institution affects to be gov- 
erned by the state of the foreign trade. If 
the disposition to buy goods has been very 
active and prices are consequently so high as 
to pay good profits on imports, the arrivals 
of merchandise will be large and the exports 
proportionably small. This involves a demand 
for specie which the banks avoid, by refusing 
to come under new obligations. A competi- 
tion in curtailment sets in. The bank that 
curtails the most rapidly will have the 
balances in its favor from the other banks, 
and will command their specie. Each 
deavors to attain such a position. The pres- 
sure becomes great, the public alarmed, and 
individual depositors draw their specie, which 
exhausts the banks, and they stop. This was 
the state of affairs in 1857. 

The general tendency of the banks has 
been, under the teachings of experience, to 
equalize balances and to insist on prompt 
payment. In the case of circulation this was 
done in New England by the Suffolk system, 
and in New York and most other states by 
the free law, which required a deposit of state 
stocks of dollar for dollar of the circulation. 
It is obvious, however, that these regulations 
in no degree affect discounts and those ope- 
rations where circulation is not in question ; 
as in the checks of individuals, by which a 
large portion of credits are transferred. In 
New York city there were about 50 banks, 
each of which received checks on all the other 
oanks, and had checks drawn upon it in favor 
of all others. There were also drafts and bills 
from abroad, constanly coming to each 
to be paid by others. Up to 1853, all 
the banks employed each a man to go round 
and collect all these checks and drafts each 
day, and each bank kept fifty accounts open. 
To obviate this and to enforce settlement, 
the " clearing house " was devised. By this 
system, each bank sends thither every day a 
clerk, with all the demands it has against all 
other banks. The fifty or sixty clerks as- 
sembled make a mutual exchange of all 
claims, and the balance, if any, is struck, and 



BANKS OF THE UNITED STATES CLEARING HOUSES — PRIVATE BANKING. 



607 



each bank pays in cash the amount of that 
balance. The amount of accounts depends 
upon the activity of business. The clear- 
ing house commenced in October, 185.3, 
and its operations have been as follows: — 





Amount 
Exchanged. 


Balances Paid. 


Average Daily 
Exchanges. 


1854, 


$5,750,455,987 


$297,411,493 


$19,104,505 


1856, 


6,906,818,828 


884,714,489 


22.278, 108 


1858, 


4,750,664,386 


314,238,910 


15,898,786 


1860, 


7,281,148,067 


&51,000,000 


23,401,757 


1802, 


6,871,443,501 


415,530,331 


22,237,682 


1864, 


24,097.190,056 


885,719,205 


77,984,455 


1866, 


28,717,140.914 


1,066,1:35,106 


93,541,195 


1870, 


27,804,539,406 


1,036,484,822 


90,274,475 


1872, 


82,686,997,404 


1,213,293,827 


105,964,277 


1873, 


83,972,778,948 


1,152,372, 198 


111,022,137 


187.-.. 


23,042,276,858 


1,104,346,845 


75,801,558 


1876, 


19,874,815,861 


1,009,532,037 


64,738,812 


187S, 


19,922,788,947 


951,970,454 


65,100.974 


1880, 


37,182,128,621 


1,516,588,681 


121,510,224 


1881, 


48,565,818,212 


1,776,018,162 


165,055,201 



The emergencies of the war required the 
issue of demand notes by the Government, 
of small denominations to serve for circu- 
lation, as well as for the putting forth of 
bonds, treasury notes, and loans of various 
kinds. At first these demand notes were 
the equivalent of gold and silver, and were 
receivable in payment of customs duties, as 
well as all other moneys due to the United 
States; but the gradual advance in the 
price of gold made them so valuable as to 
take them out of the circulation, and cause 
them to be hoarded as gold. Congress 
then authorized the issue of legal-tender 
notes of small denominations, receivable 
for the payment of all dues to the United 
States, except customs, which must be paid 
in gold, the coin being needed to pay the 
interest on that portion of the national 
debt upon which interest in gold was guar- 
anteed. Of these legal-tender notes, or 
greenbacks, $450,000,000 were issued, and 
on the 3d of January, 1882, there was out- 
standing only $346,740,930. Beside this. 
Congress authorized the issue of postal and 
fractional currency to the extent of $50,- 
000,000, but the amount issued never ex- 
ceeded $45,000,000, and was, January 3, 
1882, only $7,075,927. From our brief 
review of the condition of the banks in the 
various states, from 1860 to 1863, it will 
be apparent that they were rapidly ap- 
proaching a crisis, their issues being very 
generally distrusted, and the discounts on 
them so perplexing and ruinous to the 
holders, that every one who could, shunned 
them. The issue of legal-tender notes and 



fractional currency, while it was absolutely 
necessary to the existence and efficiency of 
the National Government, in the great war 
it was conducting, was seen by the great 
financiers who were managing the nation's 
finances, to be but a temporary expedient, 
and liable to the serious objection, as a per- 
manent currency, of expanding most when 
it should be contracted, and least, when 
expansion was necessary. But a national 
currency was needed ; for the people would 
not go back to the old uncurrent money 
and the mysteries of the counterfeit detec- 
tors and uncurrent money lists, and the 
banks of the country could not issue notes 
which would inspire general confidence. 
The national banking system, devised by 
Mr. Chase, then Secretary of the Treasury, 
and based in its main features upon the 
New York Free Banking law, though with 
additional safeguards for depositors and 
bill holders, satisfied this demand fully, and 
at the same time furnished a home market 
for $370,000,000 or more of the bonds and 
Treasury Notes the Government w r as then 
issuing. The capital of the National Banks 
consisted of these Bonds, Treasury Notes, 
etc., and these being deposited in the U. S. 
Treasury, the Controller of the currency 
issued to the banks National Bank notes of 
different denominations (printed from the 
same plates, but with the name and place 
of the bank and the coat of arms of the 
state to which it belonged inserted), to the 
amount of not more than ninety per cent, 
of the par value of the bonds. The amount 
of circulation was at first limited to $300,- 
000,000 but by subsequent acts it was in- 
creased till it now exceeds $360,000,000. 
Minor modifications of the original law 
have been made providing for rigid and 
frequent inspection of the condition of each 
bank, redemption in New York City, and 
avoiding all depreciation of the notes. A 
first the development of the National Banks 
was slow, as their advantages were not 
appreciated, and the state and Local banks 
made a very bitter fight against them, but 
Congress passed, in 1865, an amendment 
to the Internal Revenue Law, taxing the 
circulation of the state banks so heavily 
that they were glad to withdraw it from 
the market, and most of them reorganized 
as National Hanks, which from this time 
had a rapid growth. 

The following table shows the progress 
of the National Banks: — 



608 



Oct., 



Year. 

1863, 
1864, 

1865, 
1866, 
1867, 
1868, 
1869, 
1870, 
1871, 
1872, 



No. of 
Banks. 

66 
507 
1,513 
1,643 
1,643 
1,645 
1,617 
1,615 
1,784 
1,919 



Capital. 

$7,188,393 
86,782,802 
893,157,208 
415,278,969 
420,073,415 
420,634,511 
426,399,151 
430,399,301 
462,518,602 
479,600,000 



Circulation. 



45,260,504 
171,821,903 

280,129,558 
293,887,941 
295,769,489 
293,593,645 
291,798,640 
322,952,030 
335, 100, tWO 



Oct., 



Year. 

1873, 
1874, 
1875, 
1876, 
1877, 
1878, 
1879, 
1880, 
1881, 



No. of 
Banks. 

1,976 

2,004 
2,087 
2,089 
2,080 
2,053 
2,048 
2,090 
2,132 



Capital. Circulation. 



491,000,000 
493,800,000 
504.800,000 
499,800,000 
479,500,000 
46(5,200,000 
454,100,000 
457,600,000 
463,800,000 



340,800,000 
834,300,000 
819,100,000 

292,200,000 
291,900,000 
301,900,000 
313,800,000 
817,300,000 
320,200,000 



COMPARATIVE STATEMENTS OF THE NATIONAL BANKS FOR ELEVEN YEARS. 

The following table exhibits the resources eleven years, at nearly corresponding dates, 
and liabilities of the national banks for from 18*71 to 1881, inclusive: 





Oct. 2, 
1871. 


Oct. 3, 

1872. 


Sept, 12 

1873. 


Oct. 2, 
1874. 


Oct. 1,1 
1875. 


Oct. 2, 
1876. 


Oct. 1, 
1877. 


Oct. 1, 

1878. 


Oct. 2. 

1S79. 


Oct. 1, 
1880. 


Oct. 1, 
1881. 




1,767 
banks . 


1,919 
banks. 


1,976 
banks . 


2,004 
banks . 


2,087 
banks. 


2,089 
banks. 


2,080 
banks. 


2,053 
banks. 


2,048 
banks. 


2,090 
banks. 


2,132 
banks. 


RESOURCES. 


Millions. 

831.6 

364.5 
45.8 
24.5 

143.2 
30.1 
13.2 

107.0 
14.3 

115.2 


Millions. 

877.2 

382.0 
27.6 
23.5 

128.2 
32.3 
10.2 

102.1 
15.8 

125.0 
6.7 


Millions. 

944.2 

388.3 
23.6 
23.7 

149.5 
34.7 
19.9 
92.4 
16.1 

100.3 
20.6 


Millions. 

954.4 

383.3 
28.0 
27.8 

134.8 
38.1 
21.2 
80.0 
18.5 

109.7 
42.8 
20.3 
18.3 


Millions. 

984.7 

370.3 

28.1 

33.5 

144.7 

42.4 

8.1 

76.5 

18.5 

87.9 

48.8 

19.6 

19.1 


Millions. 

931.3 

337.2 
47.8 
34.4 

146.9 
43.1 
21.4 
84.2 
15.9 

100.0 
29.2 
16.7 
19.1 


Millions. 

891.9 
336.8 
45.0 
34.5 
129.9 
45.2 
22.7 
66.9 
15.6 
74.5 

a3.4 

16.0 
28.7 


Millions. 

a34.0 

347.6 

94.7 

36.9 

1.38.9 

46.7 

30.7 

64.4 

16.9 

82.4 

32.7 

16.5 

24.9 


Millions 

878.5 

357.3 

71.2 

39.7 

167.3 

47.8 

42.2 

69.2 

16.7 

113.0 

26.8 

17.0 

22.1 


Millions. 

1,041.0 

357.8 

43.6 

48.9 

213.5 

48.0 

109.3 

56.6 

18.2 

121.1 

7.7 

17.1 

23.0 


Millions. 

1,173.8 




363.3 




56.5 




61.9 




230.8 
47.3 




114.3 




53.2 
17.7 




189.2 
6.7 






17.5 




41.2 


25.2 


17.3 


26.2 








1,730.6 


1,755.8 


1,830.6 


1,877.2 


1,882.2 


1,827.2 


1,741.1 


1,767.3 j 1,868.8 


2,105.8 


2,358.4 


LIABILITIES. 


458.3 
101.1 
42.0 
317.4 
631.4 
171.9 
8.5 


479.6 
110.3 

46.6 
335.1 
628.9 
143.8 

11.5 


491.0 
120.3 

54.5 
340.3 
640.0 
173.0 

11.5 


493.8 
129.0 
51.5 
&34.2 
683.8 
175.8 
9.1 


504.8 
134.4 
r53.0 
319.1 
679.4 
179.7 
11.8 


499.8 
132.2 

46.4 
292.2 
666.2 
179.8 

10.6 


479.5 
122.8 

44.5 
291.9 
630.4 
161.6 

10.4 


466.2 
116.9 
44.9 
301.9 
668.4 
165.1 
7.9 


454.1 
114.8 
41.3 
313.8 
736.9 
201.2 
6.7 


457.6 
120.5 
46.1 
317.3 


463.8 
128.1 




56 4 




R90.9 




887.9 1,083.1 
267.9 ; 294.9 




8.5 11.9 


Totals 


1,730.6 


1.755.8 


1.830.6 


1,877.2 ll,8S2.2 


1,827.2 


1,741.1 


1,767.3 


1,868.8 


2,105.8 12,358.4 



We supplement this account of the con- 
dition of the National Banks with that of 
the state banks, trust companies, private 
banking houses, and savings banks of each 
state and territory to May 31, 1881. [See 
next page.] 

As we have intimated already, under ex- 
isting laws, these state banks, trust compa- 
nies, private banking houses, and savings 
banks, 4,681 in number, are not allowed to 
issue any circulating notes of their own. 
They receive and pay out over their coun- 
ters National bankbills, legal-tender notes 
(commonly called greenbacks), coupons of 
U. S. coupon-bonds, gold and silver coin, 
and to such amount as is required, subsid- 
iary coin of all denominations, but not now 
fractional currency. They are banks of 
discount and deposit. We are now pre- 
pared to give approximately the amount of 
money in circulation in the country on the 
1st of November, 1881: — 

Gold Coin $469,000,000 

Silver Legal Tender 100,600,000 



Silver Subsidiary, 80.400,000 

United States issues, : 46.681.016 

National Bank Notes and Gold Bank Notes, 359,8(53,000 

Silver Certificates, 58,838.770 

Total, .$1,415,382,786 

Of the Specie there is held in the Treasury,. $109,758,672 

In the National Banks 107.450,756 

In State Banks, including Silver Certificates,. 19.901.491 

Silver in National and other Banks 7.112.5(57 

In the Treas., paper monev less certificates, . 22.774. 830 

In National Banks, including certificates,.. . 77.630.917 

In other Banks and Savings Banks 39.173.560 



Deduct from total, 



$383,802,798 

1,415, 3S2,7c>6 



$1,031,579,993 



Making a total of gold, silver, and cur- 
rency in circulation, aside from treasury 
and bank reserves, of $1,031,579,993, or a 
little more than $20 to each person in our 
population. This is not, as will readily be 
understood, by any means the measure of 
our business transactions; for many times 
this amount is paid out in checks, which 
pass through the banks without the paying 
out of either specie or currency. The ratio 
of checks to notes and coin in New York, 
in 1881, was 98.80 to 1.20 per cent. 



BANKS OF THE UNITED STATES CLEARING HOUSES PRIVATE BANKING. 



609 



NUMBER OF STATE BANKS AND TRUST COMPANIES, PRIVATE BANKERS, AND SAVINGS BANKS : 

WITU THE AVERAGE AMOUNT OF THEIR CAPITAL, DEPOSITS, AND INVESTMENTS 

IN UNITED STATES BONDS FOR THE SIX MONTHS ENDING MAY 31, 1881. 





1 

States and Territories. 


Total. 






Banks. 


Capital. 


Deposits. 


Invested in U. S 
Bonds. 




1 




66 

72 
22 

163 
62 
55 

106 


$53,200 

76,000 

858,804 

310,000 

4,855,730 

3,719,789 

2,620,100 


$24,363,290 
32.163, 1U 
10,016.910 

164,637,832 
70,044.577 
43,039,201 
84,289,272 


$4,056,018 

740,091 

033.535 

14.070.009 

7,81«,634 

5,170,535 

7,049,889 


1 
2 

3 
4 
5 
6 
7 


2 
3 




4 




5 




6 

7 






New England States 




546 


11,987,623 


429,184,206 


39,626,291 




8 


300 

563 

12 

48 

246 

74 

30 

7 

11 

39 

7 


8,762,680 

66,010,403 

616,000 

1,288,914 

7,858,694 

2,658,894 

4,019,335 

609,561 

507,074 

2,640,698 

364,000 


183,626,465 

343,830,575 

15,775.441 

23,877,530 

31.947,161 

64.831,097 

17.887,623 

2,209 392 

887,742 

27,859,430 

4,144,875 


57.094.710 
99.916.629 
8,816,886 

8,(153.089 

744.996 

6.800.890 

3,015,930 

10,000 

267.651 

10,981,418 

318,614 


8 


9 




9 


10 




10 


11 




11 


13 




12 


18 




13 


14 




14 


15 




15 


16 




16 


17 




17 


18 




18 










1,337 


95,286,253 


716,967,321 


190,525,752 










19 


74 
19 
13 
14 
54 

7 
27 
28 

3 
13 
120 
14 
75 
15 
31 


3,068,985 

l,228,9a3 

504,640 

549,956 

3,438,668 

101,079 

1,179,085 

989,872 

146,329 

2,271,932 

4,047,964 

217,302 

6,052,294 

6,145,654 

1,796,536 


9,286,961 
4,306.402 
1,105,763 
1,914,867 
6,199.163 

589,449 
2.481.642 
2,144,493 
35,812 
5.149.585 
8,811,029 

079,509 
9,003,399 
6,681,686 
3,474,487 


264,825 

102,407 

50 

45.000 
7,000 


19 


20 
21 


West Virginia 

North Carolina 


20 
31 


22 




22 


23 




23 


24 




24 


25 


800 

170,973 

30,000 

395,161 

14.000 

66,480 

171,177 

249,922 

811,596 


25 


26 




26 


27 




27 


28 




28 


29 




29 


30 




30 


31 




31 


32 




32 


33 




33 




Southern States 

Ohio 






507 


30,739,179 


61,822,546 


1,729,391 




34 


246 

12 

8 

145 

330 

33 
161 

14 
108 
8 
337 
112 
182 

30 
175 

98 


5,509,5g3 
1,374.317 
1,059,667 
4,433,488 
4,579,378 
3,965.197 
8,445,600 
1,044,028 
1,830,868 

437,898 
5,071,468 
2.875,971 
4,3(50.103 
5.703.025 
1,981,571 

944,372 


24,495,977 
5,481,863 

15.861.757 

15.87S.306 

23.0ll3.5lU 

10.310. 088 

9.017,059 

9,419,089 

10,106,758 

7.4S4.5S9 

18,692,795 

7.751.411 

81,660,093 

25.112.076 

6.418,482 

2,661.291 


9:56,899 

340.299 

2.033.711 

734.S"! 

1.357.305 

1,198,987 

117.341 

500.093 

207.190 

2.007 

860,976 

69,688 

473.884 

3S3.825 

68,587 

14.070 


34 
35 
36 
37 
38 
39 
40 
41 
42 
43 
44 
45 
46 
47 
48 
49 


35 




36 




37 
38 




39 
40 




41 




43 




43 




44 




45 




46 
47 




48 




49 






1,999 


48,222,429 


223,104,509 


9. 104.395 










50 


16 

83 

24 

59 

15 

12 

8 

4 

2 

37 

14 

9 

9 


892,844 

8,847,717 

11,953,178 

908,440 

881,851 

808,886 

18,888 

135. 31 IS 

6,561 
816,868 
618,706 
884,060 

1 17.319 


1.434.568 

16,662,084 

68,980,689 

8,864,948 

1,864,649 

1,688,619 

469,618 

421.310 

19,097 

484,886 

904.498 

057.015 

635,256 


256,300 

351.390 

11,884,931 
30,000 

100,000 


50 
51 
52 
68 


51 




52 
68 




54 




55 


Utah 


55 
56 


56 


New Mexico 

Wyoming 




57 




57 


58 




58 


59 








60 




00 
61 


61 






62 • 




50.000 


62 




Pacific States, &c 






292 


24,502,719 


96,360,426 


11,915,511 






4,681 


210,738,203 


1,527,439,008 


868,801,840 





UNITED STATES MINT- 



CHAPTER I. 

ESTABLISHMENT OF MINT— STANDARD OF 
COINS— LAWS REGULATING COINAGE- 
PROGRESS OF COINAGE— PRECIOUS MET- 
ALS IN THE COUNTRY. 

The currency, or circulating medium of 
a country, is of itself a very simple matter, 
although complicated at times by the theo- 
ries of financiers, and the efforts to make 
promises of a thing pass for the thing it- 
self. In the early stages of society the pro- 
ducts of industry constitute the wealth of 
the people, after they have ceased to be 
merely herdsmen. These products being 
exchanged against each other, the transac- 
tions form barter trade. As wealth in- 
creases and wants become more diversified, 
as well as the products of industry, by being 
subdivided, some common medium of value 
becomes requisite to meet all the wants of 
interchange. The precious metals have gen- 
erally been adopted as this medium, because 
the supply is the most steady, the equivalent 
value most generally known, and the trans- 
portation most convenient. Hence all trade 
comes to be represented by a weight of pure 
gold or its equivalent of pure silver, and all 
commodities come to be valued, or called 
equivalent, to certain quantities of these 
metals. To ascertain the purity and weight 
of the metal offered in payment at each 
transaction would, however, involve difficul- 
ties that would neutralize the value of the 
metals as a common medium of exchange. 
Every man would require to be an assayer, 
and to be provided with scales. To obviate 
this the government steps in, and by means 
of a mint assays the metals, and weighs 
them into convenient pieces, placing on each 
a stamp, which soon becomes universally 
known, and this is called " money." Every 
nation makes the pieces of different weights, 
and puts in more or less pure metal. To as- 
csrtain the "par of exchange" between two 



countries, the coin of each is assayed, and 
the quantity of pure metal in each being 
ascertained, the par of exchange is known. 
When this continent was discovered its in- 
habitants were savages, who had little idea 
of property, and no trade beyond the mere 
exchange of their simple products. Money, 
except the limited use of "wampum," was 
unknown, and the precious metals were 
hardly known. The gold and copper that 
they had was twisted into rude ornaments ; 
but no man would work for a piece of these 
metals. When the first emigrants landed, 
they commenced the cultivation of the earth 
and the interchange of its products. The ac- 
cumulation of industrial products formed 
wealth. Their first exchanges were mere 
barter. As late as 1652 the payment of 
taxes and other dues was made in cattle, 
skins, and other products in Massachusetts ; 
and tobacco was a medium of trade in Vir- 
ginia. Some money existed, but this was 
mostly the coins brought by the immigrants 
from the mother country, and did not suffice 
for the daily wants. Massachusetts, there- 
fore, established a mint for the coinage of 
shillings, sixpences, and threepences of ster- 
ling silver, which were " two pence in the 
shilling of less valew than the English 
coyne." This " pine tree shilling," so called 
from a pine tree on the reverse, was worth 
about twenty cents. This coinage gave 
umbrage to the mother country, and when 
Governor Winslow was introduced to 
Charles II., that usually good-natured mon- 
arch took him roughly to task for the pre- 
sumption of the colony in assuming to coin 
money, at the same time producing the coin 
with the pine tree upon it. The ready wit 
of the governor, however, turned the rebuke, 
by assuring his Majesty that it was an evi- 
dence of the devotion of the eolony, which 
struck these medals in commemoration of 
the escape of his Majesty in the Royal Oak, 
which was executed as well as the poor state 
of the arts in the colony would permit. The 



UNITED STATES MINT. 



611 



coinage was nevertheless suppressed, and the 
example of Massachusets was followed by 
Maryland with the like results. Carolina 
and Virginia struck some copper coins, hut 
without much effect. There being no mint, 
therefore, in any of the colonies, foreign coins 
were circulated freely as a legal tender. The 
country produced none of the precious 
metals, but as the trade of the colonies in- 
creased, and they began to have a surplus of 
fish, provisions, food, tobacco, etc., beyond 
their own wants, to sell, they built vessels, 
and carried these articles, mostly fish, to the 
West Indies and the catholic countries of 
Europe ; and as the mother country did not 
allow the colonies to buy manufactures ex- 
cept from herself, money was mostly had in 
exchange for this produce. Guineas, joes, 
half joes, doubloons, and pistoles of various 
origin constituted the gold currency, while 
the silver was mostly the Spanish American 
dollar and its fractions : the half, quarter, 
eighth, and sixteenth, with the pistareen and 
half pistareen. This silver coin flowed into 
the colonies from the Spanish West Indies, 
in exchange for fish and food ; and the 
Spanish dollar thus came to be the best 
known and most generally adopted unit of 
money. The coin had upon its reverse the 
pillars of Hercules, and was known as the 
pillar dollar ; hence the dollar mark ($), which 
represents " S," for " Spanish," entwining the 
pillars. Inasmuch as the " balance of 
trade" was in favor of England, the largest 
portion of the coin that flowed in from other 
quarters was sent thither, and this tendency 
was increased by the pernicious issues of 
paper money by the colonies. This paper 
displaced the coin, and drove it all out of the 
country. The exigencies of the several 
colonial governments caused them to make 
excessive issues of this " paper" or " bills of 
credit," and it fell to a heavy discount as 
compared with coin. Not being convertible 
at the date of the Revolution the deprecia- 
tion in the several colonies was nearly as 
follows : — 

VAXUE OF THE DOLLAR AND THE £ STERLING IN 
COLONIAL PAPER MONEY. 

£ sterling. Dollar. 

£. s. d. 8. d. 

New England and Virginia ... 1 68 GO 

New York and North-eastern .1 15 6i 8 

Middle states 1 13 4 7 6 

South Carolina and Georgia ... 1 08} 48 

On the formation of the new government, 
the terrible state of the currency first attract- 



ed attention. The country had been flooded 
with " continental money," which had been 
issued to the extent of three hundred and 
sixty millions for war expenses. The states 
had issued " bills of credit," which were de- 
preciated as in the table ; and the debased 
and diversified foreign coins that circulated 
were very few in number. Private credit 
hardly existed. Frightful jobbing took 
place in the government paper, and industry 
could with difficulty get its proper reward. 
The first effort was to give the federal gov- 
ernment alone the right to coin money, to 
prohibit the states from issuing any more 
" bills of credit," and to get the continental 
money out of circulation by providing for 
its payment. Robert Morris had been di- 
rected to report upon the mint and a system 
of coinage, and he did so early in 1782. 
Many plans were based upon his report, and 
finally that of Mr. Jefferson was adopted. 
It conformed to the decimal notation, with 
the Spanish dollar as the unit : A gold piece 
of ten dollars, to be called the eagle, with 
its half and quarter ; a dollar in silver ; a 
tenth of a dollar in silver ; a hundredth of a 
dollar in copper. 

In accordance with the plan of Mr. Jeffer- 
son, a law of April 2, 1792, enacted regula- 
tions for a mint, located at Philadelphia, and 
the coinage proceeded. It was found that, 
owing to the rise in the value of copper, the 
cent had been made too heavy, and, Janu- 
ary 14, 1790, it was reduced to two hundred 
and eight grains, and January 26, 1796, it 
was again reduced to one hundred and sixty- 
eight grains, at which rate it remained until 
the late introduction of nickel. The mint 
being established at Philadelphia, the work 
of coinage went on slowly, for two principal 
reasons. The first was that the material for 
coin — that is, gold and silver, no matter in 
what shape it may be — was obtained only, by 
the operation of trade, from abroad, and 
nearly all of it arrived at New York, the 
property of merchants. Now, although the 
government charged nothing for coining, 
yet, to send the metal from New York to 
Philadelphia during the first forty vear* 
of the government, when there was none but 
wagon conveyance, was expensive, and ac- 
companied with some risk. It was not, 
therefore, to be expected that the merchants 
would undertake this without any benefit ; 
the more so, as the same law, in the second 
place, still allowed the foreign coins to be 
legal tender. The merchant who received, 



612 



UNITED STATES MINT. 



say ten thousand dollars in gold coin at 
New York had only to lodge that coin in 
the local bank, and use the paper money 
issued by the bank. There was no neces- 
sity to send the coin to Philadelphia 
merely to be recoined without profit. It 
was also the case that in the course of the 
newly-developed commerce between the 
United States and the countries of Europe, 
it was found that silver had been valued 
too high at the mint. It was coined in 
the ratio of fifteen to one of gold, when 
its real value was nearly sixteen to one. 
This relative value of the two metals de- 
pends upon the respective demands and 
supply in the markets of the world. At 
about the date of the discovery of America 
it was ten to one; that is, ten ounces of 
pure silver were equal to one ounce of pure 
gold. When Peru and Spanisli America 
poured in their large supplies of silver, the 
rate gradually fell to fifteen to one. At 
the close of the eighteenth century, and 
with the greater freedom of commerce in 
the first half of the nineteenth century, it 
was found still to decline. The reason of 
this is obvious, since, in any locahty, the 
relative value of the metals will be propor- 
tioned to the local supply of either, influ- 
enced by the expense of sending either to 
other localities. Thus, silver may have 
been really fourteen to one in one place, 
and sixteen to one in another, and the dif- 
ficulties of transportation prevented an 
equalization. As soon as communication 
became prompt and cheap the equalization 
took place, and the general relative value 
was found to be somewhat changed. The 
effect of this was that silver came here 
and gold went away. Nearly all the coin- 
age of the mint was silver. This evil at- 
tracted the attention of the government, 
and a remedy was sought. This was 
finally found in changing the relative 
value of the silver to gold in the coinage by 
simply putting less pure gold into the 
eagle, and letting the silver remain as it 
was. The quantity of pure gold in the 
eagle was, therefore, by the law of June 
28, 1834, reduced from 247.5 grains to 
232 grains, or rather more than six and 
five-eighths per cent., and the quantity of 
alloy was slightly increased, so as to make 
the fineness of the gold nine-tenths, or 
nine grains of fine gold to one of alloy in 
each piece. 

This was found not to be exact, and in 



1837 the pure gold was slightly increased, 
and this regulation remains. Under all 
the laws the gold coins have been as fol- 
lows : — 

3? Alloy. Total ™* Fine- 

gS. 8ilver - c °pp er - An °y- SS 

1792, 247.5 5.62| 16.87i 22.5 270 916.7 
1834, 232.0 6.50 19.50 26.0 258 899.2 
1837, 232.2 6.45 19.35 25.8 258 900.0 

In silver the same law made the weight 
of the silver dollar 412^ grains instead of 
416, and this is still the weight of the 
standard dollar. It was found necessary, 
some years since, to make a silver dollar 
for trade with China and Japan, which 
should be a little heavier and at that time 
of the full weight of silver for a coin of 
one hundred cents. This trade dollar of 
420 grains weight was accordingly coined, 
and intended to be used for this purpose 
only. The value of silver has fluctuated very 
greatly during the last fifteen years, and 
during all that time the intrinsic value of 
both dollars has been less than 100 cents. 
At this time (April, 1882,) the trade dol- 
lar is worth 89.02, and the legal tender dol- 
lars 87.43. The standard weight of the 
subsidiary pieces is as follows: Half dollar, 
192.9 grains; quarter dollar, 96.45; twenty 
cent piece, 77.16; dime, 38.58. 

In all this period, up to 1838, there had 
been but one mint, and that at Philadel- 
phia. In 1831, under the desire of the 
government to enlarge the metallic basis 
of the national currency, three branches 
were authorized, one at New Orleans, one 
at Charlotte, North Carolina, and one at 
Dahlonega, Georgia. These two latter 
were in mining districts, where gold began 
to be produced to some extent, and all 
three went into operation in 1838. The 
coinage progressed down to 1853, when, 
in consequence of the change brought 
about by the gold discoveries in California, 
a new law in relation to silver currency 
was enacted. Before giving an account of 
that change, we may take a table of the 
coinage at the mint since its organization 
for several periods. [See next page.] 

In the first twenty-seven years of the 
mint operation, the gold coinage was about 
seventy-five per cent, of the silver coinage. 
That whole period embraced the European 
war, and the first operations of the mint 
were to coin as much of the metals already 
in the country as came within their reach. 
In the second period, from 1821 to 1834, 




INTERIOR OF THE MINT, PITILADEUMII \. COINING ROOM. 

lilllll 




INTERIOR VIEW OF THE MINT, PHILADELPHIA. ADJUSTING ROOM. 



UNITED STATES MINT. 



615 



UNITED STATES COINAGE. 



Period. 


Gold. 


Silver. 


Copper and Nickel. 


Total. 






1793 to 1852. 






1793 to 1848 


$76,341,440.00 


$79,213,371.90 
1858 to 1878. 


1793 to 1873. 


$155,554,811.90 


1849 to 1873 


740,564,438.50 


$65,938,513.70 


$11,919,888.55 


818,412,839.75 


1874 


50,442,690.00 


5,983,601.80 


411,925.00 


56,838,316.80 


1875 


33,553,965.00 


10,070,368.00 


230, 37.-». 00 


43,854,708.00 


1876 


38,178,962.50 


19,126,502.50 


260,350.00 


57,565,815.00 


1877 


44,078,199.00 


28,549,935.00 


62,165.00 


73,690,399.00 


1878 


52,798,980.00 


28,290,825 50 


30,694.00 


81,120,499.50 


1879 


40,986,912.00 


27,227,882.50 


97,798.00 


68.313,593.50 


1880 


56,157,735.00 


27,942,437.50 


269,971.50 


84,370,244.00 


1881 


78,733,884.00 


27,649,966.75 


405,109.95 


106,788,940.70 


Totals, 


$1,211,837,186.00 


$319,983,403.65 


$13,688,277.00 


$1,545,508,902.95 



the effect of the change in the relative 
value of the metals of which we have 
spoken, became manifest, and the gold 
coinage was about one-sixth only of the 
silver coinage. In 1834 the new gold bill 
produced a change, and the gold coinage 
became nearly equal to that of silver. Soon 
after the passage of this law, the payment of 
the French indemnity, enforced under the 
administration of General Jackson, took 
place, and it was paid in the form of gold 
bars, of varying weight. The first of 
these were received at the U. S. mint, 
Sept., 1834, and in the next four years six 
hundred of them were deposited at the 
mint; value, $3,500,000. In 1S38 the 
branches came into operation, and the 
coinage was increased by their operations 
and by $13,705,250 of gold of domestic 
production, to the close of 1848. In 1849 
California gold began to make its appear- 
ance, $7,079,144 worth of it was coined 
in that year. The great influx of gold 
bullion upon the mint by far exceeded its 
capacity to do the work, and Congress 
authorized, by the act of March 3, 1849, 
the coinage of double eagles, or $20 pieces, 
and also one dollar pieces to supply the 
place of the silver coin, which had been 
drained off to California in exchange for 
the gold. The law of May, 1852, author- 
ized the coinage of $3 pieces. 

In ten years, to the close of 1858, the 
gold coinage had amounted to double the 
silver coinage, and the new influx of gold 
excited fears that the value of silver would 
rise rapidly as compared with gold. From 
1848 to 1857 the coinage of silver was 
very small, while the demand for it was 
large. To avoid inconvenience from this 



cause, a new bill was passed, to take effect 
April 1, 1853. By this bill it was enacted 
that gold or silver deposited with the 
mint, might be cast into bars or ingots of 
pure metal, or standard fineness, at the 
option of the depositor, with a stamp des- 
ignating the weight and fineness; no pieces 
less than ten ounces shall be other than' of 
standard fineness; the charge for this is 
one-half per cent. Inasmuch as most of 
the gold arrives at New York, efforts were 
made to procure the establishment of a 
mint at that point. Instead, however, of 
a mint, an assay office was established 
there, and a branch mint at San Francisco, 
in 1854. The law allows the depositor to 
draw either bars or coin in return, the de- 
scription desired to be stated at the time 
of the deposit. The production of bars 
and coins under all these regulations has 
been large, for gold as well as silver. 

Until the law of 1834, the quantity of 
gold coin in circulation was -not la rue. 
The banks supplied so large a quantity of 
small bills as to fill the channels of circula- 
tion for sums above a dollar, and under 
that amount the circulation was almost 
altogether small Spanish coins, which, be- 
ing much depreciated by wear and tear, 
passed for more than their intrinsic va 
and consequently flooded the country, 
greatly influencing retail prices. This was 
particularly the case with the pistareens, 
which, up to 1827. were taken al twenty 
cents, or five to the dollar, although they 
were really worth but eighteen and a half 
cents, consequently there was little other 
change to be had. In consequence of a 
report of the Mint Director of that year. 
they were refused at more than seventeen 



616 



UNITED STATES MINT. 



cents, and they very speedily disappeared 
from circulation, and have rarely been seen 
for more than 45 years. The quarters 
continued to circulate at twenty-five cents, 
although the average value was twenty- 
three and a half cents; the eighths were 
taken at twelve and a half, although they 
were worth only eleven and one-eighth; 
the sixteenth was taken at six and a quax*- 
ter, although worth but five cents. It 
resulted that these coins became very 
abundant, driving out the dimes and half 
dfrnes, and in 1843 the post-office and the 
banks refusing them altogether, they were 
supplanted by the American coin, until 
the gold discoveries of 1848. After that 
event, owing to the increased production 
of gold, and the fact that some of the 
European states changed their monetary 
policy, making silver the sole standard of 
value, the latter metal became worth more 
in market than its nominal value in United 
States coin, and was gradually withdrawn 
from the currency, until, in 1852, silver 
coin became very scarce, and there was 
not sufficient left in circulation for the 
purposes of change. A premium of four 
per cent, was paid for dollars and half dol- 
lars for export, and the smaller coins com- 
manded, in many cases, a still higher 
price, for use among shop-keepers and 
small traders. It was easy to see that, 
unless the weight of our silver coin was 
reduced, there would soon be none left in 
the country. Already the eating-houses 
and drinking saloons had issued their tick- 
ets, or shinplaster tokens, in place of coin ; 
and the poor, who purchased the necessa- 
ries of life in small amounts, were put to 
great inconvenience, or obliged to submit 
to ruinous shaves upon their paper money. 
To remedy these evils, Congress passed 
the act of February 21, 1853, (to take 
effect the 1st of April following) author- 
izing the coinage of half dollars, quarter 
dollars, dimes, and half dimes, of a reduced 
weight, as already stated. 

The main source of supply of the pre- 
cious metals to the mint was, before 1849, 
from abroad, through the operations of 
commerce, though the Southern States 
furnished almost fifteen millions. Since 
that time, the Pacific slope has been the 
leading source. The quantity of domestic 
gold deposited at the mint will be observed 
on the following page. 

The silver currency was not debased, in 



the ordinary sense of the word, the same 
fineness (nine hundred parts pure silver, 
and one hundred of alloy) being retained, 
and the only change in the coin itself being 
in the weight. The silver dollar, 41 2 J 
grains, is now a legal tender to the amount 
of $50, though previous to 1876 it could 
only be offered, if objection was made, in 
sums of five dollars. 

The amount of gold and silver used in 
manufactures and the arts in 1881, was, as 
nearly as could be ascertained, $13,475,144, 
of which over 10 millions was in gold. 
Up to 1840 the amount used in this way 
was very small, but the increase has been 
very rapid for the last 20 years. It is 
estimated that five millions annually would 
be a fair average since 1840, and this 
would possibly cover all the previous con- 
sumption also. This would add 205 mil- 
lions of dollars to the amount of the pre- 
cious metals retained in the country. 

The mint operates upon the various 
forms of the metals brought to it, and 
these are of great variety, from the most 
delicate plates and ornaments down to base 
alloys, and these are all included under the 
general term bullion, except United States 
coins. The bullion is either unwrought or 
manufactured. The first description em- 
braces gold dust, amalgamated cakes and 
balls, laminated gold, melted bars and 
cakes. The "dust" is the shape in which 
it is derived by washing in the placer 
mines. In South America, Russia and 
elsewhere, amalgamated gold is that which 
has been procured by the use of quicksilver, 
forming a lump. Laminated gold is that 
which is combined with silver, and derived 
mostly from Central America. Both these 
kinds come to the mint in bars and cakes 
three inches wide, and one and a half 
thick, weighing 275 ounces, and are worth 
$5,900. The manufactured is mostly jew- 
elry, plate, and coin. Jewelry is received 
at the mint in every variety of article into 
the manufacture of which gold enters. Its 
value depends upon the quantity of pure 
gold in it, and this requires to be extracted 
by assaying. The range of fineness of the 
better kinds of jewelry is 300 to 600, or 
from 1 to | the value of coin of the same 
weight, but the cheaper kinds contain very 
little gold. All this mass of metal must 
be reduced to a uniform material, contain- 
ing the proper proportion of alloy, and 
cast in bars, 12 in. long, § in. thick, and 



UNITED STATES MINT. 



CI 7 



GOLD AND SILVER OF DOMESTIC PRODUCTION DEPOSITED AT THE MINTS AND ASSAY OFFICES 
FROM THEIR ORGANIZATION TO THE CLOSE OF THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 1881. 



Locality. 



Alabama, 

Alaska 

Arizona 

California 

Colorado, 

Dakota, 

Georgia, 

Idaho, 

Indiana 

Maryland 

Massachusetts, 

Michigan (Lake Superior),. 

Montana 

Nevada 

New Hampshire, 

New Mexico, 

North Carolina, 

Oregon, 

South Carolina, 

Tennessee, 

Utah, 

Vermont, 

Virginia 

Washington Territory, 

Wyoming 

Refined bullion, 

Parted from silver 

Contained in silver, 

Parted from gold, 

Contained in gold, 

Other sources, 



Total, . 



Gold. 



2 

709 

37 

10 

7 

24 



;220,471.97 

31,325.53 

623,500.50 

624,600.24 

332,138.18 

644,852.78 

815,847.52 

683,354.70 

40.13 

593.06 



217 

16 

9 



123.99 
141,267.20 
139,055.96 

11,020.55 
624,413.02 
,671,398.29 
194.047.73 
419,732.91 

85,755.57 
467,246.58 

10,981.27 
683,436.70 
236,864.36 
723,581.61 
364,618.22 
295,800.68 
322,268.97 



10,367,104.26 



1,144,735,442.48 



Silver. 



$5.08 

5,761,551.49 

2,314,748.72 

21,158,446.27 

21,276.29 

537.98 

804,781.96 



917.56 

3,477,319.02 

5,527,897.19 

77,435,742.76 



2,483,697.29 

46,016.71 

33,684.91 

74.37 

1.99 

10,288,337.98 

43.50 

30.65 

110.96 

11,798.00 

57,057,970.43 



6,991,451.19 

526,284.79 

31,955,945.16 



225,898,672.18 



Total. 



$220 

31 

8,385 

711,989 

58,490 
10,6(i6 

7,816 
25,488 



3,477 

55,669 

92,574 

11 

4,108 

10,717 

16,227 

1,419 

85 

10,755 

11 

1,683 

2:^6 

735 

274,422 

16,295 

9,822 

6,991 

526 

42,323 



471.97 
330.61 
051.99 
348 96 
584.45 
129.00 
385.50 
136.66 
40.13 
593.06 
917.56 
443.01 
164.39 
798.72 
020.55 
110.31 
,415.00 
,732.64 
,807.28 
757.56 
584.56 
024.77 
,467.35 
,975.32 
379.61 
,588.65 
800.68 
268.97 
451.19 
2S4.79 
,049.42 



1,370,634,114.66 



from 1 to l£ in breadth, according to the 
size of the coin to be struck. These are 
tested to see if they are of the legal fine- 
ness. They are then annealed, and rolled 
into long thin strips by means of a steam 
engine. These strips are then drawn 
through plates of the hardest steel, to 
proper thickness, and by a steam press cut 
into "planchets" or pieces of the exact 
size of the coin wanted, at the rate of 160 
per minute. These are then cleaned, an- 
nealed, whitened, weighed, and placed in 
a tube, which slides them one by one into 
a steel collar, in which they fit. The piece 



is seized, stamped with perfect impressions 
on both sides by the dies, and instantly 
pushed away to be followed by another 
piece. The devices on these dies are first 
cut in soft steel. This '-original die" is 
then hardened, and is used to impress a 
piece of soft steel, which is then like a 
coin with the figures raised, and is called 
a " nub." This being again hardened, is 
used to impress the dies, with which the 
coining is done, and a pair of them will do 
two weeks' work. The coining presses are 
of sizes proportionate to the work. 



IMMIGRATION. 



CHAPTER L 

GENERAL MIGRATION— COLONIES AND 
UNITED STATES. 

At the date of the recent national census 
(1880), about two-fifteenths of the inhabi- 
tants of the United States (6,679,943 out of 
50, 1 55,783) were of foreign birth, and since 
that time (to Jan. 1, 1882) 1,313,748 more 
immigrants have arrived in this country. 
Of those classed as " natives " in the census, 
quite as many more are children, one or both 
of whose parents were foreigners. It may, 
then, be salely computed that two-sevenths 
of our population are either of foreign birth 
or parentage This is irrespective of the 
large negro element, most of which has been 
in this country for more than one genera- 
tion. 

The term " native " has been used to dis- 
tinguish the born citizen from the newly ar- 
rived foreigner, as well as the former from the 
'■ red man," who was also an emigrant in the 
view of the lost races that preceded him, and 
of which monumental traces alone remain in 
evidence that they ever existed. The history 
of the human race is a history of migration. 
Twice has the race comprised only a sin- 
gle family, occupying a single point on the 
earth's surface, and twice has it spread in all 
directions, forming nations and founding em- 
pires. The antediluvian world was swept 
away by the deluge, and all traces of the 
race of Adam had been washed away by the 
obliterating waters from the earth's surface 
when the ark gave up its freight. From its 
door migration was resumed, and three con- 
tinents owe their populations to the several 
sons of the patriarch. Asia, Africa, and 
Europe were settled by Shem, Ham, and 
Japhet and their descendants, who have 
stamped their characteristics upon each. 
From that day to the present, the same re- 
curring circumstances have from time to 
time produced the same results. As each 
locality became overcrowded by increase, the 
most adventurous sallied forth in quest of 
new homes, which, in their turn, filled, and 



overflowed into some more distant region. 
These successive waters rolling on until the 
remotest shores of each continent were occu- 
pied, were succeeded by more formidable 
hosts of armed invaders, who came, sword in 
hand, to dispossess occupiers and seize accu- 
mulated wealth. With the growth of mod- 
ern civilization migration has no longer a 
destructive character. It seeks to build up 
by bringing industry and aid of natural re- 
sources, rather than to destroy by seizing 
what others have produced. It is more steady 
and effective in its commercial character — 
having industry for a means, and prosper- 
ity for an object — than in its old form of 
invasion, plundering by force and leaving 
desolation in its train. 

The British Islands were the last subjects 
of European incursions. The Britons, origi- 
nally from N. W. Asia, were plundered by 
Norse enterprise, and the Saxons alternated 
with the Danes in dominating the nation 
after the withdrawal of the Romans, to be 
in their turn subjected to the Normans. 
Since then, 800 years have been spent in 
amalgamating the races and in peopling the 
islands. Even at that date the adventur- 
ous Norsemen had discovered the new con- 
tinent and formed one or more colonies 
on the New England coast. It required 
long centuries, however, in that barbarous 
age, for the people to struggle successfully 
against the effects of feudal oppression, civil 
wars, and their consequences, famine and 
plague. Nevertheless, progress was made and 
commerce a good deal developed, when, at 
the close of the fifteenth century, the dis- 
covery of the West Indies by Columbus was 
followed by an influx of the precious metals 
into Europe, giving a renewed impetus to 
industry and enterprise. The Spanish were 
attracted by gold, and the commercial Dutch 
by the desire to found colonies, and their 
example was followed by the English' and 
French. In both these cases, however, the 
desire of civil and religious freedom was a 
powerful incentive to the emigrants. These 
motives were more strongly developed when 



GENEUAL MIGRATION — COLONIES AND UNITED STATES. 



619 



the English revolution began to operate in 
the first half of the 17th century. Of the 
four leading nations that planted colonies 
on this continent, all were more or less suc- 
cessful. The Spaniards sought gold main- 
ly, but their colonists in Mexico, Central 
America, New Mexico, California, etc., be- 
came rich also in flocks and herds. The 
French were successful in Canada, but 
their Louisiana colony was not in any re- 
spect profitable. The Dutch maintained 
their hold on some of the islands, but their 
colony of New Amsterdam was not well 
managed, and did not succeed long. The 
English alone possessed all the requisites 
for the most perfect success, and they 
eventually absorbed most of the others. 

The disposition to emigrate to America 
gradually gained ground as the eighteenth 
century advanced, more particularly in the 
north of Ireland and Scotland, which already 
enjoyed the advantage of some intercourse 
with friends in America. Just before the 
Revolutionary war, this disposition to emi- 
grate showed itself strongly. The linen 
weavers in the northern part of Ireland were, 
by the decline in that trade, induced to mi- 
grate. For two years, 1771 and 1772, sixty- 
two vessels left with eighteen thousand pas- 
sengers for America, paying passages of 
$17.00 each. Most of these were linen 
weavers and farmers, possessed of property, 
and they carried with them so much money 
as to attract the notice of the government. 
The movement, however, continued in 1773 
and extended itself to the north of Scotland, 
whence the highlanders migrated in great 
numbers. Knox, in his view of the British 
empire at that time, asserts that in the twelve 
years ending in 1775, about thirty thousand 
highlanders emigrated, exclusive of the low- 
landers ; and it was compute'' that there 
were sixty thousand highlanders, citizens of 
the United States in 1799. In the report 
of the committee on the linen manufactures 
in the Irish Parliament in 1774, it is stated 
that the whole emigration from the province 
of Ulster was estimated at thirty thousand 
people, of whom ten thousand were weavers, 
who, with their tools and money, departed 
for America ; thus adding to the numbers 
and wealth in the new world, in the propor- 
tion that the British Islands lost from the 
same cause. 

The breaking out of the War of Inde- 
pendence, naturally interrupted the commu- 



nication between America and the old world ; 
but with the return of peace, in 17*-'!, the 
migration revived, notwithstanding the in- 
credible hardships which at that time at- 
tended the transit. The shipping was little 
adapted to the trade, and no special laws 
protected the rights of the poor emigrant 
As an instance of this, it is related that in 
September, 1784, a ship left Greenock with 
a large number of passengers, who had paid 
twenty-five dollars each for their passage. 
They were robbed of their chests and pro- 
visions by the master, and one hundred of 
them turned ashore on the Island of Rathlin, 
coast of Ireland. Another vessel rescued 
seventy-six emigrants from a desert island, 
where they had been turned adrift by the 
master of a brig, who had engaged to carry 
them from Dunleary, in Iceland, to Charles- 
town. In the same year there were great 
numbers landed at Baltimore, Philadelphia, 
and elsewhere. Blodgett's Statistical Man- 
ual, published in 1806, states that from 1784 
to 1794, the arrivals were four thousand per 
annum. In the year 1794, ten thousand 
persons were estimated to have arrived in 
the United States. Adam Seybert, a mem- 
ber of the House of Representatives, in his 
" Statistical Annals," admitting the number 
for that year, states that so large a move- 
ment did not again occur until 1817. 

When the colonies separated from the 
mother country, the population of the latter 
was, for England and Wales, 7,225,000. and 
about 2,000,000 for Ireland, making to- 
gether 9,225,000 souls, or less than one- 
sixth the present inhabitants of the United 
States. The population of the newly-formed 
United States in the year 1790 was 3.1 74.- 
167 whites, or about one-third the numbers 
in England and Ireland. The founders of 
the nation were then not unmindful of the 
fact that these three millions of people, 
occupying 163,746,686 acres of land al- 
though possessed of a vast territory, had 
little else to depend upon. Capital waa 
scarce, and manufactures had not been per- 
mitted under imperial rule, hence skilled 
artisans were not to be found. While all 
these things .were indispensable to the new 
country, crowds of poorly paid and oppres- 
sed operatives on the other side of the At- 
lantic were impatient to enjoy the privileges 
that our new form of government held out 
to them. The French, German, and Eng- 
lish troops, that returned home after the 



620 



IMMIGRATION. 



war, had not only left a portion of their 
numbers here as settlers, but had carried 
home favorable reports of the advantages to 
be here enjoyed. It was manifestly to the 
interest of the new government here to in- 
vite and encourage these settlers, at the 
same time to guard against possible political 
abuse of the privilege. The new Constitu- 
tion therefore required Congress to pass 
uniform laws for naturalization. This was 
not done until April 14th, 1802, when the 
regulations that have since mainly continued 
were enacted. By that law, those aliens 
who were in the country prior to 1795 
might be admitted to citizenship on proof 
of two years' continuous residence in the 
United States, sustaining a good moral char- 
acter, and abjuring allegiance to foreign 
nations. Any alien arriving in the United 
States after the passage of the act was to 
comply with the following conditions : 

1 . He shall, before some competent court, 
swear, at least three years before his admis- 
sion, that it is his bona fide intention to re- 
nounce forever all allegiance to any sove- 
reign state to which he was a subject. 

2. He shall swear to support the Consti- 
tution of the' United States. 

3. Before he can be admitted he must 
show that he has resided within the United 
States five years, and within the jurisdiction 
of the court one year. He must also show 
that he has been of good moral character, 
and well disposed to the happiness of the 
United States. 

4. He must renounce all titles of nobility. 
The law of March 3, 1813, required that the 
residence of five years should have been con- 
tinuous in the United States. This restric- 
tion was repealed Jan. 26, 1848. The law 
of May 26, 1824, reduced the term of notice 
of intentions from three to two years. 
These were the chief regulations of the fed- 
eral government in relation to naturalization. 
Many of the states have, however, from time 
to time, passed laws relative to immigrants, 
importation of paupers, convicts, lunatics, 
etc. New York and many other states have 
had laws requiring of the owner, or mas- 
ter, or consignee of the passenger ship, a 
well-secured bond to the people of the state 
against loss for the relief or support of such 
passengers. In lieu of this bond, commu- 
tation money might be paid. 

The federal government having smoothed 
the way, the migration proceeded until 



unfriendly relations between the United 
States and Great Britain, growing out of the 
wars of Europe, checked intercomve. The 
claim enforced by Great Britain of the prin- 
ciple, " Once a subject always a subject," 
served to take from emigrants the security 
they sought under the American flag ; and 
in 1806 Great Britain declared France in a 
state of blockade, and France retorted upon 
the British Isles. These proceedings being 
succeeded by others, compelled the United 
States, in <S09, to prohibit intercourse with 
France and Great Britain. In 1810 Ki >- 
leon annulled his decree, but Great Biitain 
continued her vexations, seizing American 
seamen, and riding rough-shod over their 
rights. The embargo- was then succeeded 
by the war of 1812, during which migration 
was very limited. In February, 1815, peace 
was concluded, and the stream of migration v 
long pent up, resumed its flow with greater 
force The accommodation was, of course, 
limited, and the more restrained that a law 
of Parliament restricted the number that 
might be carried to the United States to one 
for every five tons, although one for every 
two tons might be carried to any other coun- 
try. In the year 1817, 22,240 persons ar- 
rived in the United States, including Ameri- 
cans who returned home. This large mi- 
gration was attended with immense suffering. 
The attention of Congress was called to it, 
and a law was passed, March 2, 1819, to 
regulate the transportation of passengers. 
This act limited the number to two for every 
five tons of measurement, and provided for 
an ample allowance of food and fuel. When 
the famine of 1846-7 gave a new impulse 
to the movement, more complete laws were 
found requisite, and a number were passed. 
March 3, 1857, the present passenger act 
was enacted, repealing all former laws upon 
the subject, which with some slight modifica- 
tions since made, establishes the regulations 
now in force. It regulates the space for 
each passenger, the number of berths, ven- 
tilation and warming, and the kind and 
quantity of food to be furnished by the ship 
and how it is to be dealt out, and if any pas- 
senger is put on short allowance, the mas- 
ter or owner shall pay him three dollars each 
day of short allowance. 

The first accounts of the numbers of im- 
migrants commenced in 1820, under the law 
of 18 1 9. The following table shows the num- 
ber of emigrants for fifty years. 



GENERAL MIGRATION COLONIES AND UNITED STATES. 



C21 



THE NUMBER OF ALIEN PASSENGERS ARRIVED IN THE UNITED STATES FROM FOREIGN 

COUNTRIES, FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE GOVERNMENT TO THE 

3 1ST OF DECEMBER, 1881. THE DATES ARE INCLUSIVE. 



Prior to 1820 250,000 

1820 8.385 

1821 9,127 

1S22 6,911 

1823 6,864 

1824 7,912 

1S25 10,199 

1826 10,837 

1827 18,875 

1828 27.382 

1829 22.520 

1830 2-3.322 

1831 22,633 

1832 60,482 

1833 58.640 

1834 65,365 



1836 45,374 

1&36 7ti,242 

1837 79,840 

1838 39,914 

1839 68,069 

1840 84,066 

1841 80,289 

1842 104,565 

1813 58,496 

1B44 78,615 

1845 114,371 

1846 154.41H 

1847 284,968 

1848 226,527 

1849 297,024 

1850 309,980 



W51 879,466 

1852 371,003 

1853 308,045 

1854 427,833 

1855 200,877 

1856 800,086 

1857 850,887 

1858 12.3.877 

1&59 121.075 

1860 168,640 

1SG1 91,882 

1S02 91,8*6 

1863 170,214 

18t>4 193,410 

1865 248,111 

1866 318,491 



1807 298,350 

1868 897,815 

1809 895,983 

1870 378.796 

1871 307,789 

1872 449,488 

1873 487,004 

1874 877,598 

1875 809,086 

1876 182,027 

1877 149,020i 

1878 l, 

1S79 272,487 

1880 6*2,250 

1881 743,777 



Of the immigrants who landed on our shores in the sixty-one years ending with 
Dec. 31, 1881 (1820 to 1881) there came from different countries as follows: 



Gt. Britain & Ireland.5,025,796 Russia and Poland, . 60.313 Belgian] 94.422 Asia not specified, . 616 

France, 311,243 Switzerland, 90.541 Denmark 58,606 Dom. of Canada,.. 738.231 

West Indies 78,180 China 225,431 Portugal 7.601 Central America.... 1.4c«7 

Sweden i:nd Norway,. 443.151 Germany, 8,817,320 Turkey, 004 Australia, etc 20,674 

r'o itta America, 9,326 Holland 54.392 Greece 379 All other countries, | „„.. Qfi9 

Africa; 806|Mexico, 24,402 Austro-Hungary 125.816J N. E. S ( .»i,ww. 

Spain, 26,795 ! Italy, 92,656 Japan, 366 Total 61 years 11,686.235 



Of those arriving here from Jan. 1, 1820, to Dec. 31, li 
speaking English were from 



! 1 , those wholly or mainly 



Great Britain and Ireland, 5,025,796 

British North America 738,231 

English West India Islands, 1,664 

Australia and adjacent Islands, 20,674 



Azores and African Islands 9,174 

Africa, 866 

Total of English Speech 5,836,405 



Of races mainly Teutonic or Scandinavian, there were from 



Germany 3.317.320 

Ausrro-ilungary, 125,816 

Holland, 54,392 

Belgium 94,422 



Switzerland 96,541 

Denmark 58,606 

Sweden and Norway 443.151 

Iceland, 605 



Of Sclavic races. 



00.373 



Total, 4,191,166 



Of French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian races, there were from 



France 311,243 

Spain 26,795 

Portugal 7,604 

Italy, 92,656 

Mexico, 24,402 



Central America 1,487 

South America, 9.320 

West Indies 78,180 

Cape Verde, Madeira, and I « «.« 

Canaries f ' 



Miquelon, 3 

Corsica 13 

Total,...' 668,018 



Of Asiatic and Polynesian races, there were from 



\ 'I'ina 225,431 

Japan 306 

The rest of Asia, and the Asiatic Islands, 618 

Polynesia 483 

African Nations 866 



33 



Turkey BfM 

Greece 879 

Countries not specified, 881,088 

Total, 610,790 



622 



IMMIGRATION. 



Numbers of those who come from other 
countries, as France, West Indies, and 
Southern Europe, as well as to some extent 
from England, are merchants and travelers, 
who are not to be embraced in the aggre- 
gate of settlers in new homes. The great 
sources of migration are, then, British, 
German, and Scandinavian. The Swede 
and the Norwegian are free in their choice, 
and since 1860, have emigrated to this 
country in large numbers, settling mainly 
in Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas, 
and Nebraska. Many of them also enter 
into domestic service in our large cities. 
The Swiss are to a considerable extent 
free and thrifty in their mountain homes, 
but great divisions exist in respect of re- 
ligion as well as politics, and there is 
among them a want of nationality. The 
cantons of Vaud and Geneva are mostly 
French, and threaten to become quite so. 
On the side of the Tyrol the Swiss become 
Italians. The German Swiss are mostly 
connected with Baden, and are embraced 
in the German movement. The Holland- 
ers migrate to some extent, and often 
from motives of religion. The Moravian 
Brethren thus founded colonies in Penn- 
sylvania. Gold seems, since its discovery 
in California, to have stimulated Dutch 
enterprise. The French are markedly at- 
tached to their native soil and national 
character, and colonize little ; they migrate 
but moderately. Even Algiers has grown 
but very slowly under thirty years of gov- 
ernmental fostering care, and there are 
now but 60,000 French in the colony. Of 
those French who arrived in the United 
States up to 1880, over 40 per cent, re- 
mained in the country according to the 
■ census. 

Within a few years past there have been 
.added to these large numbers of Menno- 
nites, who, though coming hither from 
.Russia, from whence they have been driven 
by the Russian government, because they 
would not perform military duty, are 
mostly of German origin, and emigrated 
to central and southern Russia on the ex- 
press condition that they should not be re- 
quired to perform military service, to 



which they were conscientiously opposed. 
They have considerable affinity with the 
Friends and Dunkers, or Dutch Baptists, 
in their religious customs. They are 
mostly farmers, are industrious, intelligent, 
and peaceful, and make excellent citizens. 
With them have come in moderate num 
bers Russian dissenters, known as Molo- 
kans or Milk - Drinkers, who are also 
sufferers for conscience sake. These two 
classes of immigrants have settled largely 
in Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas, and a 
few have located their farms in Manitoba, 
but for some cause do not seem satisfied 
there. 



CHAPTER II. 

EUROPEAN MIGRATION— FRENCH AND 
GERMAN— NEW TRADE. 

The peace of 1815, in re-establishing 
the liberty of the seas, so long suppressed, 
opened new countries to European com- 
merce. On the other hand, many inter- 
ests underwent adverse changes; numerous 
armies were newly disbanded, and great 
numbers of men were forced to leave 
home in search of a useful application of 
their talents and energies. America was 
to them the chief point of attraction ; those 
who knew only the trade of arms, offered 
thoir swords to the Spanish colonies then 
fighting for emancipation. Of these a 
majority found early graves from excess, 
fatigue, and misery; many turned their 
attention to agriculture, and the wisest 
sought refuge in the United States, where 
services were well requited, and the broad 
territories offered a limitless field for activ- 
ity. At first the emigrants wei-e isolated 
individuals; soon entire families went in 
quest of new homes, and their success was 
a tempting example to other families, each 
of whom drew others in their train, until 
a continuous movement was established 
from the valley of the Rhine to America. 

This developed a new era in the interna- 
tional commerce. The cotton of the southern 
states had up to that time found a limited 



EUROPEAN MIGRATION. 



023 



market in Havre, but being carried thitber 
in American ships, tbcre being little return 
freight for those vessels, the cotton was 
charged with freight both ways, out and 
home. The moment that considerable num- 
bers of passengers offered themselves for the 
return, that trade of itself became an object, 
affording a profitable home freight. It was 
then apparent that the light and elegant 
models of the American ships, which had so 
well answered the purpose of speed and 
efficiency during the war, were not adapted 
to the transportation of passengers. A differ- 
ent style of construction was needed,allowing 
of greater stowage of cotton out, and better 
accommodation to passengers, in accordance 
with the provisions of the law prescribing the 
room to be allowed to each passenger. This 
change causing greater attractions to the 
American ships, drew increasing crowds from 
the valley of the Rhine across France to 
Havre. Many of these poor people could 
raise only the sum needful for the passage, 
and depended upon begging their way 
across France to the port. These crowds 
of beggars alarmed the government, and it 
took measures to stop them. It was ordered 
that no one should be admitted to cross 
France unless he had previously paid his 
passage in the ship, was possessed of -$150 
for every member of the family over eigh- 
teen years of age, and had his passport 
signed by the French embassador at Frank- 
fort. The effect of these absurd regulations 
was to destroy the trade of Havre, and turn 
the migration down the Rhine to Antwerp, 
Bremen, and Hamburg. The Havre mer- 
chants made great efforts to remedy the evil 
by sending agents to aid the emigrants, 
lending them the money to pass the frontier, 
and to be returned immediately after. A 
great rivalry was thus engendered between 
the northern ports and Havre, which still 
had great advantages in respect of the num- 
ber of American vessels that arrived with 
cotton, and finally the obstacles interposed 
by the government were removed. The 
city of Bremen was prompt to take advan- 
vantage of the error of the French govern- 
ment, and used every effort to attract the 
emigrants to that port, by granting facilities 
and protecting them from imposition. A 
law was passed regulating in the most min- 
ute particular the accommodations to be 
given to emigrants on shipboard. They are 
not to be taken on board until the moment 
of departure. To accommodate them prior 



to shipment, an immense building was con- 
structed to hold 2,000 people ; it has a front 
of 200 feet, and is 100 in depth. It has 
public rooms, sleeping apartments, kitchens, 
baggage-rooms, etc., and is wanned by steam 
throughout. There are also chapels for cath- 
olic and protestant worship, and a hospital, 
with thirty-three beds. The price charged 
with board is fourteen cents per day. By 
these and other means Bremen has acquired 
a large share of the emigrant business. 
Hamburg did not at first make the same 
efforts ; of late years societies for the protec- 
tion of emigrants have been formed there. 

The Germans formerly preferred to em- 
bark at Havre, Southampton, or Liver- 
pool, and on American ships, to sailing 
from German ports and on German ships; 
but a change has taken place in this respect 
of late years. The German steamers, of 
which there are now eight or nine lines, are 
much better than foi'merly, and having good 
steerage accommodations, make the passage 
in 12 or 13 days. The French steamships 
do not carry emigrants, and as a result of the 
late war, there are few American steamers 
running regularly to Europe. Emigration 
by sailing vessels is seldom attempted now, 
and only by the lowest class of emigrants. 
There are numbers who go from Rotterdam, 
Ostend, or Hamburg, to England, and depart 
thence to their final destination. From Bre- 
men the emigrant ships go to a greater va- 
riety of pons than from Havre. The United 
States is, however, the ultimate destination 
of nearly all. 

The motives that impel German migration 
are variously understood. The reports of the 
numerous emigration societies give evidence 
of the highest traits of character. The Ger- 
man is described as a persevering worker, 
seeking to ameliorate his condition. Be is 
always ready to go where his services will be 
the best paid, and certain professions have 
long been pursued by him in all countries. 
If his feeling of nativity is strong, his love 
of family is till stronger. And, moreover, the 
Teutonic race may now be said t>> be at 
home on half the entire globe. There are. 
however, other motives, and these are evi- 
dently the desire to find civil, political, and 
religious liberty, of which they have not the 
perfect enjoyment at home. The Germans 
have never succeeded in founding colonies 
of their own under good government, but 
they are a valuable acquisition where others 
have established liberty and order. They 



624 



IMMIGRATION. 



do not seek exemption from military ser- 
vice, and in the late civil war the German 
regiments fought bravely and persistently. 
They are generally good and law-abiding 
citizens, thrifty and industrious, and kind 
and helpful to the poor. There are two 
objections urged against them, and with 
some justice, viz., that they are addicted 
to beer-drinking, and that they make Sun- 
day a boisterous and noisy holiday. 

While Germany was divided into many 
petty states, their division, which materially 
checked industry and increased the taxa 
tion, was itself an exceedingly strong incen- 
tive to emigration ; and before their confed- 
eration into one government was fully accom- 
plished, almost every family had its repre- 
sentatives here, and the tendency had become 
so strong for a home in the '" land of prom- 
ise," that no political changes could greatly 
affect it. 

The German governments have all, more 
or less, occupied themselves with the ques- 
tion of migration, and in some cases have 
sought to check it. Among these attempts 
was that by Prussia to found agricultural 
colonies. The king offered lands in the 
duchy of Posen, and agents were sent among 
the emigrants from the valley of the Rhine. 
The conditions were, that the settlers should 
not leave the country without permission, 
and never without having performed military 
service.. 

These, it may be supposed, were without 
success. Emigrant agents are, by some 
governments, required to submit to regula- 
tions ; sometimes the number is limited, and 
sometimes they must give security. In Ba- 
varia only two houses are authorized to treat 
with emigrants for their passages across 
France, and the contracts must be inspected 
by the consul at Havre. There results a 
large clandestine emigration to avoid these 
restrictions, and at the frontiers numerous 
agents are ready to assist — a sort of under- 
ground railroad. The governments of Wur- 
temberg, Baden, and the two Hesses, are less 
rigorous, but nowhere can passports be ob- 
tained until every effort has been made to 
dissuade the emigrant. In case he persists, 
he must renounce all rights of citizenship 
and nationality. On the other hand, meas- 
ures are taken to aid the emigrant. When 
the cause of departure is destitution, the 
communes and the government subscribe, 
while stipulating that the emigrant shall 
renounce all right to ulterior aid. All the 



persons so aided go from one canton together. 
When the emigrants pay their own expenses 
and have a small capital, bands of numerous 
families from divers points assemble and de- 
part together. Political exiles are very few, 
but these have generally considerable means. 
It is melancholy, however, to reflect in 
how great a degree destitution becomes the 
cause of migration. Singularly enough, the 
valley of the Rhine, of which the German 
poets sing the beauty and the fertility, is 
precisely the spot, of all Europe, where the 
misery of Ireland is most nearly reproduced. 
From the Lake of Constance to the frontiers 
of Holland, that famous valley has so long 
felt the oppression of feudalism and been 
the battle-field of contending powers, as to 
have become completely impoverished. In 
the duchy of Baden the day's wages of a 
skilled workman is twenty-eight cents — a sum 
which may sustain life in a year of good har- 
vest, but which is utterly insufficient in time 
of dearth, as in 1846, Avhen potatoes became 
diseased. The insurrection of 1849 added 
to the calamities, and in 1852, of a popula- 
tion of 1,356,943 souls, 14,400 emigrated, 
or one per cent in one year. The thrift and 
endurance of the Germans are well devel- 
oped in a land of such hardships, and on 
their arrival in the United States they are 
not slow in turning their persevering indus- 
try to account. It is singular that the dis- 
tress and destitution which centuries of 
misrule have produced in Ireland, so famed 
for its natural advantages, should be repro- 
duced in Europe only in the Rhine valley, 
the garden of Europe. The two localities 
best endowed by nature are precisely those 
where man is most anxious to escape by mi- 
gration from an accumulation of miseries. 
The migration from Germany, though 
fluctuating somewhat with the harvests, 
shows a considerable increase in every 
term of five years. In 1881, it was 249,572; 
more than in any previous year. There 
are considerable numbers who go, by other 
conveyance from Bremen, etc., than the 
emigrant ships, to Liverpool, and embark 
thence for America. This aggregate Ger- 
man movement has come of late years to ri- 
val, and often to exceed the broad stream of 
British migration. The migration from 
Great Britain has always been largest in the 
years of dear food, and it has again subsided 
when good harvests have diminished the 
prices of bread. The number that went 
abroad in 1843 was 57,212, and it continued 



EUROPEAN MIGRATION. 



625 



to augment year by year until it reached 
368,764 in the year 1852. Several causes 
concurred to produce this increase. The 
first was the famine of 1845-46-47, and the 
consequent means adopted by the British 
government for the relief of Ireland ; the 
second was the gold fever, which carried off 
thousands; and the third was the prosperity 
of the emigrants in the United States, where 
railroad building and other employments 
gave the means to send for friends in unu- 
sual numbers. The most important cause 
was, probably, the condition of Ireland. 
The conquest of that country, which was 
commenced seven centuries since, is but now 
being completed. We now see the insub- 
missive Celts quitting, with the aid of their 
conquerors, the disputed country, to seek 
new homes beyond the seas. They cannot 
assimilate to the conquering race, and not 
being able to defend themselves, they aban- 
don the country rather than submit. Du- 
ring all the time of religious persecution, 
from the reign of Henry VIII. to George III., 
the economical condition of Ireland was de- 
plorable, and misery made incessant prog- 
ress. The landed population became in- 
volved in debt, and a fatal subdivision of 
the land was introduced in the mode of cul- 
ture. Farms were subdivided as fast as the 
people multiplied, which was fully equal to 
the proverbial fecundity of a state of ex- 
treme poverty, and the potato came to be the 
sole dependence of all for food. The sud- 
den destruction of that dependence by rot 
was an overwhelming calamity, that brought 
matters to a crisis. It was felt that migra- 
tion could not remedy the evil, but that a 
radical change in a wrong system was be- 
come indispensable. The system pursued 
had been for the landlords, mostly in debt, 
to absent themselves altogether. The land 
was then taken by " middle men," at a rate 
which hardly met the interest on incum- 
brances. This land was then parcelled out to 
the poor cotters in lots down to one-fourth acre 
or less, mere patches, at rates which gave a 
large aggregate rent to the " middle man." 
Those patches were planted with potatoes, 
which were the sole dependence of the 
family for food in the year. They were 
gathered, when ripe, into a pile, and that 
pile diminished by daily consumption until 
an approaching new crop found it exhausted. 
The supply of food for the year depended 
entirely upon the amount of the crop. Its 
yield was the sole dependence of the family 



to sustain life. The cotter had no property 
or capital of any kind to be made available 
in case of emergency. His only means of 
paying rent was an annual migration to 
England in harvest time to earn the necessa- 
ry sum. That clone, the balance of the year 
was idly spent in watching the sinking pile 
of potatoes. It may well be imagined how 
great was the horror that sei/.ed such a peo- 
ple when the sole barrier between themselves 
and starvation was found rotten, suddenly 
perishing under their eyes. The scenes that 
followed were awful to contemplate. All 
that could, fled, and these were mostly the 
robust males, leaving the infirm, the old, and 
the young to encounter the slow death that 
was gradually approaching, and which over- 
took multitudes. The greatest efforts were 
made by the British government to purchase 
and distribute food, and to employ hands 
upon roads. At one time over 500,000 
were so employed. The introduction of the 
Indian corn was attempted as a substitute ; 
but it was nearly impossible amid a people 
entirely ignorant of its use. Hand-mills 
were furnished to grind it, and the priests 
and others used great exertions to teach 
them to cook it. It was frequently the case, 
however, that the grain did not agree with 
the people, but exhibited poisonous effects 
on being eaten. The body swelled, and se- 
vere illness ensued. Migration and famine 
did its work in spite of all efforts of human- 
ity, and the census of 1851 showed how 
awful had been the havoc. 

The population of Ireland has been as 
follows, per official reports : — 

1821, 6,801,827 1861, 5,850,309 
1831, 7,767,401 1871, 5,402,759 
1841, 8,222,664 1881, 5,159,839 

1851, 6,623,984 

Decrease from 1841— 40 years, 3,062,825 
In the ten years ending with 1831, the 
increase was one and a half per cent, per 
annum. From that date to 1841 it was 
nine-tenths of one per cent, and that was a 
period of much comparative prosperity. The 
crops were still good, and the failure of the 
English wheat crops in 1837 raised the prices 
of Irish grain, and gave much employment to 
its agriculturists. If it had continued the same 
rate up to 1847, the famine year, the popula- 
tion would then have been 8,616,680 souls, 
when the migration took place in large num- 
bers, and continued the succeeding thirteen 
years down to 1859. The same increase in 
that thirteen years would have made the 



626 



IMMIGRATION. 



population 9,651,678 persons, or as fol- 
lows : — 

Population in 1841 8,175,124 

Ten years' increase at 9 per cent 735,701 

The population should have been in 1851 8,910,885 

Actual population 6,553,291 

Loss by famine and migration 2,357,594 

Number emigrated 1,422,000 

Population in 1851 6,628,982 

Ten years' increase at 9 per cent 595,500 

The population should have been in 1861 7,148,791 

Actual population 5,850,309 

Loss by migration, etc 1,298,482 

Number emigrated 1,972,499 

In the famine years, up to 1851, 935,594 
persons disappeared more than were ac- 
counted for by migration. From 1851 to 
1861, there migrated 674,017 more per- 
sons than should have been lost by the 
census. The numbers who have returned 
were for a time, it is known, upwards of 
twenty thousand per annum, and these 
carried back much larger sums than they 
brought with them. 

In this view the emigration reacted upon 
the northern states, the emigrants carrying 
off all that they have created. The whole 
operation above was as follows for fifteen 
years: — 

Population in 1847 8,616,680 

Population in 1861 5,850.309 

Decreased 2,766,371 

Emigrated 3,393,499 

Excess 372,872 

Carrying forward the estimate, the population 

in 1881 was 5,850,309 

Ten years' increase at 9 per cent 526,527 

The population should have been in 1871 6,376,836 

Actual population 5,402,759 

A loss by migration, etc., of 974,077 

Carrying forward the estimate, the population 

should have been in 1881 5,889,007 

It was 5,159,839 

A loss in the decade of 729,168 

Whitaker's English Almanac for 1882 
states that the actual emigration from 1851 
to 1881 has been 2,637,187. 

The first reformatory efforts of the English 
government were to throw the support of the 
Irish poor upon the parishes, and as the tax 
became onerous the forced sale of the encum- 
bered estates was authorized. The two mea- 
sures have succeeded. The land has passed 
into thrifty hands ; the bankrupt landlord is 
dispossessed, and the extortionate " middle 
man" is abolished; and the excessively poor 
population has been purged off by migra- 
tion. The " clearing of the lands" was in 
many cases conducted with much barbarity. 
The little huts of the peasants were pulled 



or burned down, and the hapless people 
driven forth to seek homes beyond the seas 
as they best could. In other cases the land- 
lords, the government, or societies furnished 
the means of shipments. The government 
soon found the necessity of interposing by 
law, as the United States had done, to pro- 
tect them from the rapacity of shippers and 
their agents. The law of 1849 was passed 
with that object. By its provisions no ship 
shall carry more than one person for every 
two registered tons ; nor shall there be more 
than one person for every twelve superficial 
feet on the main deck and below it. The 
size, number, and construction of the berths 
are regulated, and the captain is required to 
issue food as follows to each person twice a 
week : — 

Bread 2$ lbs. 

Wheat Flour 1 " 

Oatmeal 5 " 

Rice 2 " 

Tea 2 oz. 

Sugar ^ lb. 

Molasses i " 

A surgeon must be carried where there 
are one hundred or more passengers, and 
many other regulations that experience has 
pointed out as necessary, are enforced upon 
the carriers. The food is to be furnished 
entirely irrespective of the price of the pas- 
sage, which fluctuates almost daily between 
$16 and $24 each adult, and half price for 
children. The starving and destitute race 
each year sends forth crowds from all parts 
of Ireland to embark at Liverpool. The 
means are mostly furnished by Irish in 
America, who consider it their duty to 
appropriate their first earnings in their new 
homes to the rescue of their relatives, and 
small remittances, aggregating millions in a 
year, find the way into every cabin and 
workhouse as messengers of life to the des- 
pairing. Those poor people, once started 
on their travels, encounter numerous perils 
before reaching their destination. As soon 
as a party of emigrants arrives in Liverpool, 
they are beset by a tribe of people, both 
male and female, who are known by the 
name of " man-catchers" and " runners.' 
The business of these people is, in common 
parlance, to " fleece" the emigrant, and to 
draw from his pocket, by fair means or by 
foul, as much of his cash as he can be per- 
suaded, inveigled, or bullied into parting 
with. The first division of the man-catching 
fraternity are those who trade in commissions 



EUROPEAN MIGRATION. 



627 



on the passage money, and call themselves 
the " runners" or agents of the passenger 
brokers. The business of the passenger 
broker is a legitimate and necessary one. 
Under the passenger act of the 12th and 
13th Victoria cap. 3, the licenses of all the 
passenger brokers expired on the 1st of 
February, 1850, subject to renewal after 
their being approved of by the government 
emigration agent, and to their entering into 
bonds, with two sureties, in the sum of 
$1,000, for the due fulfilment of all the re- 
quirements of the act of Parliament relating 
to the comfort and security of emigrants. 
The passenger brokers at Liverpool, in com- 
mon with the unwary and unsuspecting emi- 
grants, have suffered greatly from the mal- 
practices of the " runners," who pretend to 
be their agents. These man-catchers pro- 
cure whatever sums they can from emigrants 
as passage money — perhaps $25 or $30, or 
even more — and pay as little as they can to 
the passenger broker, whose business they 
thus assume — often as little as £3, or £3 5s. 
In addition to these large and knavish prof- 
its, they demand a commission of seven and 
a half per cent, from the passenger broker, 
and they have been often known to obtain 
and enforce this commission, although their 
whole concern in the matter may have been 
to watch the number of emigrants going 
into or coming out of the brokery office, 
and to put in a claim for having brought or 
" caught" them. 

To form an idea of the sums paid in any 
one year as commission to the man-catchers, 
in the item of passage money, we have but 
to take the total steerage emigration of that 
year and multiply it by £3 10s., or seven- 
teen dollars — the average amount of passage 
money — and calculate what a per-centage of 
seven and a, half per cent, would amount to. 
The total steerage emigration of 1859 was 
one hundred and forty-six thousand one 
hundred and sixty-two souls, which, at seven- 
teen dollars a head, would amount to no 
less than two million four hundred and eighty- 
four thousand seven hundred and fifty-four 
dollars, on which, taking the commission at 
the low rate of six per cent., they draw one 
hundred and forty-nine thousand and forty 
dollars, which is generally stated to he ahout 
the sum actually paid to this particular class 
of people, on the average of the last three 
years, by the passengar-brokers of Liverpool. 
But these are not the only class of the man- 
catching fraternity, nor do they confine their 



operations to an exorbitant profit upon pas- 
sage money. The man-catchers keep lodging- 
houses for emigrants — wretched cellars and 
rooms, destitute of comfort and convenience, 
in which they cram them as thickly as the 
place can hold. The extra profits they draw 
from this source cannot be inferior in amount 
to their previously mentioned gains, and the 
cherished hoards of the poor pay a large per- 
centage to their unscrupulous rapacity. 

In addition to this trade, some of them 
deal in the various articles composing the 
outfit of emigrants, such as bedding, clothes, 
food, cooking utensils, and the nick-nacks 
of all kinds which they can persuade them 
to purchase. Some of the store-keepers in 
this line of business pay their "runners" or 
" man-catchers " as much as ten per cent, com- 
mission . on the purchases effected by the 
emigrants, from which the reader may form 
some estimate of the enormous plunder that 
must be drained from the poor ignorant peo- 
ple. As every emigrant must provide his 
own bedding, the sale of mattresses, blankets, 
and counterpanes, enters largely into this 
trade. After the bedding is provided, the 
man-catchers, who are principally Irishmen 
themselves, and know both the strength and 
weakness of the Irish character, fasten upon 
their.countrymen — many of whom, poor and 
miserable as they look, have sovereigns se- 
curely stitched amid the patches of their 
tattered garments — and persuade them into 
the purchase of various articles, both useful 
and useless. Among these may be mentioned 
clothes of all kinds — shirts, trowsers, waist- 
coats, shawls, petticoats, south-westers, caps, 
boots and shoes, slippers, cooking utensils, 
cans for the daily allowance of water, and 
tins to hold their meal, rice, and sugar. Pro- 
visions, such as bacon, herrings, salt beef, and 
other articles not found them on board, and 
luxuries, in which whiskey and tobacco are 
generally included, come next on the list, 
after reiterated assurances from the man- 
catchers that no emigrant will be taken on 
board without them. These being provided, 
and an Irishman being easily squeezeable. 
when a friend and a countryman is the man- 
catcher who has him in hand, and when lie 
fears that his passage-money will be lost for 
non-compliance with the regulations, his 
attention is next directed to such article- as 
pocket-mirrors, razors, bowie-knives, pistols, 
telescopes, etc. 

The stranger in Liverpool, who takes a 
walk in the immediate vicinity o\' the Water- 






628 



IMMIGRATION. 



loo Dock, whence the greater number of 
emigrant vessels take their departure, will 
see a profuse display of the various articles 
upon which the man-catcher makes his 
gains — articles generally of the most inferior 
quality, and sold at the most extravagant and 
ridiculous prices. The man-catching busi- 
ness, in all its various departments, has been 
reduced to a regular system, and no London 
sharper can be more sharp than the Liverpool 
runners. Perhaps the most complicated and 
ingenious trick is the following : When a 
steam-vessel laden with emigrants leaves an 
Irish port for Liverpool, one of the Liverpool 
fraternity, dressed up as a raw Irishman, with 
the usual long-tailed, ragged, and patched 
gray frieze coat, the battered and napless hat, 
the dirty unbuttoned knee-breeches, the black 
stockings, the shillelah, and the short pipe, 
takes his place among them, and pretends to 
be an emigrant. Before the vessel arrives at 
Liverpool he manages to make acquaintance 
with the greater portion of them, learns the 
parish they came from and the names of the 
relatives whom they have left behind, not 
forgetting those of the parish priest and the 
principal people of the neighborhood. He 
also ascertains the names of the friends in 
America whom they are going to join. He 
tells them of the roguery of Liverpool, and 
warns them against thieves and man-catchers, 
bidding them take especial care of their 
money. On arriving at the quay, in Liver- 
pool, he jumps ashore among the first, where 
a gang of his co-partners are waiting to re- 
ceive him. He speedily communicates to 
them all the information he has gained, and 
the poor people on stepping ashore are beset 
by affectionate inquiries about their friends 
in Ireland, and that good old man the parish 
priest. They imagine that they have fortu- 
nately dropped among old acquaintances, 
and their friend of the steamboat takes care 
to inform them that he is not going to be 
" done " by the man-catchers, but will lodge 
while at Liverpool at such and such a place, 
which he recommends. They cannot imagine 
that men who know all about the priest and 
their friends and relatives can mean them 
any harm, and numbers of them are usually 
led off in triumph to the most wretched but 
most expensive lodging-houses. Once in the 
power of the man-catchers, a regular siege 
of their pockets is made, and the poor emi- 
grant is victimized in a thousand ways for 
his passage money, for his clothes and uten- 
sils, and for his food. Even after they have 



drained him as dry as they can, they are loth 
to part with him entirely, and they write out 
per next steamer a full, true, and particular 
account of him — his parish, his relations, his 
priest, and his estimated stock of money — to 
a similar gang in New York. Paddy — simple 
fellow — arrives in New York in due time, 
and is greeted on landing by the same affec- 
tionate inquiries. If his eyes have not been 
opened by woeful experience, he thinks once 
more that he has fallen among friends, and 
is led off by the " smart" man-catchers of the 
New York gang, to be robbed of the last 
farthing that he can be persuaded to part 
with ; and he is possibly induced to spend 
the savings of years in the purchase of land, 
supposed to be in the far west, but having 
no other existence but such as paper and lies 
can give it. 

It must not be supposed, from the state- 
ments in reference to the rogueries practised 
by runners and man-catchers upon the 
simple, emigrants themselves do not occa- 
sionally endeavor to commit frauds, both 
upon each other and upon the owners and 
captains of ships. The Irish emigrant, with 
the passion for hoarding which is so common 
among his countrymen, often hides money 
in his rags, and tells a piteous tale of utter 
destitution, in order to get a passage at 
cheaper rate. The shameless beggary, whicl 
is perhaps the greatest vice of the lower 
classes of Irish, does not always forsake them, 
even when they have determined to bid fare- 
well to the old country ; and I have several 
times been accosted by men and women, 01 
board emigrant ships in dock, and asked for 
contributions to help them when they got to 
New York. " Sure, yer honor, and may the 
Lord spare you to a long life ; I've paid mj 
last farden for my passage," said a sturd] 
Irish woman, with a child in her arms, whei 
accosted on the quarter-deck of a fine ship, 
in the Waterloo Dock, " and when I get tc 
New York I shall have to beg in the strates 
unless yer honor will take pity on me." Oi 
being asked to show me her ticket, she saic 
her husband had it ; and her husband — a 
wretched-looking old man — making his aj 
pearance and repeating the same story, wi 
pressed to show the document. He did sc 
at last, when it was apparent that he hac 
paid upwards of seventeen pounds — eighty- 
two dollars and twenty-five cents — for the 
passage of himself and wife and his family of 
five children. "And do you mean to saj 
that you have no money left ?" was inquired 



EUROPEAN MIORATION. 



629 



of him. " Not one blessed penny," said the 
man. " No, nor a fardin," said the woman, 
"and God knows what'll become of us." 
11 Do you know nobody in New York ?" " Not 
a living sowle, yer honor." " Have you no 
luggage ?" " Not a stick or a stitch, but the 
clothes we wear." As the good ship was 
detained two days beyond her advertised 
time of sailing, all the emigrants, as usual, 
had liberty to pass to and from the ship to 
the streets, as caprice or convenience dicta- 
ted. On the following day, this sturdy 
woman and her husband were seen entering 
the Waterloo Dock gates with a donkey-cart, 
tolerably well piled with boxes, bedding, and 
cooking utensils. When they were down in 
the steerage, and she was asked whether that 
was her luggage, she replied it was. " You said 
yesterday, however, when you were begging, 
that you had no luggage." " Sure, it's a hard 
world, yer honor, and we're poor people — 
God help us." 

An incident of a kind not very dissimilar 
occurred on board of another American liner. 
When the passenger roll was called over, 
it was found that one man, from the county 
of Tipperary, had only paid an instalment 
upon his passage money, and that the sum 
of $6 each for three persons, or $18, was 
still due from him. On being called upon 
to pay the difference, he asserted vehemently 
that he had been told in the broker's office 
that there was no more to pay, and that to 
ask him for more was to attempt a robbery. 
The clerk insisted upon the money, and 
showed him the tickets of other passengers 
to prove the correctness of the charge. The 
man then changed his tone, and declared 
that he had not a single farthing left in the 
world, and that it was quite impossible he 
could pay any more. " Then you and your 
family will be put on shore," said the clerk, 
" and lose the money you have already paid." 
The intending emigrant swore lustily at the 
injustice, and declared that if put on shore 
he would "get an act of Parliament" to put 
an end to such a system of robbery. The 
clerk, however, was obdurate, and the man 
disappeared, muttering as he went that he 
would have his "act of Parliament to pun- 
ish the broker, the clerk, and the captain." 
He returned in a few minutes from below, 
and, without saying a word of what had 
happened, and looking as unconcerned as a 
stranger, coolly presented a £5 note, or 
$24 25, and asked for his change. Such is 
a specimen of the rogueries attempted by 



those who have money. Those who really have 
none at all, or who possibly have not suffi- 
cient to pay their passage, resort to other 
schemes for crossing the Atlantic at a re- 
duced rate, or free of charge altogether, and 
"stow away." This is a practice which is 
carried on to a great and increasing extent. 

After encountering these perils of poverty 
and cheating, the crowd becomes finally 
located on board of ship, and assigned their 
quarters for the voyage. It is a strange 
place for the new-comers, and their admiration 
of the new life they have entered upon be- 
gins with the first day's issue of regulation 
food. The experience of most of them in 
the edible way, has hitherto been confined 
to "murphys" or, at most, Indian meal, 
which they heartily detest as " starvation 
porridge." They now come to the allow- 
ances, as above, handed them by law. The 
meal, the tea, the rice, the sugar, and molas- 
ses prove frequently a puzzler — tea in par- 
ticular — and it is not unfrequently the case 
that a brawny Pat, who could do a good 
turn at Donnybrook fair, but whose knowl- 
edge of. drinkables is confined to whisky, 
will, after gravely surveying the tea for a 
while, deliberately fill his pipe with a por- 
tion, and smoke it with much satisfac- 
tion. Others, with more expansive ideas, 
will at times mix the whole in a mass, and 
boil it into a thick soup or pudding, well 
specked with the expanded tea leaves. In- 
formation comes with experience, however, 
and the first serious experience is sea-sick- 
ness, which utterly prostrates them, mind 
and body, aggravating every dirty habit 
they may have formed. Then is ex- 
erted the utmost power of the captain to 
enforce cleanliness ; he usually selects a 
dozen or two of the more intelligent, and 
investing them with authority, a general 
turn-out, and a thorough cleaning every 
morning, and in all weathers, is compelled. 

By the rigid observance of this rule, 
much of the former sickness and mortality 
has been avoided. Within the past decade 
the emigration from Ireland had materially 
declined, even the famine year not greatly 
increasing it ; and the working classes, 
and especially the tenant farmers in Eng- 
land who had had five or six yean of bad 
crops had taken their place on the emi- 
grant ships. The English emigrant is gen- 
erally more quiet and industrious than the 
Irishman, and is not so open and slum un- 
less a beggar ; but unless he is a mechanic, 



630 



IMMIGRATION. 



lie is not so enterprising and pushing, and 
requires some one to plan for him, and get 
him into a situation. A larger proportion 
of the English as well as the German and 
Scandinavian emigrants go west immedi- 
ately on landing at American ports, than 
of the Irish. The Irishman seems to re- 
gard the large cities as peculiarly his home. 
Here in the past, he has found his advan- 
tage in being able to vote (often illegally) 
for the demagogues who sought his vote 
to accomplish their nefarious purposes ; 
and at one time so large a proportion of 
the public offices in our large cities were 
held by Irishmen, often wholly unfit for 
the positions, that it is no wonder that one 
of these unwashed politicians sent word to 
one of his friends in Ireland : " I tell 
yees, Pat, it's worth a big fortin' to a man 
here, to have been born in ould Ireland." 

There is, however, less of Irish predom- 
inance in our large cities than there was a 
few years ago, but there is still too much. 
Within the past two years great efforts 
have been made to collect subscriptions 
here from Irishmen and others in aid of 
the Land League in Ireland, whose object 
is to resist and defy by all means, however 
unscrupulous, the authority of the English 
government. Murder, house and barn- 
burning, the destruction of warehouses 
and ships by dynamite, beating and assault- 
ing those who have paid their rents, and 
other measures such as Irish ingenuity 
could invent, have been threatened and 
practiced often upon innocent and helpless 
victims of the Land-leaguer's rage. Emi- 
gration from Ireland has been checked for 
the present by these measures, but will 
probably be resumed when the country is 
more quiet. 



CHAPTER III. 

EMIGRANTS LANDING AT NEW YORK. 

The commissioners of emigration, a body 
appointed by the Legislature of New York 
in 1847, to receive and care for the emi- 
grants landing at the port of New York, 
and to see to it that neither they nor the 
state should receive damage, have made 
Castle Garden at the Battery, New York 
city, the landing dep6t, and have also 
established a State Emigrant Refuge and 
hospitals at which emigrants may be re- 



ceived without charge in case of illness or 
destitution, within five years after landing. 

At Castle Garden the emigrants are 
allowed to stay for a few days, and they 
can procure there the tickets for transport- 
ation on the western railways at the lowest 
prices, and can be conducted to the trains 
without annoyance. Their foreign coins 
can be exchanged and every precaution is 
taken to protect them from being robbed, 
swindled, or in any way defrauded, by 
any of the thousand villains who he in 
wait for them outside. 

There is also a Labor and Employment 
Bureau for finding employment for those 
who wish to obtain places in the vicinity, 
and most of the states which are inviting 
immigration have their agents there to 
give information in regard to the induce- 
ments they have to offer to immigrants. 
Very many of the land -grant railroad com- 
panies, and the land companies, now have 
their agents at the foreign ports, and a 
large proportion of the immigrants are 
ticketed through from Liverpool, Glasgow, 
Edinburgh, Hull, Bristol, Bremen, Ham- 
burg and other European ports by steamer 
and railway to the lands owned by these 
companies, and, in some instances, have 
bought their farms without ever having 
seen them. The commissioners were al- 
lowed to require a bond from the owners 
of emigrant ships for each emigrant, that 
he or she should not become chargeable to 
the state for the term of five years after 
landing, and in lieu of this they were au- 
thorized to receive a sum in commutation 
of from $1.50 to $2.50 for each emigrant. 
They put this commutation at first at $2.00, 
and in May, 1871, reduced it to $1.50. In 
1876 the Supreme Court of the United 
States decided that the law authorizing the 
collection of this commutation was void, as 
the matter belonged to Congress and not 
to the state authorities. As this decision 
made them liable for past commutations, 
Congress passed a law promptly which 
legalized their past action, but prohibited 
any further collections. While the matter 
of granting national authority for collect- 
ing the commutation was pending in Con- 
gress, where it has not yet reached a vote, 
the state of New York made annual ap- 
propriations to the commissioners of from 
$150,000 to $175,000, that their good 
work might not be relinquished. The 
commutation or head money would seem 




IRISH EMIGRANTS JUST ARRIVED IN NEW YORK. 



|I|iji , i< : , , li Ufc*iiii ^u,\,m..ijm ^ 




IRISHMEN IX THE COMMON COUNCIL, NEW YORK. 



EMIGRANTS LANDING AT NEW YORK. 



633 



to be the fairest and best method of main- 
taining the necessary work of the commis- 
sioners. 

The emigration into the port of New 
York is at all times much larger than to 
any other port, and averages at least five- 
eighths of the immigration into all the ports. 
In 1881 there were 409,106 alien passen- 
gers landed at New York out of a total of 
695,163 ; and 400,871 immigrants out of 
a total of 669,431. This was for the fiscal 
year ending June 30, 1881. For the cal- 
endar year 1881, the number was still 
greater ; and the immigration of 1882 has 
taken on such proportions that a total of 
over a million is confidently predicted, of 
which New York will probably receive at 
least 700,000. 

A large majority of those who land 
at New York have their friends awaiting 
them to guide them to their future homes. 
Numbers have to seek their way amid 
great perils. But nearly all these have 
come provided with instructions more or 
less minute, derived from the numerous 
agents in Europe of the American land 
companies, who hold out inducements to 
settlers. The Germans and Swedes are 
mostly inclined to agriculture, or to the 
raising of cattle, and mining, and they 
soon find their way, by the emigrant trains 
of the great trunk lines of railroads. Those 
lines have all exerted themselves to profit 
by the movement. 

The following table, from official sources, 
gives the number of Germans > and British 
under each head, and also the aggregate of 
all the aliens arrived since the returns have 
been regularly kept. Some of the passen- 
gers report themselves from Great Britain, 
without stating which portion. These are 
under the head "Great Britain." [See 
page 242.] 

Let us see next where this vast emigra- 
tion of nearly eleven and a half millions in 
sixty-one years nave made their homes on 
this side of the ocean. While their aggre- 
gate number has increased in each of the 
last three decades, being 4, 136, 175 in 1860, 
5,566,546 in 1870, and 6,679,943 in 1880, 
showing that a little more than three-fifths 
of the whole number who had immigrated 
hither were living in 1880, the proportion 
to the native population has been lessening 
and in thirty-five of the forty-eight states 
and tei-ritories the native population has 
increased in a larger ratio than the foreign. 



While the foreign element is only one- 
eighth of the whole, in our population, 
there is not much danger of our being 
swamped by immigration. The census of 
1880 has not yet given the full details in 
all the states of the nationalities of the im- 
migrants making their homes there ; and 
we do not regard it as a matter of much 
consequence, as changes are so constantly 
taking place in the location of immigrants, 
many of whom now come in large bodies, 
and if dissatisfied with their first location 
migrate to another state or territory by 
hundreds or thousands. In general we 
may say that the English, Irish and Scotch, 
are more inclined to settle in the Atlantic 
and Mississippi Valley states than farther 
west. Many of them are mechanics, arti- 
sans or unskilled laborers ; many more, 
farm hands, or household servants, and 
these find employment more readily in the 
densely populated east than in the west, 
of late, however, a class of greater wealth 
are coming here, — tenant farmers, men 
connected with the army, navy, the pro- 
fessions, or the civil service, and not sel- 
dom younger sons of the gentry or nobil- 
ity. These often go to the west. The 
Germans divide themselves pretty equally 
over the whole northern portion of the 
country ; miners, herdsmen and agricul- 
turists going to the west and northwest, 
tradesmen and mechanics remaining at 
the east. The Scandinavians, who are agri- 
culturists, miners, herdsmen, or profes- 
sional men, go to the northwest, to Wis- 
consin, Minnesota, Iowa, Dakota, Montana, 
Nebraska and Kansas, and some of them 
to Wyoming, Oregon and Washington. 
The Mormons draw considerable numbers 
of both these and the English and Welch 
to Utah, and the territories adjacent. The 
Russian emigration, which is becoming 
large and is mostly Mennonite, go directly 
to Minnesota, Dakota, Manitoba, Nebraska 
or Kansas. The Italians, who are now 
coming in considerable numbers, are mostly 
finding employment in the Atlantic cities 
and towns ; a few, however, go to Califor- 
nia, attracted by the line climate. Mexi- 
cans, Spaniards and Frenchmen go for the 
most part to Arizona, California and Texas: 
the Chinese to the Pacific slates. In 
Utah in 1880, 40,321 out of 43,994 were 
from Great Britain and Ireland, Sweden 
and Norway. The Canadians of British 
extraction go mostly to the northwest ; the 



634 



EUROPEAN MIGRATION. 



NUMBER OP PASSENGERS THAT ARRIVED IN EACH YEAR IN THE UNITED STATES FROM 

ENGLAND, IRELAND, SCOTLAND, GREAT BRITAIN, GERMANY, SWEDEN AND 

NORWAY, WITH THE TOTAL FROM ALL COUNTRIES. 



1830, 

Ma, 

1823, 

1823, 

1824, 

1825, 

1826, 

1827, 

1828, 

1829, 

1830, 

1831, 

1832, 

1833, 

1834, 

1835, 

1836, 

1837, 

1838, 

1839, 

1840, 

1841, 

1843, 

1843, 

1844, 

1845, 

1846, 

18V7, 

1348, 

1849, 

1850, 

1851, 

1852, 

1833, 

1854, 

1855, 

1856, 

1857, 

1358, 

1859, 

1330, 

1831, 

18)3, 

1833, 

1864, 

1835, 

1836, 

1837, 

1838, 

1839, 

1870, 

1871, 

1372, 

1873, 

1874, 

1875, 

1876, 

1877, 

1878, 

1879. 

1880, 

1881, 



England. 



1,782 

1,036 

856 

851 

713 

1,002 

1,459 

2,521 

2,735 

2,149 

7*3 

251 

944 

2,966 

1,129 

468 

420 

896 

157 

62 

318 

147 

1,743 

3,517 

1,357 

1,710 

2,854 

3,476 

4,445 

6,033 

6,797 

5,303 

30,007 

28,837 

48,901 

38,871 

25,904 

27,804 

14,638 

13,823 

13,001 

8,970 

10,947 

24,035 

23,093 

15,038 

2,770 

Ti'.i.'n 

55. i J 41 i 
59.483 
57.129 
70.978 
75,641 
51.570 
40,579 
21,697 
19,442 
18.648 
24.726 
00.627 
76,547 



Ireland. 



1,725 
1,518 
1,346 
1,051 
1,575 
4,157 
3.333 
3.2S2 
5,266 
3,106 
747 
1,647 
5,120 
4,511 
6,772 
5,148 
2,152 
737 
1,225 
1,199 
677 
3,291 
4,844 
1,173 
5,491 
8,641 
12,949 
29,640 
24,802 
31,321 
40,180 
55,874 
159,548 
162,649 
101,006 
49,627 
54,349 
54.361 
26,873 
35,216 
48,637 
23,797 
23,351 
55.916 
63.523 
29,772 
32,312 
69,977 
42,747 
51,293 
56,623 
57.439 
68.732 
77.344 
53,707 
37,957 
19,575 
14,569 
15,932 
20.01.3 
71,603 
70,909 



Scotland. Gt. Britain. Germany. 



268 
293 
198 
180 
257 
113 
230 
460 
1,041 
111 

29 

226 

153 

1,921 

110 

63 
106 

14 

48 



21 

35 

24 

41 

23 

368 

305 

317 

659 

1,060 

860 

966 

8,148 

6.006 

4,605 

5,275 

3,297 

4.182 

1 ,946 

2.293 

1,613 

767 

657 

1,940 

3.476 

3,037 

672 



Total, 1,313,630 



2,795,978 



1.949 

12,415 

11,820 

11,984 

13,916 

13.841 

10,429 

7.310 

4.5S2 

4,135 

3,502 

5.225 

12,640 

16,451 



232,915 



2.249 

1,881 

1,088 

926 

1,064 

1,711 

2,705 

7,689 

8,798 

5,228 

2,365 

6,123 

11,545 

4,166 

26,953 

24,218 

41,006 

39,079 

16.6:35 

32,973 

41.027 

50,487 

66,736 

23,369 

40.972 

53,312 

57,824 

95,385 

118,277 

175,841 

167,242 

210,594 

2.544 

2,703 

5,141 

1,176 

15,457 

26,493 

12,372 

10,045 

15,123 

9,938 

13,035 

40,878 

23,856 

64,390 

95,866 

55,543 

51,779 

28,965 

23.153 

142.894 

153.641 

166.843 

115.728 

85.861 

48.866 

38.150 

38.082 

49.967 

144,876 

165,230 



Switzer- 
land. 



4,379,718 



948 


31 


365 


93 


139 


110 


179 


47 


224 


253 


448 


166 


495 


245 


435 


297 


1,806 


1,592 


582 


314 


1,972 


109 


2.395 


63 


10,168 


129 


6,823 


634 


17,654 


1,389 


8,245 


548 


20,139 


445 


23.036 


383 


11,369 


123 


19,794 


607 


88,581 


500 


13.727 


751 


18,237 


433 


11,432 


553 


19.226 


839 


33,138 


471 


57.010 


698 


73,444 


192 


58,014 


319 


60,062 


13 


78,137 


375 


71,322 


427 


143,575 


2,788 


140,653 


2,748 


206,054 


2,953 


66,219 


4,433 


63,K)7 


1,780 


83.798 


2,080 


42,291 


1,056 


39,315 


833 


50,746 


913 


30,189 


1,007 


24,985 


643 


31.989 


690 


54.379 


1,896 


80,797 


2,859 


110,440 


3,823 


121,240 


1,163 


111.503 


3,261 


124,766 


3,488 


91.168 


2,474 


82.554 


2.269 


141.109 


3.650 


149,671 


3.107 


87,291 


3.093 


47,769 


1.814 


31,937 


1.549 


29,298 


1.686 


29,313 


1,808 


34.602 


3,161 


84,638 


6,156 


249,572 


11,628 



4,691,247 



Prussia.* 



132,530 



20 

18 

9 

4 

6 

2 

16 

7 

45 

15 

4 

18 

26 

155 

32 

66 

568 

704 

314 

1,234 

1,123 

1,564 

2,083 

3,009 

1,505 

1,217 

551 

837 

451 

173 

759 

1,160 

2,343 

1.293 

8,955 

5,699 

7,221 

7,983 

3,019 

2,469 

3,745 

1.472 

2,544 

1.173 

2.897 

2.627 

5,452 

12,186 

11,567 

22 

111 



Sweden & 
Norway. 



*155,791 



Total. 



8,385 
9,127 
6,911 
6,1354 
7,912 
10,199 
10,837 
18,875 
27,382 
22.520 
23,322 
22,633 
53,179 
58,640 
65,865 
45,874 
76,242 
79,340 
38,714 
68,d69 
84,066 
80,289 
104.565 
52.496 
78.615 
114,371 
154.416 
234.968 
2^6.527 
297.024 
869,980 
379.466 

371. cm 

3u8.045 





427.883 




200.877 




200,436 




251.306 




123,126 




121.282 




153,640 


616 


91,920 


892 


91,987 


1,627 


176.282 


2,249 


193.416 


6,109 


249.061 


12,633 


318.494 


7,055 


29S.358 


20,420 


297,215 


41,833 


395.922 


24,365 


376.314 


20,117 


321,350 


24,885 


404,806 


30,550 


459,803 


16,096 


313.339 


11,666 


227,498 


10,776 


169,986 


9,579 


141.857 


10.149 


138,469 


18.346 


177.826 


59.081 


457,257 


82,859 


720,045 


365,173 


11,436.235 



♦Merged in Germany after 1870. 



IMMIGRATION. 



635 



THE FOREIGN POPULATION IN EACH STATE AND TERRITORY IN 18r>0, 1800, 1870, AND 1880, WITH 
THE RATIO TO 100,000 NATIVES IN EACH IN 1870 AND 1880. 



State. 



United States. . 



Alabama 

Arizona 

Arkansas 

California 

Colorado 

Connecticut 

Dakota 

Delaware 

Distr't of Columbia. 

Florida 

Georgia 

Idabo 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Kansas 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maine 

Maryland 

Massachusetts 

Micbigan 

Minnesota 

Mississippi. 

Missouri 

Montana 

Nebraska 

Nevada 

New Hampshire.. . . 

New Jersey 

New Mexico 

New York 

North Carolina 

Ohio 

Oregon 

Pennsylvania 

Rhode Island 

South Carolina 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Utah 

Vermont 

Virginia 

Wasbington 

West Virginia 

Wisconsin 

Wyoming 



Foreign. 
1850. 



Foreign. 
1860. 



2,244,602 4,138,697 



7,509 



1,471 
21,802 



38,518 



5,253 
4,918 
2,769 

6,488 



111,892 
55,572 
20,969 



31,420 

68,233 

31,825 

51,209 

164,024 

54,703 

1,977 

4,788 

76,592 



14,265 
59,948 

2,151 
655,929 

2,581 
218,193 

1,022 

303,417 

23,902 

8,707 

5,653 
17,681 

2,044 
33,715 
22,985 



110,477 



12,352 

3,600 
146,528 

2,666 
80,696 

1,774 

9,165 
12,484 

3,309 
11,671 



324,643 

118,284 

106,077 

12,691 

59,799 

80,975 

37,453 

77,529 

260,106 

149,093 

58,728 

8,558 

160,541 



6,351 

2,064 

20,938 

122,790 

6,723 

1,001,280 

3,298 

328,249 

5,123 

430,505 

37,394 

9,986 

21,226 

43,422 

6,723 

32,743 

18,513 

3,144 

16,545 

276,927 



Foreign. 
1870. 



5,567,229 



9,962 

5,809 

5,026 

209,831 

6,599 

113,639 

4,815 

9,136 

16,254 

4,967 

11,127 

7,885 

515,198 

141,474 

204,692 

48,392 

63,398 

61,827 

48,881 

83,412 

353,319 

268,019 

160,697 

11,191 

222.267 

7,979 

30,748 

18,801 

29,611 

188,943 

5,620 

1,138,353 

3,029 

372,493 

11,600 

545,309 

55,396 

8,074 

19,316 

•62,411 

30.702 

47,155 

13,754 

5,024 

17,091 

364,499 

3,513 



Foreign. 
1880. 



6,679,943 



9,734 

16,049 

10,350 

292,874 

39,790 

129,992 

51,795 

9,468 

17,122 

9,909 

10,564 

9,974 

583,576 

144,178 

261,650 

110,086 

59,517 

54,146 

58,883 

82,806 

443,491 

388,508 

267,676 

9,209 

211,578 

11,521 

97,414 

25,653 

46,294 

221,700 

8,051 

1,211,379 

3,742 

394,943 

30,503 

587,829 

73,993 

7.686 

16,702 

114,616 

43,994 

40,959 

14,696 

15,803 

18.265 

406,426 

5,850 



Number of Foreign 
to 100,000 Native. 



1870. 



16,875 



1,009 
150,922 

1,048 
59,881 
19,838 
26,813 
51,409 

7,884 
14,079 

2,717 

949 

110,838 

25,446 

9,192 
20,690 
15,314 

5,041 

9,296 

8,456 
11,959 
32,003 
29.257 
57,596 

1,370 
14,827 
63,245 
33,333 
79,363 
10,257 
26,346 

6,516 
35,087 
284 
16,246 
14,624 
18,310 
34,204 

1.158 

1,559 

8,254 
54,743 
16,639 

1,135 
26,541 

4,022 
52,818 
62,676 



1880. 



15,364 



65,798 

1,306 

51,217 

25, 747 

26,383 

62,117 

6,903 

10,667 

3,817 

689 

44,062 

23,396 

7,860 

19,197 

12,404 

3,745 

6,112 

9,979 

'.1.717 

33,106 

31,119 

52,168 

820 

10,812 

41,685 

27,441 

70,065 

15,395 

24,378 

7,219 

31,289 

268 

14,089 

21,148 

15,908 

36,532 

778 

1,054 

7,759 

44.007 

14,059 

981 

2(1,643 

8,043 

44,548 

39,159 



636 



IMMIGRATION. 



French Canadians to New England and 
New York, largely as factory operatives. 
Very few emigrants go to the southern 
states, except to Texas, Louisiana and 
Florida. The following table gives the 
number of persons of foreign birth in each 
state and territory in 1850, 1860, 1870 and 
1880, and the proportion to each hundred 
thousand of natives in 1870 and 1880. 
[See page 243.] 

Many attempts have been made to esti- 
mate the amount of capital brought into 
the country by immigrants, but these, for 
obvious reasons, must be mere guess-work. 
The commissioners of emigration in New 
York in 1871 made an investigation which 
led them to the conclusion that besides 
their passage money the immigrants aver- 
aged $100 each, and calculated that from 
September 30. 1819, to December 31, 1870, 
the 7,360,475 alien passengers had brought 
$736,047,500. At that rate the whole sum 
brought to December 31, 1881, would be 
$1,168,623,500. But this estimate is and 
has been all along largely below the truth. 
Very few emigrant families bring less than 
$1,000 for each family — and many still 
larger sums. The Mennonites, who are 
coming here in such large numbers, bring 
very large amounts. One Mennonite col- 
ony of 200 persons had with them $400,- 
000, after reaching their destination. An- 
other, somewhat larger colony, purchased 
200,000 acres of land in Kansas, and still 
had money enough to lay it out in farms, 
erect the necessary buildings and stock it. 
The best land companies advise no man 
with a family to immigrate unless he has 
at command at least $1,000. Many of the 
English and Scotch farmers bring very 
considerable sums, and generally invest 
them wisely. This is also true of the Scan- 
dinavians. Many of the mining and smelt- 
ing enterprises, irrigating works and land, 
agricultural, and herding companies, are 
conducted by English, French or German 
capitalists, and with capital drawn from 
those countries, sometimes to the amount of 
millions of dollars. This is particularly 
true in Colorado, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, 
Montana, Dakota and California. 

But the large amounts brought over by 
immigrants are very nearly balanced by 
the vast aggregate of small sums sent over 
by immigrants to their friends to aid them 
in supporting themselves there, or to pay 
their passage to this country. The Irish, 



English, Swedes, Norwegians and Swiss, 
as well as some of the German immigrants, 
especially those of these nationalities in ser- 
vice here, make remittances every two or 
three months — and the aggregate is very 
large. 

Returning emigrants also carry back 
large sums to their homes. Many of the 
Chinese manage in a few years to return 
to China, with a sum sufficient for a per- 
manent competence there. 

But the largest amount of money re- 
turned to Europe is that expended, by 
Americans who go thither for pleasure or 
business each season. From the various 
ports of the United States in 1881, 112,072 
persons sailed, mostly for Europe — 100,446 
of them in steamers, and 63,593 as cabin 
passengers. In the thirteen years ending 
in 1881 the whole number of these depart- 
ing passengers was 1,487,989. That the 
average expenditure of these passengers 
abroad was not less than $1,000 each, is 
susceptible of easy proof, and the grand 
aggregate for thirteen years is $1,487,- 
989,000 ; a larger sum than, according to 
the estimates of the commissioners of em- 
igration, all the emigrants for sixty-one 
years have brought here. Many well in- 
formed publicists put the amount expended 
by each passenger or traveler at $1,200, 
and adduce evidence showing that it must 
even exceed that sum. The arrivals of 
native citizens and foreign visitors (not 
immigrants) from abroad have been re- 
corded since 1820 with the exception of 
the period from 1861 to 1868 (both inclu- 
sive) and is as follows : 

NUMBER OF NATIVE CITIZENS AND FOREIGN VISITORS (NOT 
IMMIGRANTS) ARRIVING FROM ABROAD. 

Males. Females. Not stated. Total. 

1820-1830, 19.5-12 3.529 62 23,134 

1830-1840, 23,036 7,288 31 34.345 

1840-1850, 38.952 12.999 190 52.141 

1850-18(50, 224.410 36.924 ... 261,348 

1869-1871, 9J.373 52,030 ... 151.403 

1871-1881 ... 744,105 

Total arrivals of non-emigrants in 61 years, 1,266,476 

But while the money income from immi- 
grants is probably nearly or quite cancelled 
by the amount sent abroad either by the 
immigrants themselves, or by American 
citizens traveling for business or pleasure, 
the value of the labor and enterprise of the 
larger proportion of this vast influx of able 
bodied men and women is much greater 
than the money they have brought with 
them. But for their toil and industry ex- 
tensive regions now teeming with popular 



EMIGRANTS LANDING AT NEW YORK. 



637 



tion and wealth would still be barren 
wastes, and the progress of the country- 
would have been delayed probably almost 
a third of a century. 

That we have, as a nation, treated immi- 
grants fairly and generously (except, per- 
haps, the Chinese) is evident from the fact 
that ours is the only country in which im- 
migration has been in the highest sense a 
success. The Australian colonies, though 
moderately prosperous, and though the 
British government has used every effort 
to protect and increase emigration thither, 
have received in all less than one-fifth the 
immigrants which have come to us. Can- 
ada has received many immigrants, but a 
very large proportion of them have made 
haste to escape over our borders ; while 



Mexico and the South American States, 
and all of Africa, have met with no tan- 
gible success in their efforts to encourage 
immigration. 

With us the legal rights of the emi- 
grants, after they become naturalized, are 
the same in all respects as those of the na- 
tive-born citizens, with the single excep- 
tion that they are not eligible to the office 
of president or vice-president of the United 
States. No law can be passed to abridge 
the freedom of their speech, or the free 
exercise of their religion, whatever that 
may be. Their right to hold real estate is 
perfect, as is the security afforded to per- 
sons, property, and papers, and they may 
be elected, or may elect to any office except 
those named. 



TELEGRAPHS-THEIR ORIGIN AND PROGRESS. 



CHAPTER I. 

TELEGRAPHS— THEIR ORIGIN AND PROGRESS. 

" Canst thou send lightnings that they may go, and say 
unto thee, ' Here we are '? " — Job, 

The invention and use of electric tele- 
graphs are among the most important of 
modern improvements ; and it is somewhat 
remarkable that the invention justifies the 
trite observation, that great inventions are 
made always at the moment they are wanted. 
Telegraphs have been used from the re- 
motest antiquity, by signals of various kinds ; 
and one by flags, to signal the arrival of 
vessels below, has been used during the pres- 
ent century in Boston ; and, in New York, 
one operating by arms has been used for 
the same purpose from the Narrows to the 
roof of the Merchants' Exchange in New 
York. The electric telegraph applied light- 
ning to intelligence as steam was applied to 
motion, and came into being to exceed, by 
its rapidity of intelligence, the means just 
invented to convey more rapidly by rail. 
Indeed its action is necessary to the latter, 
since it would be impossible to operate 
long lines of railroad, like the Erie, N. Y. 
Central, Penn., and Bait. & Ohio, without 
the aid of the telegraph. The patent of 
Morse was taken out in the year 1840, and 
for all short lines, is still employed ; but the 
necessity for more rapid communication, 
and for the reduction of expenses in a busi- 
ness so enormous, has led to other inven- 
tions which have quadrupled the power of 
a single line, and by automatic process, have 
actually increased it a hundredfold with 
but very little addition to the expense. 
The present improved processes bear about 
the same relation to the original Morse's 
telegraph that the lightning express train 
does to the old Conestoga wagon. But 
more of this by and by. At present our 
business is with Morse's original discovery. 

It was just ninety years after Dr. Frank- 
lin identified lightning with electricity, by 
means of his kite, when Morse schooled 



electricity to send messages almost instant- 
aneously over wire at great distances. 

This all-pervading element manifests it- 
self in countless ways — in the sparkling of 
animal hair ; in the rustling of silk, which 
" betrays your poor heart to woman ;" in 
the aurora that illumines the North ; in the 
meteor that startles the astonished observer ; 
it flashes in the lightning bolt that rives the 
oak, without, while it gently penetrates into 
the lady's parlor and fills her form, as she 
glides over her warm, thick carpet, until the 
metal tube of the gas burner will attract 
enough from her fingers to ignite the gas, or 
from her lips to startle a newly-entered 
friend. It will also convey to her the thoughts 
of distant minds with more than the assiduity 
of Puck, by means of the invention of 
Morse. 

Professor Morse was not the discoverer of 
the analogy between magnetism and elec- 
tricity, but he was the first who made prac- 
ticable former discoveries and improve- 
ments in the production of a recording 
telegraph. The three leading properties of 
electricity that make telegraphs possible, are, 
first, its constant desire to seek an equilib- 
rium, always going where there is less ; 
second, that the production of electricity is 
always in two fluids, called positive and 
negative, which possess a mutual attraction 
for each other ; third, that different substan- 
ces have very different conducting powers — 
over some it passes with the utmost freedom, 
while over others it will scarcely pass at all. 
On this depends the possibility of telegraph- 
ing, since by it the current of electricity may 
be arrested or conveyed at the will of the 
operator. Mr. William Sturgeon of Lon- 
don, discovered in 1825 that when a bar 
of soft iron was placed within a coil of con- 
ducting wires it was rendered magnetic, and 
and would so remain as long as the current 
of electricity passed through the wires. The 
telegraph consists in connecting two of these 
magnets by a wire of any number of miles 



TELEGRAPHS THEIR ORIGIN AND PROGRESS. 



639 



in length, and directing through it a current 
from an electric battery. By cutting off 
the current, the iron becomes alternately 
charged and at rest with great rapidity. To 
form the current, it is necessary that the 
wire should form a circuit, or that each end 
of the wire should communicate with the 
ground. The interruption is caused by 
stopping this communication. The first 
telegraph invented by Professor Morse con- 
sisted of an electro-magnet, formed by bend- 
ing a small rod of iron in the form of a 
horse-shoe, upon which was wound a few 
yards of copjjer wire insulated with cotton 
thread. This magnet was then placed upon 
the middle of a painter's stretching frame 
for canvass, the bottom of which was nailed 
to the edge of a common table. Across the 
lower part of the frame was constructed a 
narrow trough to hold three narrow cylin- 
ders of wood. A wooden clock was placed 
at one end of this trough. The cylinder 
next to the clock had a small pulley-wheel 
fixed upon its prolonged axis, outside the 
trough; a similar pulley-wheel was fixed 
upon the prolonged axis of one of the 
slower wheels of the train of wheels outside 
the clock; these two pulley-wheels were con- 
nected by an endless cord or band. Upon 
the cylinder farthest from the clock was 
wound a ribbon of paper, which, when the 
clock train was put in motion was gradually 
unrolled and passing over the middle cylin- 
der was rolled up upon the cylinder nearest 
the clock by means of the cord and pulleys. 
An A shaped pendulum was suspended 
by its apex from the centre of the top of 
the frame, directly above the centre of the 
middle cylinder in the trough below. This 
lever was made of two thin rules of wood 
meeting at the top but opening downwards 
about one inch apart and joined at the bot- 
tom by a transverse bar (which was close to 
the paper as it moved over the middle cylin- 
der.) and another about one inch above it. 
Through the centre of these two bars a 
small tube was fixed through which a pencil 
loosely played. The pencil had a small 
weight upon its top to keep the point in con- 
stant contact with the paper ribbon. Upon 
the lever directly opposite to the poles of 
the electro-magnet was fastened the arma- 
ture of the magnet or a small bar of soft 
iron. The movement of the lever was 
guided by stops on the frame at the sides 
of the lever, permitting it only a movement 
forward to and back from the magnet ; the 
34 



pencil at the bottom of the lever w&a thus 
allowed to advance when the magnet was 
charged and to retreat when discharged, 
about one eighth of an inch. The lever ad- 
vanced by the attraction of the magnet and 
was retracted by a weight or spring, 

The voltaic battery or generator of elec- 
tricity was connected by one of its poles to 
one of the helices of the magnet while the * 
other pole was connected with a mercury 
cup; and a conjunctive wire connected a 
second mercury cup to the other helix of 
the magnet. The circuit was closed by dip- 
ping a forked wire into the two cups of met - 
cury, when the magnet became charged, the 
armature was attracted, and the lever draw n 
toward the magnet. When the forked wire 
was removed the magnet was discharged 
and the spring brought back the lever to its 
normal position. When the clock work 
was put in motion the ribbon of paper was 
drawn over the middle cylinder and the 
pencil attached to the lever being in con- 
stant contact with the ribbon of jiaper traced 
a continuous line lengthwise with the ribbon. 

The pathway of the pencil point, when 
the lever was attracted towards and held by 
the magnet for a longer or shorter time, 
contains the three elements of points, spaces 
and lines, forming by their various combi- 
nations, the various conventional characters 
for numerals and letters. 

Professor Morse subsequently modified 
the form of his telegraph, although the prin- 
ciple upon which its action depended re- 
mained substantially the same. In place of 
the wooden cylinders operated by a wooden 
clock for carrying the paper band at a regu- 
lar rate, he employed small brass rollers 
moved by means of mechanism analagous to 
clock-work; and instead of the armature 
being attached to a wooden pendulum 
which vibrated over the paper, he attached 
it to one end of a brass lever sustained in a 
horizontal position by two pivots, the other 
end of the lever being armed with a 
steel point. Under the soft iron armature 
at one end of the lever was placed an 
electro-magnet, while the steel point at 
the other end of the lever, was beneath the 
roller which carried the band of paper. 
Now when the circuit is closed — that is 
completed — the armature of the electro- 
magnet is attracted through the magnetism 
created in the helix by the passage of the 
electric current, and this attraction causes 
the point of the pen to touch the paper and 



640 



TELEGRAPHS — THEIR ORIGIN AND PROGRESS. 



to trace upon it a line the length of which 
depends upon the duration of time in 
which the circuit remains whole. If the 
circuit is opened the current ceases to flow, 
the magnetism disappears instantly and a 
spring attached to the lever draws it away 
from the paper and the line ceases. By 
opening and closing the circuit rapidly 
dots are produced upon the paper the 
number of which depends upon the num- 
ber of times that the circuit is broken and 
closed. If the circuit is closed for a longer 
time a dash or a short line is made upon 
the paper. "We have thus the combina- 
tions of an alphabet of dots and lines. 
Thus a is a dot and a dash, b a dash and 
three dots, &c. The alphabet is so arranged 
that those letters occurring most frequent- 
ly are more easily transmitted; thus e is 
one dot; t one dash. An expert operator 
can transmit from thirty to forty words a 
minute by this instrument on a land line 
of 200 or 300 miles in length. 

The transmitting apparatus is very sim- 
ple, being designed only for the opening 
and closing of the circuit .in a manner 
more easy than by holding the ends of the 
wire in the hands, as is done where there 
is no apparatus. The two ends of wire are 
separated by two pieces of metal, one of 
which is a brass lever surmounted by an 
ivory button, and the other is a brass anvil 
tipped with platinum. The brass lever is 
mounted upon pivots, in front of the axis 
of which is soldered a nipple of platinum, 
which by the depression of the lever comes 
in contact with the platinum tipped anvil, 
and thus closes the circuit. 

To the Morse system at a later period, 
was added the "sounder," a simple contri- 
vance, by which signals are conveyed by 
sound. Up to 1850 the operator read the 
dispatch from slips of paper to the copyist, 
who wrote it down. It was soon found, 
however, that the despatch could be read 
by the "click" of the instruments, and 
the operator now copies, himself, from 
sound. 

The number of inventions connected 
with the electric telegraph is almost end- 
less, and would engross a long series of 
volumes for their description. 

Professor Morse had no sooner shown 
that a telegraph could be constructed 
through the aid of electricity than his at- 
tention was turned to the discovery of 
some insulating substance by means of 



which the wires could be enveloped and 
buried in the earth, it not being deemed 
practicable to place them in the open air. 
Tarred yarn saturated with a preparation 
of asphaltum, was among the first insulat- 
ing materials used for this purpose, and 
the lines constructed in 1843 were covered 
with this substance, and buried in the 
earth. This insulation proved so faulty, 
however, that it was at once abandoned, 
and the wires were insulated with glass 
upon poles in the open air. Still if it was 
decided to relinquish the idea of building 
subterranean lines, the fact was apparent 
that some good insulating material must 
be found which would permit the submer- 
gence of the wires across straits or naviga- 
ble rivers. Various substances were tried 
to accomplish this result, but nothing satis- 
factory was obtained until the discovery of 
gutta percha, which proved to be one of 
the most perfect insulators known, and ad- 
mirably adapted by its plastic and flexible 
qualities for the insulation of submarine 
wires. 

In 1850 the first electric cable was laid 
in the open sea between England and 
France. This cable consisted of a solid 
copper wire, covered with gutta percha. 
The landing place in France was Cape 
Grissiez, from which place a few messages 
passed sufficient to test the accuracy of the 
principle. The communication thus estab- 
lished between the continent and England 
was, after a few hours, abruptly stopped. 
A diligent fisherman, plying his vocation, 
took up part of the cable in his trawl and 
cut off a piece which he brought in tri- 
umph to Boulogne, where he exhibited it 
as a specimen of rare sea- weed, with itsi 
center filled with gold. It is believed that 
this piscator ignobilis returned again and 
again to search for further specimens of 
this treasure of the deep. It is, at all 
events, perfectly certain that he succeeded 
in destroying the submarine cable. 

The first of the Atlantic cables was re- 
peatedly broken, near its shore ends, by the 
anchors of large steamships, and after 
doubtful existence of some months, at last 
"died and made no sign." After the 
successful laying of the cables of 1866 
and 1867 it was revived, and in now ii 
service. 

This accident caused the attention of sci- 
entific men to be directed to the discovery ol 
some mode of preserving submarine cables 



TELEGRAPHS — THEIR ORIGIN AND PROGRESS. 



641 



from similar casualties, and it was decided, 
that the wire insulated by gutta percha 
should form a core or centre to a wire rope, 
so as to give protection to it during the pro- 
cess of paying out and laying down, as well 
as to guard it from rocks and the anchors 
of vessels. 

In ltfol a cable protected in this manner 
was laid between Dover and Calais, where 



Amongst the most important submarine 
lines are those which were laid across the 
Atlantic Ocean in 1865 and 1860. 

The conductor of these cables consists of 
a copper strand of seven wires, six laid round 
one, and weighing 800 lbs. per mile. 

The insulation consists of four layers of 
gutta percha laid in alternately with four 
thin layers of Chatterton's compound. 





Fy:Z 



Fig:2. 





g. 1 is a side elevation of the instrument, showing a section through the galvanometer coils, and 
Fig. 2 a cross section showing the magnetic needle. The same letters refer to like parts in both fig- 
ures. A is the magnetic needle attached to thecircular mirror of silvered glass a, which is suspended 
by a thread of cocoon silk in the brass frame Z?,' and adjusted by the screw 6. The frame slides into 
a vertical groove in the center of the coil which divides it into two parts. The coil and minor are 
enclosed in a glass case D, in order to prevent the disturbance of the needle by currents of air. The 
rays from the lamp E pass through the opening F, which is adjustable by the slide G, and passing 
through the lens M in the tube A' are reflected by the mirror back through the lens upon an ivory 
Scale at / as shown by the dotted lines. The scale is horizontal, extending to the right and let! of 
the center of the instrument, the zero point being exactly opposite the lens. The luminous rays of 
light are brought to a sharp focus upon the scale by a sliding adjustment of the lens. 

The operator reads the signals from a point just in the rear of the magnet and coils, the light of 
the lamp being cut off by the screen Y so that he only sees the small luminous slit through which 
the light enters the instrument, and a brilliantly defined image of the slit upon the white ivory BCale 
iust above, which is kept in deep shadow by the screen Y. A very minute displacement of the magnet 
gives a very large movement of the ray of light on the scale /, the angular displacement of the 
ray of light being double that of the needle. 



it has ever since remained in perfect order, 
constituting the great channel of electrical 
communication between England and the 
continent. The success of that form of 
cable having been thus completely estab- 
lished, lines of a similar character were sub- 
sequently laid in all quarters of the world. 



The external protection consists of ten 
steel wires, each wire surrounded separately 
with live strands of tarred Manilla hemp 
and the whole laid spirally round the core, 
which latter is padded with tanned jute 
yarn. Each cable would bear eleven knots 
of itself in water without breaking. 



642 



TELEGRAPHS THEIR ORIGIN AND PROGRESS. 



The deepest water encountered was 2,400 
fathoms, and the distance between Valen- 
tia and Hearts Content 1670 knots. The 
length of the cables of 1865 — 1896 knots; 
1866 — 1858 knots. 

The battery employed upon the Atlantic 
cables is a modification of Daniell's. 12 
cells are sufficient for signaling. The re- 
ceiving instrument is Thomson's Reflecting 
Galvanometer. This consists of a needle 
formed of a piece of watch spring three- 
eighths of an inch in length. The needle is 
suspended by a thread of cocoon-silk without 
torsion. The needle lies in the centre of 
an exceedingly delicate galvanometer coil. 
A circular mirror of silvered glass is fixed 
to the needle, and reflects at right angles to 
it in the plane of its motion. It is so curved 
that when the light of a lamp is thrown 
through a fine slit on it, the image of the 
slit is reflected on a scale about three feet 
off", placed a little above the front of the 
flame. Deflections to the extent of half an 
inch along any part of the scale are sufficient 
for one signal. In so delicate an instru- 
ment, the sluggish swing of the needle in 
finally settling into any position would de- 
stroy it susefulness. To rectify this, a strong 
magnet, about eight inches long, and bent 
concave to the instrument, is made to slide 
up and down a rod placed in the line of the 
suspending thread above the instrument. 
This magnet can be easily shifted as neces- 
sity may require. The oscillations of the 
needle due to itself are, by the aid of the 
strong magnet, made so sudden and short as 
only to broaden the spot of light. The 
delicacy of even this exceedingly delicate 
galvanometer can be immensely increased 
by using an astatic needle. 

The alphabet is made by opposite move- 
ments produced by one or other of two 
Morse keys. The signals need not be made 
from zero as a starting point. The eye 
can easily distinguish, at any point in the 
scale to which the spot of light may be de- 
flected, the beginning and the end of a sig- 
nal, and when its motion is caused by the 
proper action of the needle or by currents. 
It is thus that the mirror galvanometer is 
adapted to cable signaling, not only by its 
extreme delicacy, but also by its quickness. 
The deflections of the spot of light have 
been aptly compared to a handwriting no 
one letter of which is distinctly formed, but 
yet is quite intelligible to the practised eye. 
Signals in this way follow each other with 



wonderful rapidity. A low speed — some 
eight words a minute — is adopted for pub- 
lie messages; but when the clerks commu- 
nicate with each other, as high a speed as 
eighteen or twenty words is attained. 
This rate of speed soon proved insufficient 
for the demands of business, and though 
some modifications were made to increase 
it, it was found necessary to have more 
lines; and there are now six lines across 
the Atlantic, and by the new processes their 
power is indefinitely multiplied. There are 
now telegraphic lines to every important 
point on the globe, and each year is in- 
creasing the facilities for communication. 

Telegraphic stations must be united by 
one insulated wire, either carried overland 
or under the sea. The insulation of land 
lines is insured by attaching the wires to 
insulators fixed on posts some twenty feet 
high. The posts are placed at distances of 
about sixty yards apart. Insulators are of 
all shapes and many materials. The insula- 
tor most generally used in the United 
States is made of glass, and is supported 
by a wooden pin. The leakage in a long 
line, notwithstanding the best insulation, 
is considerable. Tli£ loss at each post is 
insignificant, but when hundreds or thou- 
sands are taken into account it becomes 
decided; so that in extremely wet weather 
in some cases merely a fraction of the total 
current that sets out reaches the earth. 

The wire most employed for land lines 
in the United States is No. 9 galvanized 
iron wire, although there is considerable 
of No. 8, and a few thousand miles of 
No. 7 and 6 in use. 

The first telegraph line constructed in 
the United States was put in operation in 
the month of June, 1844, between Wash- 
ington and Baltimore. Up to this time 
the electric telegraph had been regarded 
only as a curious theoretical science with- 
out practical application. 

As far back as 1834, Messrs. Gauss and 
Weber constructed a line of telegraph 
over the houses and steeples of Gottin- 
gen, using galvanic electricity and the 
phenomenon of magnetic induction as 
a motor. The slow oscillations of mag- 
netic bars, caused by the passage of 
electric currents, and observed through a 
telescope, furnished the signals for corres- 
ponding, but the operation was complicated, 
slow, and inefficient. In 1837, M. Stein- 
heil established a line of telegraph be- 



TELKGUAPIIS — THEIR ORIGIN AND PROGRESS. 



643 



tween Munich and Bogenhausen, a distance 
of twelve miles; and in 1838, Professor 
Wheatstone constructed a line between 
London and Birmingham, but the apparatus 
employed by each was crude and unsatisfac- 
tory, and it was not until Professor Morse 
perfected his simple and reliable system, 
that the electric telegraph became of practi- 
cal utility. 



make them a present of a hundred dollars, 
but that he would not have his name asso- 
ciated as a stockholder in so wild and chime- 
rical a scheme. After the line was com- 
pleted, this incorrigible skeptic was amongst 
the lirst and best patrons of the company. 

As a natural consequence of the distrust 
of capitalists, and the great difficulty of rais- 
ing funds for properly building the lines, 




STOCK REPORTING AND PRIVATE LINE TELEGRAPII 



During the first few years after the intro- 
duction of the electric telegraph its progress 
was very slow. Capitalists were afraid to 
invest in an undertaking so novel and pre- 
carious. When one of the most distin- 
guished financiers of New York was asked 
by the projectors to subscribe towards the 
construction of the first line from Baltimore 
to New York, he replied that he would 



they were constructed in a very unreliable 
manner and breaks and interruptions was 
rather the normal condition of the wires 
than the exception. 

At the commencement of ism, the length 
of telegraph wire in operation in this conn- 
try was about 3,000 miles. At the present 
time (1882) there are more than 270,000 
miles in successful operation within the 



644 



TELEGRAPHS THEIR ORIGIN AND PROGRESS. 



limits of the United States, having over 
10,000 stations and employing upwards of 
20,000 operators and clerks. The gross 
receipts of the various telegraph companies 
in this country amount to upwards of 
$14,000,000 per annum, while the aggre- 
gate capital employed is more than 
$90,000,000. The number of messages 
transmitted in a year is now over 32 mil- 
lions. As the despatches began to multi- 
ply it soon became evident that there must 
be some means contrived for sending mes- 
sages with greater rapidity without greatly 
enhancing the cost. This cost was made 
up of several items: the expense of the 
plant, including wires, posts, telegraphic 
machines, stationery, expense of stations, 
the moist batteries, or at a later period, the 
dynamo-electric batteries, called for short, 
dynamos; the cost of repairs, presumably 
greater with posts than with subterranean 
tubes; and, heaviest of all, the wages of 
operators. The first attempt at increasing 
the facilities was by the multiplication of 
wires and machines; but this did not ma- 
terially diminish the cost, as each wire and 
machine must have its operator. The next 
was the invention of the duplex and quad- 
ruplex methods, by which, at a slight 
additional expense, the number of mes- 
sages sent on the same wire might be in- 
creased two or four-fold. This saved on 
the wires, and by enabling an office to 
quadruple its business diminished the ex- 
penses at each office or station, relatively 
to the amount of work done; but the cost 
of operating was not yet diminished. The 
latest improvement is a real advance, the 
application of the principle of automatism 
to telegraphy, and its extension to any de- 
sired width and length. The messages as 
brought in are handed over to girls or 
quick, active boys, who, by the use of a 
machine much like the type-writer, trans- 
fer it to a ribbon of paper, perforating 
holes in the ribbon representing the Morse 
alphabet, and writing on the same ribbon 
twenty or thirty messages. This long rib- 
bon is rolled up like a roll of tape and 
passed to the transmitter, who reels it off 
on his machine at the rate of from 800 to 
1,200 words in the minute, using two nee- 
dles which break circuit at every perfora- 
tion. Twenty messages of the ordinary 
length can be sent by one operator in 
thirty seconds, whereas by the old Morse 
machine they \70uld require at least an 



hour. The messages are delivered in the 
Morse alphabet, which must be written out 
at the office. Mr. Edison has invented a 
new perforating apparatus, which is in 
many respects a great improvement on 
this. His instrument has 28 keys, each 
marked with a letter or figure, and five 
rows of perforations are made in the rib- 
bon at once; then, when a key is touched, 
the perforations making that letter are 
made on the ribbon and the next letter is 
taken up. This will transmit, under a 
good operator, from 250 to 400 words in a 
minute. The five wires of the transmitter 
have each a needle point and little wheel 
at the transmitting end, and five needles at 
the receiving end, where, touching the 
chemically prepared paper, they print in 
blue dots and in smaller size the message 
received. These printed messages do not 
require to be copied, ' but can be torn off 
and given to the messenger for instant 
delivery. 

Still another invention of considerable 
promise is Cassells' autographic or f ac-simile 
telegraph, which by an ingenious process 
transmits the message written with a hard 
lead pencil, or by a type-writer on com- 
mon drawing paper, in exact fac simile to 
the ether end of the line. Upright revolv- 
ing cylinders are used both in transmit- 
ting and receiving messages by this instru- 
ment, the messages being wrapped around 
them. Of crurse no copying is necessary 
here, and the message is transmitted in the 
same handwriting in which it was written. 
The various uses to which the telegraph 
has been applied are almost innumerable. 
Amongst the most important of them may 
be mentioned its application to the run- 
ning of trains on railroads; the giving of 
alarms of fire in our principal cities; its 
employment in scientific and astronomical 
observations, and the transmission of 
weather reports. Within the past few 
years a new field of usefulness has been 
opened and developed in the application of 
the telegraph to stock reporting and pri- 
vate line purposes, and in which it has 
already achieved a very great success, 
with promise of becoming in the future a 
still more important branch of the busi- 
ness. The instruments used for this pur- 
pose print the dispatches in plain Roman 
letter, swithout the aid of an operator at 
the receiving station. Through the aid of 
this apparatus stock and market quotations 



TELEGRAPHS THEIR ORIGIN AND PROGRESS. 



645 



are received at the exchanges, banking- 
houses and other places of public resort in 
the chief commercial cities of the United 
'States, at all hours of the day. This new 
enterprise, which was inaugurated in 1868, 
has become one of the most important 
features of the telegraphic business. 

In December, 1870, a general system of 
telegraphic money orders or transfers was 
put into operation in the Pacific States. 
The public demand for the use of facilities 
for telegraphic exchange had long been 
apparent, and had induced the authoriza- 
tion of a limited amount of business, which 
was conducted with success and profit; 
but the need was felt of a system which 
could be adopted generally, without bring- 
ing in at the same time new and serious 
risks. This object has now been attained, 
and arrangements have been made for 
opening money-order offices in all parts of 
the country. 

Congress having, by joint resolution, 
authorized the Secretary of War to pro- 
vide for taking meteorological observa- 
tions at various points in the United 
States and Territories, and for their trans- 
mission by telegraph to stations on the 
Northern lakes and Eastern seaboard, 
arrangements were made with the Western 
Union Telegraph Company for the per- 
formance of the telegraphic service com- 
mencing on the first of November, 1870. 
Twenty-five circuits are occupied, embrac- 
ing one hundred and thirty-eight stations, 
from which three daily reports are trans- 
putted to Washington, copies being also 
dropped at intermediate stations on each 
circuit, making an aggregate daily trans- 
mission of 50,000 words. 

The synchronous transmission, three 
timas per day, of meteorological observa- 
tions from one hundred and thirty-eight 
stations, embracing a territory covering 30 
degrees of latitude and 67 degrees of 
longitude, is unparalleled in the history of 
the telegraph; and the eminently success- 
ful manner in which this great undertak 
ing has been performed affords good evi- 
dence of the superior condition and opera- 
tion of the telegraph lines in this country. 

On the first of October, 1869, the West- 
ern Union Telegraph Company, which 
operates lines in every State and Territory 
in the Union, adopted a new Air Line 
Tariff for the transmission of messages, 
causing an average reduction of about 15 



per cent., and on the first of January, 
1870, inaugurated a new feature in tele- 
graphy whereby messages could be re- 
ceived at and for all stations in the United 
States for transmission during the night, 
and delivery the next day, at one-half the 
usual tariff rates. 

In Europe the telegraphs, with the ex- 
ception of the submarine lines, are nearly 
all owned and controlled by the govern- 
ments, and in England, Belgium, and 
Switzerland, they are connected with the 
postal service. In continental Europe the 
annual expenditures for the telegraphic 
service exceed the receipts by about two 
millions of dollars. In England the tele- 
graphs were puixhased by the government 
in January, 1870. In 1879 the govern- 
ment reported a net revenue, since 1872, 
from its telegraph lines, of £1,311,685= 
$6,558,425. It transmitted, in 1879, 
23,385,416 messages, almost three times 
the number transmitted in 1870. 

The progress of the electric telegraph 
within the past sixteen years has been 
very great in every quarter of the globe. 
Upon this continent the electric wire ex- 
tends from the Gulf of the St. Lawrence 
to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the At- 
lantic to the Pacific Ocean. Six cables 
span the Atlantic Ocean, connecting Amer- 
ica with Europe, and others unite us with 
the Queen of the Antilles, and with the 
South American and Mexican coasts on 
both oceans. One is also in progress 
across the Pacific, reaching the Sandwich 
Islands, Australia, and Japan. Unbroken 
telegraphic communication exists lei ween 
all places in America and all parts of 
Europe; with Tripoli and Algiers in Africa; 
Cairo in Egypt; Teheran in Persia; Jeru- 
salem in Syria; Bagdad and Nineveh, in 
Asiatic Turkey; Bombay, Calcutta, and 
other important cities in India; Hong 
Kong and Shanghai in China: Irkoutsk, 
the capital of Eastern Siberia; Kiakhta on 
the borders of ( Ihina; Nagasaki in Japan; 
Havana and all important towns in Cuba, 
and to New "Westminster in British Colum- 
bia. But, however rapid the extension of 
the telegraph has been in the past, it is 
destined to show still greater advancement 
in the future. Neither the American nor 
the European system has yet attained to 
its ultimate development. The telegraph 
is already established in various parts of 
South America, and in Brazil and Peru 



646 



TELEPHONES AND PHONOGRAPHS. 



arrangements are now making for largely 
extending them. 

A direct line of telegraph under one 
control and management has recently been 
established between London and India 
with extensions to Singapore and China, 
which will soon be continued to Australia. 

Europe possesses 450,000 miles of tele- 
graphic wire and 13,000 stations; Ameri- 
ca 350,000 miles of wire and 20,000 sta- 
tions; India 44,000 miles of wire and 
1,000 stations; and Australia 41,000 
miles of wire and 1,000 stations; and the 
extension throughout the world is now at 
the rate of 100,000 miles of wire per an- 
num. There are in addition 50,000 miles 
of submarine telegraph wire now in suc- 
cessful operation, extending beneath the 
Atlantic and German Oceans; along both 
coasts of Mexico and South America; the 
Baltic, North, Mediterranean, Red, Ara- 
bian, Japan, and China Seas; the Persian 
Gulf and the Indian Ocean; the Bay of 
Biscay, the Strait of Gibraltar, and the 
Gulfs of Mexico and St. Lawrence. 

More than forty thousand cities and vil- 
lages are now linked in one continuous 
chain of telegraphic stations. The myste- 
rious wire with its subtle and invisible in- 
fluence traverses all civilized lands, and 
passes beneath oceans, seas, and rivers, 
bearing messages of business, friendship, 
and love, and constantly, silently, but pow- 
erfully contributing to the peace, happiness 
and prosperity of all mankind. 

Professor Morse, who was already past 
middle age when he conceived the idea of 
the electric telegraph on board of the 
packet ship Sully on her ever-memoi'able 
passage from Havre to New York, in 1832, 
and who was nearly three-score years of 
age when his first line was built, died 
in 1872 at the age of 81 years, having 
reaped the rich fruits of a harvest more 
abundant than falls to the lot of one man 
in a generation. The invention of Profes- 
sor Morse, although yet in its infancy, 
has already conferred inestimable bene- 
fits upon the people of more than half 
the globe without having occasioned a 
pang of sorrow to a single human being. 
If he is to be entitled to be esteemed a 
benefactor who makes two blades of grass 
to grow where but one grew before, with 
what honors should we regard him through 
whom wars have been postponed and 
shortened, peace promoted and extended, 



time annihilated and distance abolished, 
and all the highest and noblest faculties of 
man multiplied, extended, and enlarged. 



CHAPTER II. 
TELEPHONES AND PHONOGRAPHS. 

The telephone is in its primary significa- 
tion merely an instrument for transmitting 
sound to a distance, and the transmission 
of sound in this way is almost as old as 
the world itself. The Greeks and the Ro- 
mans both used means for effecting it, 
though the distance to which they were 
able to transmit it was confined within 
somewhat narrow limits, hardly exceeding 
those of the speaking tube. A later, 
though still early invention, was that of 
the string telephone, by which sound may 
be communicated through a wire with a 
membranous disk at either end. Robert 
Hooke, an English writer in 1667, describes 
this, and had experimented with it to such 
purpose as to be able to convey sounds 
more than a hundred yards. The whisper- 
ing gallery was another contrivance on a 
different principle for effecting this result, 
and in the course of years the string tele- 
phone was so far perfected that it would 
convey sounds for perhaps a half-mile. 

But the instrument which has proved so 
effective and useful is based on another 
and different principle, or, rather, on more 
than one. It had long been known that 
musical sounds can be heard much farther 
and more completely than ordinary articu- 
lation, — and this whether the sounds were 
loud and strident, or soft and compara- 
tively low. The music of a band, the notes 
of a piano, violin or guitar, even vocal 
music, be it ever so sweet and gentle, are 
heard at a much greater distance than even 
the loudest words of command. In the 
old days of slavery, when the field hands 
were to be called from their work at noon- 
day or evening, the call was made either 
by the bugle or horn or by the singing 
tones of some negro child whose musical 
notes could be heard in the far distant 
field. 

It was natural then that when the elec- 
tric telegraph had achieved its first tri- 
umphs, the attention of not only scientists 
but of the public should have been turned 
to the possibility of vocal or at least of 



TELEPHONES AND PHONOGRAPHS. 



647 



musical communication through electric 
wii'es. It had been found possible to con- 
vey pictures, drawings, and fac-similes, by 
this means, to distant points, and why 
should it be impossible to convey speech, 
or at least songs, in this way ? Men of 
inventive and poetic genius foreshadowed 
it very distinctly. In a discourse delivered 
not later than 1853, in his own pulpit, the 
late Dr. Horace Bushnell, a man of rare 
inventive faculties, as well as of great im- 
aginative power, used substantially the fol- 
lowing language. "We quote from memory: 
" Sound is no more perishable than matter. 
The ethereal waves, vexed by it, go on in 
constantly widening circles, throughout the 
universe, and though to our dull ears ' nor 
sound nor voice is heard,' yet the prayers 
of Enoch and Noah, the petitions of Abra- 
ham and the sweet songs of David may 
yet be reverberating in the ears of the Al- 
mighty, and be audible to the heavenly 
host. And the time is coming, perhaps 
ere this generation shall pass from the 
stage, when through electric impulses, 
properly adjusted, we, too, may be able to 
listen to the voices of prayer and praise in 
distant cities, perhaps even in distant 
lands." A year or two later, a French 
writer, Mr. Charles Bourseul, published a 
paper on the electric transmission of speech, 
in which he indicated with great clearness 
and with precise description, the methods 
by which at some time not far distant, 
both vocal and musical sounds could be 
transmitted over the wires. He had per- 
ceived the difficulty which was actually en- 
countered in the invention of the speaking 
telephone, that while the transmission of 
musical sounds was comparatively easy, as 
those sound waves synchronized with the 
electric waves excited by the musical 
sounds, the communication of syllabled 
words Was far more difficult from the com- 
parative inflexibility and uniformity of the 
electric waves — and he had suggested 
means by which it might be possible to 
overcome this difficulty. 

In the actual invention, of course the 
musical telephone, or, as perhaps it might 
be called with more propriety, the musical 
telegraph, came first. It is generally con- 
ceded that Philip Reiss, professor of nat- 
ural philosophy at Friedrichsdorf, near 
Frankfort-on-the-Main, Germany, was the 
first practical inventor of the musical tele- 
graph or telephone. His invention was 



publicly exhibited in October, 1801, at 
Friedrichsdorf and Frankfort. This instru- 
ment, or rather the two instruments, the 
transmitter and receiver, differed very 
little in their general appearance or con- 
struction from the Bell telephone ; they 
communicated musical sounds with great 
fidelity, though with some deficiency of in- 
tonation or timbre, the sounds being shrill, 
harsh, and not attractive, but they did not 
communicate speech with much volume or 
any natural intonation. It is said, how- 
ever, that Prof. Reiss and Prof. Vander- 
weyde, and Messrs. C. and L. Wray, fol- 
lowing him in the same line, did produce 
speaking telephones between 1861 and 
1868, but these were by no means perfect, 
and were far better adapted to the commu- 
nication of musical sounds than of speech. 
Thus far the telephonic inventions had 
been mostly, perhaps entirely, made in 
Europe ; but the next step forward was 
made on this side of the Atlantic. The 
invention of a thoroughly practical musical 
telephone undoubtedly belongs to Mr. 
Elisha Gray, of Chicago, and the produc- 
tion of a speaking telephone is a question 
yet at issue between him and Prof. Alex- 
ander Graham Bell, an Englishman (the 
son of A. Melville Bell, the author of 
" Visible Speech " ), but a naturalized 
American, and a resident of Salem, Massa- 
chusetts. Mr. Gray's first telephone (the 
musical one) was patented in 1S74. On 
the 14th of February, 1876, Mr. Gray filed 
a caveat for an instrument to communicate 
by electrical or galvanic means vocal 
sounds or conversation through an electric 
circuit. His description was full and defi- 
nite and accompanied by drawings which 
would enable any good mechanic to make 
a practical speaking telephone. On the 
same day Mr. A. Graham Bell filed specifi- 
cations and drawings for a speaking tele- 
phone, but though his claims were exten- 
sive, the transmitting and receiving instru- 
ments he then described and illustrated 
would not accomplish the result desired. 
This result he obtained soon after, but by 
a material modification. Both men recog- 
nized the necessity of connecting the sound 
vibrations of the artificial tympanum, 
whether membranous or metallic, by which 
the sounds are transmitted, with the undu- 
latory electric waves or currents, in order 
to produce distinctly articulated sounds in 
their own proper timbre or natural modu- 



C48 



TELEPHONES AND PHONOGRAPHS. 



lations. Mr. Gray proposed to accomplish 
this by passing the vibration through some 
liquid, as water ; Mr. Bell by the combi- 
nation of a permanent magnet or other 
body capable of undulative action with a 
closed circuit, so that the vibration of the 
one should occasion electrical undulations 
in the other, or in itself. The diaphragm 
or tympanum used for the transmission of 
sounds by both was at first an elastic mem- 
brane, with some metallic plates of plati- 
num or other metal in partial contact with 
it. Later the steel or other metallic disk, 
thin and elastic, was substituted for this. 
With subsequent modifications both these 
instruments performed very good work, 
though at first they could not successfully 
cover a greater distance than from 25 to 50 
miles. Owing to some errors of form Mr. 
Gray's caveat was not followed as soon as 
it should have been by the specifications 
for a patent, and Mr. Bell's anticipated it ; 
but the question of priority of invention is 
not yet fully decided. Both probacy in- 
vented the telephone independently of each 
other. Subsequent improvements have 
enabled them to be heard quite distinctly 
to a distance of 250 miles or more. 

Mr. Thomas A. Edison, whose inventions 
and discoveries in connection with practical 
electricity have given him a world-wide 
fame, about the same time took up the 
Roiss telephone with the view of improv- 
ing and rendering it practically effective. 
He recognized the doctrine of the neces- 
sary action of undulatory currents, but 
instead of employing a liquid conductor, 
a3 Mr. Gray had proposed to do, he 
attempted to use semi-conducting solid 
bodies, and of these he selected as most 
suitable, graphite and carbon, and espe- 
cially carbon produced from compressed 
lampblack ; pencils or blocks of this sub- 
stance, alternatad with platinum and rub- 
ber were placed back of the mouth-piece, or, 
as was afterwards discovered, the substitu- 
tion of spiral wire springs for the rubber, 
and of a heavy and comparatively inflex- 
ible diaphragm for the thinner one, pro- 
duced much better effects, rendering the 
articulations much more distinct and heard 
at a greater distance. Prof. Dolbear, of 
Tufts' College, Mass., also invented the 
telephone independently of Mr. Bell at 
about the same time, and by the evolution 
of the same principles, using the perma- 
nent magnets Li the same way. The tele- 



phone has since its invention been im- 
proved in a variety of ways. Many thou- 
sands of experiments have been made with 
it for this purpose, by the most expert 
electricians in both countries. These 
experiments have had reference to the form 
and character of the permanent magnets ; 
to the greater or less quantity of the coils 
with which they are wound ; to the form, 
composition and thickness of the dia- 
phragm which closes the mouth-piece, and 
to the possibility of entirely dispensing 
with the diaphragm ; to the comparative 
efficiency of strong and weak currents ; to 
the greater clearness of articulation and 
distinctness of utterance of the sounds at 
the place of reception ; to the extension of 
the distance to which sounds may be trans- 
mitted with distinctness — this has reached 
to more than 400 miles ; and finally, by 
some of the inventions of Mr. Edison and 
others, to the automatic recording and 
preservation of the sounds at the point of 
reception, by the receiving apparatus itself. 
Perhaps the most ingenious and usefid of 
all these inventions have been the micro- 
phone and the electro-motograph, the one 
magnifying and enlarging the sound, the 
other causing it to be automatically re- 
corded as it passed through the receiver. 
Prof. Dolbear has also adapted the com- 
mon string telephone to a Morse sounder 
or relay, by which speech may be trans- 
mitted, the same instrument acting either 
as receiver or transmitter. 

The innumerable uses to which the tele- 
phone has already been applied are but a 
prelude to those to which it will, in its 
perfected state, be adapted. It forms now 
a ready and indispensable means of com- 
munication between the work-shop or man- 
ufactory and warehouse or salesroom, 
though they may be many miles apart; it 
has established communication between 
the interior of coal, iron, gold or silver 
mines and their offices; between banking- 
houses and their correspondents in other 
cities; between the different departments 
of the government; between the mer- 
chant's or banker's office and home; be- 
tween physicians and their patients: cler- 
gymen and their sick or absent parishion- 
ers; it is united with the district telegraph 
system, and so is available for all special 
calls and the summoning of messengers, 
police, physicians, etc., etc. Another of 
its applications is for bringing many vil- 




Fig. 13. 



650 



TELEPHONES AND PHONOGRAPHS. 



lages and hamlets which are now destitute 
of telegraphic facilities into direct connec- 
tion with them, and at an expense so mod- 
erate as to be within the reach of all. 

The Talking Phonograph is a natural 
outcome of the Telephone, but, unlike 
any form of telephone, it is mechanical 
and not electrical in its action. There 
have been many inventions for recording 
sounds, some of them very perfect, and 
capable of recording the notes of music 
or the words of the orator very com- 
pletely, of course in a language of their 
own, yet one in which it was possible to 
read and understand them ; but, as it has 
been wittily said, ''None of these inven- 
tions could ever talk back," till Mr. Edison 
produced his Talking Phonograph. 

The earliest form of the phonograph was a 
registering cylinder, covered very smoothly 
with the best tinfoil, or a very thin sheet 
of copper; this was set in motion by a 
winch or crank. Before the register a 
vibrating plate was placed, furnished on its 
face with a telephone mouth-piece, and on 
the reverse side with a tracing-point, 
which, however, does not rest directly on 
the cylinder, but on a spring, while a rub- 
ber pad is placed between it and the vibra- 
ting disk of the mouth-piece. This pad 
is formed of the end of a tube which is 
designed to send the vibrations of the disk 
to the point without stifling them. An- 
other pad placed between the plate or disk, 
and the rigid support of the point, moder- 
ates in some degree these vibrations, 
which, without this precaution, would gen- 
erally be too powerful. The cylinder of 
which the axis is cut in screw-threads at 
one end, in order to enable it to make a 
lateral progressive movement, simultane- 
ously with the rotatory movement effected 
on itself, has a narrow screw-thread on its 
surface coinciding with that of the axis; 
and when the tracing point is inserted it is 
able to pass along it for a distance corres- 
ponding to the time occupied in turning 
the cylinder. The foil, when put on the 
cylinder, is gently pressed into the groove 
of the screw-thread, and the point con- 
nected with the vibrating disk is placed in 
a proper position in the groove. The 
point, once placed at the beginning of this 
groove, is tightened to the right degree of 
pressure by a thumb-screw in the lever 
which holds the disk and mouth-piece. 
The speaker stands before the mouth-piece 



as before a telephone or an acoustic tube, 
and speaks in a strong, emphatic voice, with 
his lips pressed against the walls of the 
mouth-piece, and at the same moment he 
or some one else turns the crank of the 
cylinder, which has a fly-wheel or balance 
wheel to make its motion regular. Influ- 
enced by the voice, the disk or plate con- 
nected with the mouth-piece begins to 
vibrate, and sets the tracing point at work, 
which presses on the tinfoil at each vibra- 
tion, and produces a furrow whose depth 
varies along its course in correspondence 
with the unequal vibrations of the disk. 
The cylinder, which moves at the same 
time, presents the different portions of the 
spiral groove to the tracing point in sue- 
cession; so that when the spoken sentence 
comes to an end, the design which has been 
pricked out, consisting of a succession of 
reliefs and depressions, represents the reg- 
istration of the sentence itself. If it is 
desired to reproduce the sentence (and un- 
der the cylinder arrangement there was 
some risk in detaching the foil from the 
cylinder before reproduction), by a simple 
ai*rangement the cylinder was turned aside, 
the disk and point readjusted to their 
original position, and the crank is then 
turned as nearly as possible at the same 
rate as before, when these depressions in 
the foil produce the same vibrations as at 
first, and the words are uttered by the 
mouth-piece in as nearly as possible the 
same tones as when they were first spoken. 
A difference in the speed of the turning 
of the crank produces some modification 
in the utterance of the sounds. As the 
position of talking with the lips pressed 
into the mouth piece was not a very grace- 
ful one for an orator, the turning of the 
crank was liable to be somewhat irregular, 
and there was danger that the foil, once 
removed from the cylinder, could not be 
replaced exactly upon it, and would in 
any event be worn out by two or three 
renderings, the ingenious inventor has 
modified the machine by substituting an 
enlarged and funnel-shaped mouth-piece so 
arranged that the speaker may stand three 
feet away from it and still produce 
the same vibrations of the disk; he has 
substituted a flat plate for the cylinder, 
and veiy thin sheets of copper, zinc, or iron 
for the tinfoil, moves the crank or'plate by 
clock-work, and has provided for the ster- 
eotyping or electrotyping of the tracings 



THE ELECTRIC LIG11T. 



C51 



upon the plate, and their preservation, 
so as to be reproduced years afterward 
with the utmost perfection, and this repro- 
duction repeated indefinitely. 

This ingenious invention was at first re- 
garded as but little more than a mechani- 
cal toy, but in its perfected state it has 
many uses. A writer in Scribner's Monthly 
for April, 1878, thus speaks of its employ- 
ment: " The talking phonograph will doubt- 
less be applied to bell-punches, clocks, 
complaint boxes in public conveyances, 
and to toys of all kinds. It will supersede 
the short-hand writer in taking letters by 
dictation, and in taking of testimony before 
referees. Phonographic letters will be 
sent by mail, the foil being wound on pa- 
per cylinders of the size of a finger. It 
will recite poems in the voice of the au- 
thor, and reproduce the speeches of cele- 
brated orators. Dramas will be produced 
in which all the parts will be well spoken, 
with good accent and good discretion; the 
original matrice being prepared on one 
machine, provided with a rubber tube hav- 
ing several mouth-pieces; and Madame 
Tussaud's figures will hereafter talk, as 
well as look, like their great prototypes." 
We may add that in its improved condi- 
tion, it can reproduce, with all the trills 
and quavers, the singing of the most ac- 
complished prima donnas. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE ELECTRIC LIGHT. 

Since its first production by Sir Hum- 
phrey Davy in 1813, the electric light has 
been brought by the cumulative labors of 
many inventors from the subject of a mere 
laboratory experiment to a practical and 
extensively introduced means of genei'al 
illumination. Davy was the discoverer of 
the electric arc, which he produced with a 
battery of 2,000 cells, causing the current 
to leap through four inches of air, and pro- 
ducing a heat so intense that it melted 
platinum like wax, and fragments of dia- 
mond placed in the arc were vaporized. 
It was a brilliant experiment, but the light 
was too costly for practical use, its expense 
being about six dollars a minute. The 
great cheapening of the light during recent 
years has been accomplished by abandoning 



the use of galvanic batteries as a source of 
the current and substituting 
magneto-electric machines driven 
by which not only an infinitely ch< 
but far steadier and more constant cu 
is produced. As it is to thi 
of these machines that the econoi 
cess of the electric light is due, their o] .ra- 
tion will first be briefly described. Each 
machine consists of one or more powerful 
permanent or electro-magnets, and an arm- 
ature, so called, arranged to revolvi 
tween the opposite poles of the magnets. 
The armatures differ with the various ty] es 
of machines, but are all alike in being of 
soft iron and wrapped with insulated wire 
which terminates at a commutator on the 
armature-shaft, from which the current is 
taken off by springs or brushes. The ma- 
chines most in use for electric lighting 
purposes are of the Gramme type, the 
characteristic feature of which consists in 
making the armature in the form of a ring, 
wound with a continuous coil of wire. This 
armature was first invented by Dr. Paci- 
notti of Milan, Italy, in 1860, was alter- 
ward re-invented in an improved form by 
Gramme, and has since been modified and 
improved by Brush, Maxim. Edia n and 
others. The soft iron ring lucernes a mag- 
net by induction, one side presenting a 
north pole, and the side diametrically 
opposite presenting a south pole. As the 
ring revolves, its poles remain static! 
so that every portion of the ring In 
alternately a north and south j ole. The 
coil, by revolving with the ring, has two 
opposite currents of electricity induced in 
its two opposite halves, each current start- 
ing from a point midway of the two poles, 
flowing in opposite directions past the poles, 
and emerging at a point diametrically 
opposite the starting point. At these start- 
ing and emerging points the current is 
taken off from the commutator or collector 
on the revolving spindle which bears the 
armature ring. This type of machii 
the only one producing a uniform current 
in one 'direct ion, tiie other 
Siemens, producing a current first in one 
direction and then in the other, requiring 
a current- reversing commutator to turn 
both currents in the same direction, and 
then supplying a rapid succession of I 

trical waves, rather than i steady current 
If a current of high pressure, known as an 
intensity current, is desired, the armature 



652 



THE ELECTRIC LIGHT. 



is wound with a fine wire, while if a cur- 
rent of quantity, or one possessing slight 
intensity but great volume is needed, coarse 
wire is used. The current also depends for 
its character on the speed of the armature, 
as an increase in speed increases both the 
volume and intensity of the current, and 
consequently also the brilliance of the 
light. It has been found that the variation 
in speed occasioned by the flapping of a 
long belt has affected the steadiness of the 
light, and hence Edison has adopted the 
plan of placing the armature on the crank- 
shaft of the steam-engine which furnishes 
the motive power. The action of magneto- 
electric generators has been likened to that 
of a pump in forcing water through a 
pipe, but the analogy is far from exact. 
The power of the steam-engine in forcibly 
rotating the armature causes a current of 
corresponding power to flow through the 
wires of the circuit, and the energy of this 
current is converted into light by the elec- 
tric lamp. The resistance of the armature 
to rotation is so great that it is always 
more or less heated when revolving, and 
in powerful machines is often heated to a 
dangerous extent. 

All the numerous varieties of electric 
lights belong to one or other of two 
classes ; — arc lights and incandescence 
lights. The former have been longest 
known, and are by far in the most exten- 
sive use, those now in operation in the 
United States alone numbering into the 
thousands. When two carbon-tipped wires 
leading from the opposite brushes of an 
electric generating machine, or from the 
poles of a powerful battery, are touched 
together, the circuit through the wires is 
closed and the current passes. If then 
they be drawn slightly apart, the current 
does not cease to flow, but leaps the inter- 
vening space, carrying with it particles of 
carbon torn from the points, which it heats 
to incandescence, producing a light of daz- 
zling brilliancy. The focus of this light is 
in the space between the carbon points 
across which the current has thrown its 
bridge of white-hot flying particles, and 
this luminous bridge is called from its 
arched shape the electric arc. Its light is 
the most intense of artificial lights, pos- 
sessing a whiteness and purity almost 
rivalling that of the sun itself. The carbon 
tips waste away rapidly, the consumption 
of the positive carbon, or that from which 



the current flows, being about twice as 
rapid as that of the negative carbon. If 
the two carbons be held stationary, the 
breach between them will gradually widen 
until the intervening resistance becomes 
greater than the intensity of the current 
can overcome, when the current ceases, 
and the light goes out. Hence to maintain 
a steady light it is necessary that the car- 
bons shall be fed toward each other as rap- 
idly as they are consumed, so that the arc 
shall be of unvarying length. For this 
purpose many ingenious regulating devices 
have been invented. 

The light first practically introduced in 
this country was the Brush, which is an arc 
light employing two carbon pencils ar- 
ranged end to end, and the upper or posi- 
tive pencil fed down as it consumes, by a 
very simple regulator, enclosed in a casing 
above the light. This regulator is typical 
of that in several other electric lamps, and 
consists of an electro-magnetically operated 
clutch which lifts or releases the carbon 
pencil according to the variations in the 
electric current. "When the pencils are too 
close together the attraction of the magnet 
causes the upper pencil to be lifted until 
the arc is drawn out to the proper length 
and an equilibrium is attained. On the 
contrary, when the pencils waste away un- 
til the length of the arc becomes too great 
the consequent weakening of the current 
causes the electro-magnet to release its 
hold, and the pencil falls a short distance, 
being immediately checked when it has ap- 
proached sufficiently near to the lower pen- 
cil. The Brush light is of great brilliancy 
and whiteness, and well adapted for illu- 
minating large spaces. Brush lamps are 
used in the New York post-office; they 
light Broadway from 14th to 26th streets, 
and a cluster of them is suspended on a 
high pole in Madison square. Recently a 
tower has been erected at San Jose, Cal., 
where four Brush lamps are suspended at 
a height of 200 ft. Each lamp has 4,000- 
candle power, a nine-horse power dynamo 
machine is required to operate them, and 
they are found to light nearly the entire 
city. Ordinary Brush lamps have about 
2,000-candle power, and each lamp con- 
sumes nearly one-horse power. The Brush 
carbons are coated with copper by electro- 
deposition, to increase their conductivity. 
Adjacent to the arc the copper is melted 
off from both pencils, leaving the naked 



THE ELECTKIC LIQUT. 



Co 3 



carbon tips projecting. " The Brush Com- 
pany has in New York City a station where 
five Brush machines are run at an expen- 
diture of thirty-six horse-power, and from 
which forty lamps are fed, the lamps being 
arranged successively, all in the same cir- 
cuit. Each lamp is provided with an au- 
tomatic cut-out, which acts in case the 
lamp becomes inoperative, and prevents 
the breaking of the circuit, and the conse- 
quent extinguishment of tho remaining 
lamps. 

The Maxim arc light is also extensively 
introduced. It differs from the Brush in 
that the regulating mechanism is run by 
clock-work and is arranged below the arc, 
serving to push up the lower pencil as it is 
consumed. Mr. Maxim is also the inventor 
of some improvements in the Gramme 
generator and in many details of lighting 
systems. His patents are controlled by the 
U. S. Electric Lighting Co., which also 
owns those of Weston, Farmer, and other 
inventors, and is the parent of many local 
lighting companies, established in different 
cities. 

For light-houses and for use with reflec- 
tors, it is necessary that the arc be kept 
stationary, instead of being permitted to 
move as the negative carbon is consumed. 
For this purpose both carbons must be fed 
toward each other, but the positive carbon 
must travel with twice the speed of the 
negative. This is done in the lamps of 
Duboscq — where the regulator is driven 

(by a train of clockwork, tending to force 
the two pencils together, but normally re- 
strained by an electro-magnet — and of 
Foucault, where two independent clock- 
work trains are used, one tending to force 
the pencils together, the other to draw 
them apart, and one or other permitted to 
operate, according to whether the attrac- 
tive power of the electro-magnet is greater 
or less than normal. The latter is a very 
perfect lamp, but its expense precludes its 
use for many other than light-house pur- 
poses, and its construction is such that each 
lamp must have a separate generating ma- 
chine. 

The Jablochkoff candle is an arc light of 
a different type, in which the regulator is 
dispensed with. The two carbon pencils 
stand perpendicularly side-by-side, being 
separated by a wall of plaster of Paris. 
The arc is formed between these tips, across 
the top of the wall of plaster, which it 



heats to incandescence, thereby agisting 
the brightness of the light, much as the 
chalk-block lends brilliancy to the calcium 
light. Astheoarbon pencils are consumed 
and burn downward, the intervening 
ter wall is also consumed. The unequal 
consumption of the positive and negative 
pencils is prevented by the use of alternat- 
ing currents, or those produced by a 
iiui is or other similar generating mac 
having no commutator. The current 
changes its direction with inconceivable 
rapidity, so that a steady light is prodi 
Each candle lasts only an hour and a hull", 
so that to effect a continued illumination it 
is necessary to burn several in succession. 
Thus four candles are arranged in a •• lan- 
tern " so that as each burns out the suc- 
ceeding one is automatically lighted. The 
Jablochkoff candle is extensively used for 
lighting the streets of Paris, where it has 
attracted much attention, but it is not to 
be compared with the American continuous 
current lights for either steadiness or 
economy. 

The Wallace-Farmer light deserves men- 
tion for its simplicity and effectivi 
Two blocks of carbon, nine inches long and 
three wide by one-half inch thick, ai. 
on edge, one above the other. The lower 
one is fixed in a rectangular frame, and 
the upper one is attached to a vertically 
sliding cross-bar, acted on by an electro- 
magnet above. When the current ] 
the magnet lifts the upper block one-eighth 
of an inch, which develops the el< <u . 
between the blocks, at the point v. 
they approach each other nean 
arc travels back and forth from end to end 
of the blocks, seeking always the 1 
space, and the upper block i* gradually 
lowered as the two waste away. The car- 
bon blocks last for 100 hours before they 
need renewing. 

The arc light is no longer an expei ir 
either as regards its practicability or eo n- 
omy. For lighting streets. large ' 
factories, railway depots, and other I 
rooms and spaces, it has amply demon- 
strated its superiority over all other mi 
of illumination. Light for light, it is much 
cheaper than gas, which for t! ese pur] 
it is rapidly superseding, for all I 
establishments having their own Bteam* 
power its economy over gas is unquestion- 
able, and in many cases the u^ers are 
unable to find that it has occasioned them 



654 



THE ELECTRIC LIGHT. 



any added expense whatever. The beauti- 
ful whiteness and purity of the electric 
light constitutes an important advantage 
over gas light, especially in stores where 
the colors of fabrics are to be compared, 
and in art galleries where paintings are on 
exhibition. But for small rooms, offices, 
and dwellings the arc light is utterly 
unsuited, its great intensity causing it to 
dazzle and fatigue the eyes, and the con- 
trast between the brilliantly illuminated 
high lights and the deep black shadows 
which it throws producing an abrupt and 
unpleasant effect. Furthermore, it requires 
almost daily renewal of the carbons, and 
frequent inspection by an expert. 

The incandescent system of electric 
lighting is designed to overcome these ob- 
jectionable features, and provide a mild, 
diffused, and brilliant light for household 
use. When any part of an electric circuit 
is inadequate to carry the current supplied, 
a portion of the current becomes lost, being 
converted into heat where the defect exists. 
In this way a fine wire becomes heated to 
a red or white heat by an intense current, 
and may be fused if the current be suffic- 
iently strong. Platinum wire, whose melt- 
ing point is very high, may be kept at a 
white heat for hours in this way, before it 
is consumed, and will give forth consider- 
able light. It is this principle which is 
availed of in the incandescent electric 
lamps, except that a slender thread of car- 
bon is substituted for the platinum wire, 
and it is enclosed in a sealed glass bulb 
from which the air is excluded. Lamps 
of this character were invented many years 
ago, but were not reduced to a practical 
success. The honor of their development 
to their present stage of perfection must 
be accorded chiefly to Messrs. Edison, 
Maxim, Sawyer, and Man, all American 
inventors, who have labored independently 
toward a nearly identical solution of the 
problem. The Edison lamp consists of a 
loop of carbonized bamboo fiber, scarcely 
thicker than a horsehair, enclosed in a 
small glass bulb from which the air has 
been drawn by mercury pumps so as to 
produce an exceedingly attenuated vacuum. 
The ends of the carbon loop are held by 
copper clamps soldered to two platinum 
wires which pass out through the neck 
of the bulb, and are fused into the glass 
so as to make an air-tight joint. The plat- 
inum wires as they emerge through the 



neck are joined to the positive and nega- 
tive wires of the circuit, so that a current 
is caused to pass through the carbon loop. 
A current which heats the loop to 1000° 
renders it red, and one which heats it to 
2000° raises it to incandescence, and 
causes it to give forth a beautiful steady 
white light of usually 16-candle power, or 
considerably brighter than a large gas 
flame. A current of this power would 
instantly consume the slender carbon thread 
if it were in the open air, but as it is in an 
almost perfect vacuum, where there is no 
oxygen to support the combustion of the 
carbon, the latter will endure for more 
than 1000 hours before it is disintegrated. 
Mr. Edison works these lamps in what he 
calls "multiple arc," that is, the circuit 
from the generator is divided into as many 
separate branches or loops as there are 
lamps, and one lamp is interposed in each 
branch. By this means the desired subdi- 
vision of the light is attained, and each 
lamp burns independently of the others, 
much as though it was supplied by a sepa- 
rate machine. Mr. Edison proposes to 
establish a central station, where a number 
of his dynamo-electric machines will be 
operated, and to carry the current there- 
from through large conducting mains laid 
in pipes under the streets, and tapped at 
frequent intervals by wires leading into 
the houses of the subscribers. In each 
house a meter invented by him will be 
placed, and from thence wires will lead to 
the several lamps. Mains are now being 
laid in New York city, to make a practical 
trial of this system, but until this trial has 
been made it cannot be definitely deter- 
mined whether the Edison system is able 
to successfully compete with gas for light- 
ing dwellings and offices. It is probable 
that many improvements in details have 
yet to be made, especially in the customers' 
meters. Mr. Edison's dynamo-electric ma- 
chine is peculiarly adapted to lighting by 
"multiple arc," where the resistance on 
the circuit is exceedingly small, and an 
immense quantity of current is required. 
Instead of wrapping the armature-ring 
with wire, he uses thick naked copper rods, 
arranged out of contact with each other, 
and connected at their ends to insulated 
disks. The ring itself is built up of many 
rings of sheet iron, separated by tissue 
paper. His large machine at the Paris 
Electrical Exposition of 1881 is built on 



ELECTRIC LOCOMOTION. 



655 



the same frame with a 125 horse-power 
engine, the combined weight of engine 
and generator being 20 tons. With a 
speed of 350 revolutions per minute this 
machine is capable of feeding 2,400 lamps. 

The Sawyer and Man lamp was a pre- 
decessor of Edison's, but has not been 
brought to an equal perfection. It con- 
sists of a slender carbon pencil enclosed in 
a hermetically sealed globe, filled with 
nitrogen gas. This gas being a non -sup- 
porter of combustion, the consumption of 
the carbon is prevented. The lamp is 
somewhat cumbersome and expensive as 
compared with the Edison and Maxim 
lamps. Mr. Sawyer has done much tow- 
ard the perfecting of the electric light, his 
inventions including safety devices, regu- 
lators, commutators, etc. 

The Maxim lamp employs a hair-like 
filament of carbon enclosed in a hermeti- 
cally-sealed bulb which contains rarefied 
hydro-carbon vapor. This lamp is being 
introduced by the U. S. Electric Lighting 
Company, for offices, factories, steamboats, 
etc., and it certainly gives a remarkably 
beautiful and brilliant light, perfectly 
white and steady. The lamps are worked 
in multiple arc at about 35-candle power, 
by a Maxim generator which is governed 
so perfectly by a regulator that it adapts 
its current exactly to the needs of the cir- 
cuit, be there one or many lamps ignited. 
This light gives as close an approach to 
daylight as can be imagined. It has been 
introduced on several ferry boats plying 
the North river between New York and 
Jersey City, to the eminent satisfaction of 
the passengers. 

Incandescent lamps can be operated by 
either continuous or alternating currents, 
but are less economical, light for light, 
than the arc lamps. One horse-power 
gives about ten times as much light in an 
arc as in incandescent lamps, but the latter 
are more available for many purposes, and 
their light is far superior to that of the 
arc. 

The recent development of the Faure 
accumulators or secondary batteries which 
can be charged by dynamo-machines operat- 
ed irregularly or only at intervals, as by 
wind-power or when connected with other 
machinery, but which when so charged 
give out a constant current, promises to 
increase the applications of electric light- 
ing. Thus a train of five cars has been 
35 



lighted with Edison lights fed by -.hese 
accumulators. 

In the electric light a new and rapidly 
growing industry has sprung in1 
and is making its influence felt ov» 
civilized world. It gives en ot to 

thousands of workmen, it has made for- 
tunes for scores of deserving inventors, 
and it is conferring immeasurable benefits 
on the public at large. The electric light 
is forcing its way into popular use despite 
the opposition of the prejudiced and the 
arguments of the skeptical. Its advance- 
ment and development enlist the efforts of 
the most skillful, enterprising, and ener- 
getic men, and its universal adoption 
means the antagonism of the powers of 
darkness and the enlightenment and pro- 
gress of the world. 



CHAPTER IV. 
ELECTRIC LOCOMOTION. 

The idea of driving a vehicle by electric 1 
power is not a recent one. Over forty 
years ago Professor Charles G. Page built 
an electric locomotive driven by the cur- 
rent generated by a galvanic battery which 
it carried. But the consumption of zinc in 
a battery proved too expensive a source of 
power, and the experiment was abandoned. 

The wonderful progress of recent \ 
in the production of electric currents by 
dynamo-electric machines driven by steam. 
and the degree of cheapness thereby at- 
tained, have awakened new interest in 
electric locomotion, and two electric rail- 
ways have been built and successfully 
operated. In these Page's plan of gener- 
ating the electricity on the electric locomo- 
tive, as steam is generated on steam loco- 
motives, has been departed from, and the 
principle of a central depot or factory for 
producing the electric power has been sub- 
stituted. In this factory are one or more 
large dynamo generators, driven by pow- 
erful steam-engines. From the opp 
poles of the g rs two insulated 

wires lead to tin 1 railway track, where they 
are connected one to each rail. T 
are spiked to wooden ties, care being taken 
to keep them insulated from each ot her. 
The wheels of the cars are insulated from 
their axles, in order that the current may 
not escape from one rail to the other 
through the wheels and axles. The loco- 



656 



ELECTRIC LOCOMOTION. 



motive or driving car is provided with an 
electro-motor geared to its driving-wheels, 
so that a current through the coils of the 
motor will cause it to revolve and so pro- 
pel the car. This motor is a miniature of 
the generator at the electric factory, and 
its terminal wires are connected through a 
commutator with the wheels on the oppo- 
site rails. The operator or conductor, by. 
working this commutator, can interrupt 
the current, or reverse the direction of its 
flow through the electro-motor, thereby 
stopping the dummy or running it back- 
ward, at will. Electric brakes are also 
provided to be applied by a manipulation 
of the commutator. 

The honor of the invention of the elec- 
tric railway must be divided between Mr. 
Edison in America, and Messrs. Siemens 
and Holske in Germany. Mr. Edison's 
road at Menlo Park is about three miles 
long, and presents many sharp curves and 
heavy grades, some of the latter being as 
steep as forty feet to the mile, and on it a 
speed of over fifty miles per hour has re- 
peatedly been attained with a dummy and 
two cars carrying several passengers. The 
speed is under perfect control of the con- 
ductor, and the motion on a smooth track 
is easy and uniform. The generator is the 
same used with Edison's lights, and over 
seventy per cent, of the power of the en- 
gine working it has been utilized in driv- 
ing the cars. The leakage of electricity 
from the rails has occasioned a loss even 
in wet weather of less than five per cent. 
These results for an experimental road are 
certainly remarkable, and point to even 
more economical working when applied to 
actual every-day use. 

The railway of Siemens and Holske is 
laid in Berlin and is about one and a half 
miles in length. The generator is a Sie- 
mens dynamo driven by a rotary engine. A 
Siemens electro-motor is placed beneath the 
floor of the car, which seats 12 and carries 



20 passengers, and makes a speed of from 
nine to twelve and a half miles an hour, 
being limited to the latter speed by the 
authorities. This road has been in opera- 
tion since May, 1881. 

Another plan of Siemens is to provide a 
separate rail for carrying the current to 
the car, using the track rails only for re- 
turn conductors. This increases the expense 
of the road-bed, but avoids the necessity of 
insulating all the wheels from the axles. 

At the Paris Electrical Exposition of 
1881 an electric railway was established by 
Siemens and Holske, but its operation was 
imperfect. The current was conducted to 
the car by a wire suspended over the 
track, and brushed by a conductor on the 
roof of the car, the rails serving only as 
return conductors. 

Electric locomotion is yet in its extreme 
infancy, but it seems to have a brilliant 
future before it. It is especially adapted 
for elevated railways, the electric dummy 
being of light weight, cleanly, noiseless, 
emitting no smoke or poisonous gases, and 
requiring only one attendant. The same 
current which supplies the motive power 
may also feed electric lamps to light the 
trains. 

The invention of the secondary battery 
or accumulator, by which the current from 
a powerful dynamo machine may be stored 
up for future use, has suggested to many 
the running of cars and boats by the cur- 
rent discharged from such accumulators. 
The latter would be charged successively 
at a central generating factory and loaded 
into the car, being there connected in cir- 
cuit with the electro-motor, and exchanged 
for freshly charged ones as fast as ex- 
hausted. A street car has been run for 
some distance in this way, and recently a 
small boat has been propelled by a single 
accumulator, but the results thus far at- 
tained are not promising. 



THE SIGNAL SERVICE OF THE U. S. 



In all ages and countries, and alike 
among civilized and savage nations, there 
has existed a strong desire to know and 
to predict with certainty the condition of 
the weather for hours, days, weeks, or 
months in the future; and in all countries 
there have been those who, from greater 
shrewdness in observation, or from expe- 
rience and observation combined, have been 
able to foretell with considerable certainty 
the near approach of a storm, or the prob- 
ability of fair weather. In many civilized 
countries, the results of these observations 
have been put into the form of weather 
proverbs. Among savage nations the of- 
fice of the rain-maker or weather prophet 
is one of great profit and influence, but also 
one of considerable danger, as, if his pre- 
dictions prove false, his indignant country- 
men are very apt to manifest their dis- 
pleasure by putting him to death. 

All these observations and hap-hazard 
predictions, however, had evolved no laws 
or general principles, on which the ap- 
proach or retreat of a storm could be pre- 
dicted. They covered only small local 
areas, and often what was true of one 
town, or limited district, would be false 
concerning the next. Careful scientific 
observers have been engaged since the lat- 
ter part of the last century in the endeavor 
to work out from their manifold recorded 
observations of the course of the winds, of 
the rising and falling of the barometer, the 
changes in the sun's surface, and the tem- 
perature, some laws which could be relied 
upon as governing the weather and which 
could enable men to foresee approaching 
storms in time to prevent great injury from 
them. But for many years their search 
seemed to be in vain. No sooner had they 
deduced the existence of a cycle of recur- 
ring storms, than their philosophy was 
put to shame by a succession of delight- 
ful days just when, according to their 
predictions, Old Boreas should have raged 
most pitilessly. 



The failure of these eminent scientists 
to discover the laws which governed the 
changes of the weather was not due to any 
want of diligence or any lack of care in 
their observations, but solely to their hav- 
ing overlooked the course of the wind in 
the storms and its importance as a prime 
factor in these changes. It was reserved 
for an able, though self-taught obf 
our own country, Mr. William C. I 
for many years a resident and active busi- 
ness man of New York City, to deduce the 
law of storms, and with it the other laws 
affecting weather changes, from an im- 
mense series of observations, gathered from 
numerous and widely separated stations. 
Mr. Redfield's attention was first called to 
this subject after the destructive gale of 
September, 1821, but he did not make 
public his conclusions until he had verified 
them by extensive correspondence and ex* 
amination of the logs of hundreds of ships 
which had been caught in cyclones or 
hurricanes, or had passed through the 
outer edge of those destructive agen 
His first publication of his observations 
was made in 1831, in the American Journal 
of Science, and for many years thereafter 
he'gave great attention to the sul- 
yearly, or oftener, published the result 
his more extended inquiries. In these he 
was greatly assisted by Lieut. Colonel, 
afterward Gen. Sir William Reid, G 
ernor of Bermuda and afterward of M 
whose careful and extended inquiries and 
valuable assistance entitle his name to be 
associated with Mr. Etedfield in tl 
and beneficent work. 

Mr. Redfield's theory of storms, vei 
by thousands of observations, was the fol- 
lowing: That all violent gales or hurricanes 
are great whirlwinds, in which the \ 
blows in circuits around an axis either verti- 
cal or inclined ; that the winds do not i 
in horizontal circles, but rather in spirals 
towards the axis, a descending spiral mi 
ment externally, an ascending internally. 



658 



THE SIGXAL SERVICE OF THE U. S. 



That the direction of revolution is always 
uniform, being from right to left, or against 
the sun, on the' north side of the equator, 
and from left to right, or with the sun, on 
the south side. 

That the velocity of rotation increases from 
the margin towards the center of the 
storm. 

That the whole body of air subjected to 
this spiral rotation is at the same- time 
moving forward in a path at a variable 
rate, but always with a velocity much less 
than its velocity of rotation, being at the 
minimum, hitherto observed, as low as 4 
miles, and at the maximum 43 miles, but 
more commonly about 30 miles per hour, 
while the motion of rotation may be not 
less than from 100 to 300 miles per hour. 

That in storms of a particular region, as 
the gales of the Atlantic, or the typhoons 
of the China Seas, great uniformity exists in 
regard to the path pursued, those of the At- 
lantic, for example, usually issuing from 
the equatorial regions eastward of the 
"West India Islands, pursuing, at first, a 
course toward the northwest, as far as the 
latitude of 30°, and then gradually wheel- 
ing to the northeast and following a path 
nearly parallel to the American coast, to 
the east of Newfoundland, until they are 
lost in mid-ocean; the entire path, when 
delineated, resembling a parabolic curve, 
whose apex is near the latitude of 30°. 

That their dimensions are sometimes very 
great, being not less than 1,000 miles in 
diameter, while their path over the ocean 
can sometimes be traced for 3,000 miles. 

That the barometer, at any given place, 
falls with increasing rapidity as the center 
of the whirwind approaches, but rises at a 
corresponding rate after the center has 
passed by; and finally, 

That the phenomena are more uniform 
in large than in small storms, and more 
uniform on the ocean than on the land. 

The application of these principles to the 
ordinary changes of the weather was not 
arrived at for several years; but when the 
electric telegraph was put in operation, 
Mr. Redfield was prompt to see the advant- 
ages it offered for extending the benefits 
of this discovery to the preservation of life 
and property, and, early in 1846, he began 
to urge upon the attention of the scientists 
of the nation the possibility of using the 
electric telegraph in connection with the 
daily study of the weather, for the purpose 



of forewarning endangered parts of the 
approach and force of storms. 

In his memorable paper published that 
year in the "American Journal of Science," 
he said: "In the Atlantic parts of the 
United States, the approach of a gale, 
when the storm is yet on the Gulf of Mex- 
ico, or in the Southern and Western States, 
may be made known by means of the elec- 
tric telegraph, which, probably, will soon 
extend from Maine to the Mississippi." 
He significantly added: "This will enable 
the merchant to avoid exposing his vessel 
to a furious gale soon after leaving her 
port. By awaiting the arrival of a storm, 
ar-d promptly putting to sea with its clos- 
ing winds, a good offing and rapid pro- 
gress will be secured by the voyager." It 
is now about twenty years since the late 
gifted and lamented Admiral Fitzroy put 
this original suggestion of Mr. Redfield 
into execution, and by the sagacious appli- 
cation of the laws of storms which we have 
already detailed, placed his country under 
such perfect meteorological surveillance, 
that after a single year's experiment it 
was officially stated at a meeting of the 
shareholders of the Great Western Docks 
at Stonehouse, Plymouth, that "the defi- 
ciency (in revenue) was to be attributed 
chiefly to the absence of vessels requiring 
the use of the graving docks, for the pur- 
pose of repairing the damages occasioned 
by storms and casualties at sea." In 
that movement England was followed by 
Prance, Prussia, Austria, Holland, Swe- 
den and Norway, Italy, and Russia. 

Meanwhile, observations on the hurri- 
canes of the Atlantic had been prosecuted 
in this country with great care and thor- 
oughness, since the death of Mr. Redfield 
in 1857, by his son, Mr. John H. Redfield 
of Philadelphia, and by other eminent 
meteorologists, Loomis, Ferrel, etc.; but 
the time had come for its further practical 
development. In 1870, Congress, on the 
earnest recommendation of Gen. W. W. 
Belknap, Secretary of War, passed an act 
authorizing the establishment of a system 
of daily weather signals. The organization 
and management of this service was en- 
trusted to Gen. A. J. Myer, Chief Signal 
Officer U. S. A., to whose skillful and well 
directed labors its success has been largely 
due. It is now known as the office of the 
Chief Signal Officer, and has ten divisions, 
all occupied with collecting, receiving, ar- 



THE SIGNAL SERVICE OF THE U. 8. 



659 



ranging, tabulating, mapping, and distrib- 
uting the daily and nightly, weekly, and 
monthly reports received from more than 
1200 observers in all parts of the world. 
It has at its command not only the tele- 
graphic system of the United States and 
Canada, but portions of that of the West 
Indies and Mexico, and the Atlantic and 
other cables, and a telegraphic military 
line belonging to the service, and wholly 
under its control, extending, in 1881, 
5,077 miles. 

General A. J. Myer died August 24, 
1880, and was succeeded in the following 
winter by Brig, and Brevet Maj. General 
W. B. Hazen. who is now its head. 

Let us now give our readers an account 
of the processes by which these weather 
predictions, whose accuracy has already 
astonished the world, are worked out. 

The law of Congress imposes upon the 
Signal Officer the duty of reporting as 
widely as possible the meteorological con- 
ditions of each full station in the United 
States and Canada three times each day by 
Washington time, viz.: at 7.35 a. m., 4.35 
p. m., and 11.35 p.m. Besides this they 
give danger signals of approaching storms, 
high water from all the river stations, far- 
mers' bulletins, the track and approach of 
storm centers, and predictions of the 
weather for the next 24 or 48 hours. 

The reports received at Washington 
daily from all sources in 1881 averaged 
122 L, each one requiring considerable 
study. By a carefully arranged system of 
telegraphic circuits, copies of the full 
reports of all stations are sent at the same 
time to the signal service stations in most 
of the principal cities and towns, and at 
each station so receiving, a tabular report 
or bulletin is immediately displayed for 
general use and information. In most of 
these offices there is a small printing-press, 
and the type for the report is kept stand- 
ing, except the moderate amount of altera- 
tion necessary. The corrections are put in 
instantly on the reception of the report 
from Washington, and copies struck off 
and sent to the newspapers, exchanges, 
chambers of commerce, and other import- 
ant public places, where they are posted 
for general information. This is generally 
accomplished between 9 and 1 1 a. m.. G and 
8 p. m., and 1 and 3 a. m. These bulletins 
are known as the " morning report," " after- 
noon report," and " midnight report," and 



give, m the official signal service report, In- 
side the general synopsis of the weather at 

the time and the probabilities for the coming 

twenty-four hours, the following pari 
lars: the height of the barometer ami ir 3 
oscillations since the last report, in the 
principal stations throughout the country; 
the thermometric range and variation at 
the same points during the previous twen- 
ty-four hours; the relative humidity of the 
air. the direction of the wind, the Velocity 
of the wind in miles per hour, the pressure 
of the wind in pounds per square foot, the 
force of the wind reduced to the Beaufort 
or marine scale, the amount and character 
of the clouds, the rainfall since tin- last 
report in inches and hundredths, and the 
general state of the weather, with any 
noteworthy particulars. If a storm is ap- 
proaching and it is found necessary to 
order cautionary signals hoisted at any 
given point or points, that fact is clearly 
stated at the close of the report. All 
these reports are furnished to the news- 
papers without cost. 

The next step was the preparation of 
general weather indications and rep 
For this purpose the following charts were 
prepared tri-daily in the Washington office, 
combining every important point in all the 
local reports. 

(a) A chart of barometric pressures, tem- 
peratures, winds (direction and velocity), 
the state of weather, and the kind and 
amount of precipitation at each station. 
(h\ A chart of dew points at all stations. 
There is also entered for each station the 
depression of the dew-point below the tem- 
perature of the air. On this are traced 
lines showing each five degrees of <■ 
depression of the dew-point, (c) A chart 
of the various cloud-conditions prevailing 
at the time over the United States, with 
the "weather" at each station depicted by 
symbols; also once daily the minimum and 
maximum temperatures. (</) A chart "f 
the normal barometric pressures, and of 
variation of the actual (corrected for tem- 
perature and instrumental error) from the 
normal pressures, (e) A chart of actual 
changes of pressure occurring, showing 
separately the fluctuations of the at: 
phere during the previous eight and 
twenty- four hours. (/) A chart of nor. 
mal temperatures ami of variations of the 
actual temperatures from the normal tem- 
peratures. (</) A chart of actual eha: 



660 



THE SIGNAL SERVICE OF THE U. S. 



of temperature in previous eight and 
twenty-four hours. All these charts, each 
covering the whole of the country, must 
be made out, and the errors of data they 
embody sifted and analyzed, preliminary 
to the preparation of every one of the tri- 
daily bulletins issued from the central 
office. Armed with this charted material, 
the officer preparing the predictions pro- 
ceeds first to compile the "Synopsis," and 
then to deduce the " Indications," and issue 
the storm- warnings. The ''Synopsis," 
"Indications," and cautionary signals con- 
stitute the "Press Report." which, when 
finished, is telegraphed direct from the 
office of the Chief Signal Officer to all 
parts of the country. The average time 
elapsing between the simultaneous reading 
of the instruments at the separate stations 
scattered over the United States and the 
issue of the " Synopsis " and " Indications," 
based on these readings, has been calculated 
at one hour and forty minutes. 

The verification of predictions made by 
the office has averaged within the last 
three years 90.7. 

River Rejiorts. The important work of 
observing and reporting the fluctuations 
and floods of the great western rivers was 
at an early period of its history undertaken 
by the Signal Service. These observations 
were found of so much importance that 
they have been extended over the Western, 
Southern, and California rivers, and deduc- 
tions made from them, indicating impend- 
ing changes, are daily published in the 
"Washington weather-reports. All meas- 
urements at each river-station are made 
from the "bench-mark," as known to the 
river-men of the vicinity, and the reading 
of the gauge is daily telegraphed to the 
central office, and all other interested sta- 
tions. Knowing from such telegrams the 
height of the river at each station, as well 
as the total amount of reported rainfall 
higher up the river valley, the office is thus 
enabled to calculate and announce the time 
and degree of coming changes. 

During the flood-months the telegraphic 
river reports are especially valuable to all 
river-shipping and to all interested in the 
traveling and transportation facilities 
which depend upon it, as well as giving 
timely warnings of ice-floods or sudden 
rises and falls. The levee systems of the 
Mississippi and other great rivers are thus 
guarded, and the immense agricultural 



interests secured, as the flood-warning 
comes in time to summon the State force 
to strengthen the imperiled works. Be- 
sides, these surface and bottom water-tem- 
peratures at points upon the rivers, lakes, 
and sea-coasts are observed and reported 
for the U. S. Commissioner of Fish and 
Fisheries, with a view to ascertain the 
proper waters in which to plant the various 
food fishes and furnish statistics desired for 
the development of the national system of 
pisciculture. There is also to be mentioned 
the attention given by the office to the 
changes of temperature by which the canals 
are closed by freezing, or opened by thaws 
for transportation. Such information pro- 
tects the public from the imposition of ex- 
cessive railway rates in the ship nent of the 
grain crops, especially in any autumn sea- 
son of protracted mildness, and effects a 
large saving to the mercantile world. The 
Chief Signal Officer, by an arrangement 
with the different railways, has established 
a "Railway Weather Bulletin Service." 
In this work 1 1 1 railway companies, dis- 
tributing daily 3,195 reports to as many 
railway stations, are now co-operating with- 
out expense to the government. The mid- 
night report, exhibiting the " Indications," 
is telegraphed to the railway companies, 
whose superintendents are charged with 
seeing that copies of it are bulletined and 
posted along their lines a few hours after 
it emanates from the Washington office. 
By this means the railroad officials, and 
residents of districts- which cannot other- 
wise be reached in time, secure the benefits 
of the Government Weather Service. 

The Cautionary Storm Signals, which ac- 
company the " Synopsis " and " Indications" 
issued to the press three times each day, 
constitute a very important part of the Sig- 
nal Service work ; and it was the possi- 
bility of preparing such storm-warnings 
for the benefit of navigation that original- 
ly gave the chief stimulus to the establish- 
ment of a Weather Bureau. 

The cautionary signals are of two kinds . 
1. Those premonishing dangerous winds 
to blow from any direction. 2. Those pre- 
monishing off-shore winds, likely to drive 
vessels out to sea. Both kinds are needed by 
mariners as the storm-centers approach or 
depart from a maritime station. The first, 
distinctively termed the " Cautionary Sig- 
nal," consists of a red flag with a black 
square in the centre, for warning in the day- 



THE SIGNAL SERVICE OF THE U. S. 



001 



time, and a red light by night. The second 
or "Cautionary Off-shore signal," consists 
of a white flag with black square in the 
center shown above a red flag with square 
black centre by day, or a white light shown 
above a red light by night, indicating 
that, while the storm has not yet passed 
the station, and dangerous winds may yet 
be felt there, they will probably be from 
a northerly or westerly direction ; this 
second signal when displayed in the lake 
region in anticipation of high North to 
"West winds is designated the "Caution- 
ary Northwest Signal." 

Signal Service Instruments. The neces- 
sity for accurate observations in a system 
of weather-telegraphy brings us to speak 
of the instruments employed by the Signal 
Service Corps. These have been selected 
from the best models known, and subject- 
ed to experimental tests to perfect their 
registrations. Every barometer, ther- 
mometer, or other instrument used at the 
stations undergoes thorough comparison 
with the highest standards before it is sent 
out from the Office of the Chief Signal 
Officer, in which there is a large apartment 
devoted to this work, known as the "in- 
strument and model room." 

Fortin's barometer, as manufactured by 
Mr. James Green of New York, is the one 
used by the Signal Office at all its stations. 
Two barometers are supplied to each sta- 
tion. Great care is taken in the location, 
correction, and reading of the service ther- 
mometers. The open air thermometers, the 
maximum and minimum thermometers, 
are all tested, and the slightest variations 
from the standard instruments determined 
by protracted experimentation, to the sat- 
isfaction of the office, before they are issued 
to the observers. The rain-guages em- 
ployed are of a uniform pattern, and reg- 
ister the amount of precipitation to inches 
and hundredths of an inch. The wind-ve- 
locity measurer or Anemometer, which up 
to the present time has been found the 
most satisfactory, is that of Robinson. The 
Signal Service has endeavored to obtain 
barometers, thermometers, etc., which will 
be self-recording, and give without manip- 
ulation continuous, exact, and graphic reg- 
isters of the atmospheric fluctuations. Nu- 
merous ingenious contrivances have been 
for years under careful testing by the 
office, with the view of securing forms 
adapted to general use on stations. As 



early as July 1, 187s, in connection with 
the daily International Bulletin, Gen. Myer 
began the daily publication oi a graphic 

synoptic " International Weather-Map." This 
chart covers the whole international 
work of observations, and is the supple- 
ment and key to the Daily Bulletin, both 
being based on the sain.' .lata, and both 
of the same date. The number of marine 
observers is 239, and all navigators are re- 
quested to contribute to this system i 
ports. 

The Sea-coast Telegraph Lines are an- 
other important portion of the organiza- 
tion. The coast signal-stations aim to 
warn vessels within signaling distance of 
the approach of the storms, and to <,dve 
life-saving stations quick notice of marine 
disasters calling for rescue, as also to fur- 
nish any intelligence to the latter, or to 
the light-houses, which may insure their 
more efficient working. 

The Signal Service Military Telegraph 
System, constructed, owned, and operated 
by the Signal Service, covers, however, a 
much larger area than the sea coast men- 
tioned. In pursuance of acts of Congr 
this service has now completed in the inte- 
rior and upon the frontier an extensive 
network of telegraphic lines for connect- 
ing military posts, with a view to the pro- 
tection of the population from Indian 
depredations, and the condition of meteoro- 
logical, military and other reports to the 
Government. A total length of 5219 
miles of frontier-line is now operated and 
maintained by the Signal Corps. This 
connected system of telegraph lines is one 
of the most effective safeguards against 
Indian raids and war-like movem< 
since it enables the scattered military 
forces of the United States to obtain 
timely notice of such movements, and to 
concentrate quickly at any threatened 
point to repel attack. 

The plan of exhibiting as widely as 
sible in the agricultural districts the printed 
forecasts of weather, in the form of a 
Farmer's Bulletin, meets with increasing 
approbation and success. With the co-op- 
eration of the Post-Office Department, 
thousand six hundred and seventy-two of 
these bulletins are distributed to m many 
post-offices daily, except Sunday. In addi- 
tion to the weather synopsis and 
printed on this bulletin, it also contau 
summary of the general laws accompany- 



662 



THE SIGNAL SERVICE OF THE U. S. 



ing weather changes in the United States, 
condensed notes of facts relating to the 
climatology of the different sections, the 
rain and dry winds, for each month, for 
the geographical district in which the bul- 
letin is displayed, and diagrams showing 
the cyclonic and anti-cyclonic movements 
of winds. These simple foot notes have a 
remarkable effect in reducing the loss and 
increasing the gains of harvesting. The 
Railway Bulletin Service is a rapid and 
excellent means of disseminating the 
weather indications issued from the office. 
This service is established on the lines of 
prominent railway companies that receive, 
by telegraph, daily, at 1 a. m., a copy of 
the Synopsis and Indications. This report 
is at once distributed, under the direct 
supervision of the superintendents, to des- 
ignated stations along the lines. Ninety- 
three companies, with a total of two thou- 
sand nine hundred and thirty-seven stations, 
are now co-operating in this service. The 
reports received at stations are imme- 
diately displayed for the public benefit. 
Among the improvements made and new 
and progressive labors undertaken during 
the past year (1881), may be enumerated 
the following: 

1. The establishment of a permanent 
School of Instruction at Ft. Myer. 

2. The raising of the standard of the 
personnel of the Signal Corps. 

3. The systemization of the duties of 
the Signal Service. 

4. The preparation of new instructions 
for observers of the Service. 

5. The preparation of new and im 
proved forms for the recording and pres- 
ervation of meteorological data. 

6. The preparation of special bulletins 
for the press. 

7. The forecasts of weather, of hot and 
cold waves for periods exceeding twenty- 
four hours. 

8. The forecast of "northers" for the 
interior plateau. 

9. The adoption of a new storm signal 
for the interior lakes. 

10. The arrangement for an increase in 
the river service and the wider publication 
of warnings of floods or ice gorges. . 

11. The changes and improvements in 
the publication of the International Bul- 
letin and Weather Review. 

12. The increased information added to 
the Farmers' and Railway Bulletins. 



13. The organization of a service for 
the benefit of the cotton interests of the 
South. 

14. The extension of the special frost 
warning to the fruit interests of the country. 

15. The investigations into thermometric 
standards and into barometric standards. 

16. The preparation of new hygromet- 
ric tables. 

17. The revised determinations of the 
altitudes of Signal Service stations. 

18. The computation of monthly con- 
stants for the reduction of observed baro- 
metric pressures. 

19. The arrangements for original inves- 
tigation in atmospheric electricity. 

20. The arrangements for original inves- 
tigation in anemometry. 

21. The arrangements for original inves- 
tigation in actinometry, especially with 
reference to the importance of solar radia- 
tion in agriculture. 

22. The co-operation in an expedition to 
the summit of Mt. Whitney, Cal, for the 
determination of problems in solar physics. 

23. The preparation of conversion tables 
for English and metric systems. 

24. The co-operation in the dropping of 
time-balls at Signal Service stations. 

25. The publication of special profes- 
sional papers. 

26. The organization of State Weather 
Services. 

27. The new investigation of danger 
lines on western rivers. 

28. The organization and equipment of 
the expedition, for meteorological observa- 
tion and research, to Lady Franklin Bay, 
in the arctic regions. 

29. The organization and equipment of 
the expedition, for meteorological observa- 
tion and research, to Point Barrow, Alaska. 

30. The establishment of a system of 
stations of observation in Alaska. 

31. The arrangements for organizing a 
Pacific Coast Weather Service. 

32. The arrangements for the Signal 
Service display at the Electrical Exposi- 
tion at Faris. 

33. The experiments for improving 
newspaper weather charts. 

34. The arrangements for an increase of 
telegraphic weather service, exceeding in 
value $34,000 per annum, without addi- 
tional expense. 

35. The extension of the military tele- 
graph lines. 



THE SIGNAL SERVICE OF THE U. 8. 






Conclusion. In concluding this necessa- 
rily much condensed sketch of the national 
weather-service, its pressing wants should 
not be overlooked. No other service- ap- 
peals so strongly to the interests which it 
daily subserves for intelligent co operation. 
The public press can do much to advance 
its development by systematic republica- 
tion and explanation of its observations 
and deductions, and especially by repro- 
ducing the data furnished in its "Monthly 
"Weather Review," and in the daily tele- 



graphic "Synopsis." Time and toil are 
necessary to harvest the fruit 
sown; but, as the Preeidenl <.i the A 
can Geographical Society, Chiei .1;. 
Daly, has said, 

"Nothing in the nati. . ntific in- 

vestigation by the national Government 
has proved so acceptable to the p 
has been productive in so short a tin 
such important results, as the establish- 
ment of the Signal Service Bureau.'' 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



I suppose it will be conceded that agri- 
culture is the largest and most important in- 
terest of this country. It is my purpose to 
trace its progress from the time of the es- 
tablishment of the first settlements upon 
these shores, but more especially during the 
last hundred years. If I mistake not, a 
sketch of its history will be found to possess 
much that is interesting, useful, and in- 
structive. 

It is not necessary to dwell upon the con- 
dition of America at the time when it was 
first settled by Europeans. The charac- 
ter and the objects of the men who proposed 
to establish a home here, are already familiar 
to the mind of every intelligent person. 
They left countries which were considerably 
advanced in civilization, and better cultivated, 
probably, than any others, at that time, on 
the globe, with the exception, possibly, of the 
Chinese empire. They came to settle down 
in circumstances wholly new to them, with 
a climate and soil unlike any which they 
had known before. They were to begin life 
anew, as it were, where their previous ex- 
perience could afford them little or no aid, 
in a wilderness which was to be subdued by 
their own hands, in the midst of a thousand 
obstacles. 

With the exception of some extensive 
tracts of prairie, chiefly confined to the great 
west, then wholly unknown and inaccessible, 
there was no large extent of territory which 
was not covered with the primeval forest, 
though here and there a partially cultivated 
opening occurred, which was, or had been, 
occupied by the Indians. They were, there- 
fore, to start anew; to acquire, painfully 



and laboriously, that practical knowledge of 
their new situation, for the details of which 
no previous training could have fitted them. 
When we consider the hardships they had 
to encounter, especially that portion of them 
who had to endure, year after year, the rigor 
of a northern winter, we cannot wonder that 
their progress in farming was slow. 

It is true, the different colonies, as they 
were originally established, had a somewhat 
different experience. The winters of Vir- 
ginia were less severe than those of New 
England. The settlers on the James river 
suffered less, probably, than those further 
north, but all had to undergo many priva- 
tions which are unknown to an old and im- 
proved country. All were surrounded by 
a howling wilderness, by savage men, by 
wild beasts ready to prey upon their live 
stock, or destroy their crops. In these re- 
spects the circumstances of the settlers in all 
parts of the country were nearly the same. 

Let us look, for a moment, at the condition 
of things in the Plymouth colony, and we 
can gather therefrom a pretty correct idea 
of that in the other settlements. For many 
months after the arrival of the pilgrims at 
Plymouth, they had no beasts of burden, 
and when at last a few cows were brought 
over, they were poorly fed on the coarse 
wild grasses, and they often died from ex- 
posure and want of proper food, or fell a 
prey to the wolves or the Indians. Owing 
to the difficulties and expense of importa- 
tion, the price was so high as to put them 
beyond the reach of many, even in moder- 
ate circumstances. In the colony of the 
Massachusetts Bay, a red calf soon came to 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 






be cheaper than a black one, on account of 
the greater liability to be mistaken for a 
deer and killed by the wolves. "When cows 
were so high as to sell, in 1636, at from 
twenty-five to thirty pounds sterling, and 
oxen at forty pounds a pair, a quart of 
new milk could be bought for a penny, and 
four eggs at the same price. 

It is important to bear in mind that the 
cattle of that day, even in England, were 
not to be compared with the beautiful ani- 
mals now to be seen there. The ox of that 
day was small, ill-shaped, and in every way 
inferior to the ox of the present time. 
The sheep has, since then, been improved 
to an equal, or even greater extent, both in 
form and size, and in the fineness and value 
of its wool. The draught-horse, so service- 
able on the farm, long the pride of London, 
and now, to an almost equal extent, of most 
of our large cities, was not then known. 
It is difficult to appreciate fully the changes 
which the increased attention to agriculture 
has effected in our domestic animals, even 
within the last half century. 

But when we consider that no attention 
whatever was paid to the culture of the 
grasses ; that very few, if any, of the vegeta- 
bles, now extensively cultivated as food for 
stock, were then introduced there ; that the 
introduction of red clover into England did 
not take place till 1633 ; of sainfoin, not till 
1651 ; of yellow clover, not till 1659 ; and of 
white, or Dutch clover, not till the year 
lVOO; and that the form, size, and perfec- 
tion of animals depend largely upon a full 
supply of food and good care when young, 
we shall cease to wonder, when we are told 
by the highest authority, that during the 
early part of the last century the average 
gross weight of the neat cattle brought for 
sale to the Smithfield market was not over 
three hundred and seventy pounds, and that 
of sheep, twenty-eight pounds; while the 
average weight of the former is now over 
one thousand pounds, and of the latter, 
over ninety pounds. 

It is a fact worthy of note in this con- 
nection, as it throws much light upon the 
early fanning in this country, that the ex- 
tensive and practical cultivation of the nat- 
ural grasses originated here; or, at least, was 
introduced here long before it was into 
England. The necessities of our rigorous 
climate, indeed, compelled attention to this 
branch of husbandry very soon after the set- 
tlement, while the climate of England ad- 



mitted a greater degree of reliance on the 

wild luxuriance of nature. 

The cattle that firsl arrived, in 1624, were 

kept through the long winters on \ r ami 

miserable .swale bay, or more frequently on 
the salt hay cut from the marshes, and death 
from starvation and exposure was do uncom- 
mon occurrence, the former sometimes 
ing his entire herd. The treatment ,,t" an- 
imals now as they were treated during the 
whole, or marly the whole, of the first 
century of the colony, would subject the 
owner to prosecution for cruelty. This 
treatment was, in part, no doubt, owing to 
the poverty of the settlers, but mure, proba- 
bly, to the ideas and practices in which they 
had been early trained in a different climate. 

Besides, on account of the high price of 
cattle at that period, ami the risks to which 
they were exposed, it is not probable that 
the settlers selected the best specimens then 
to be found in England. There is in. evi- 
dence that they were at all particular in this 
respect. Nor was the difficulty of procur- 
ing agricultural implements the leasl of the 
obstacles to the successful pursuit of farm- 
ing. A few, no doubt, were broughl <>\er, 
from time to time, from the mother coun- 
try, but all could not obtain them in this 
way; while the only metal to be had was 
made of bog ore, very brittle, and liable to 
break and put a stop to a day's work. M">t 
were made of wood, and those imported 
were extremely rude in construction, being 
very heavy and unw ieldy,and ha\ ing compar- 
atively little fitness for the purpose for « hich 
they were designed. The process of casting 
steel was not discovered till the middle 01 
the last century, and then it was kept a 
secret in Sheffield for seme year-. The 
number and variety of implements have 
been infinitely increased, as we Bhal) 
even within the last half century, to meet 
the wants of a more advanced state of ag- 
riculture, to which, indeed, the-e mechanical 
improvements have, in their turn, largely 
contributed. 

Indian corn, pumpkins, squashes, pol 
and tobacco, were plants which fen of the 
early colonists had ever seen previous to their 
arrival here, bul necessity taught them their 
value, and thej were not slow in adopting 
the Indian methods of cultivating them. 
As the general cultivation among the 
nies continued much the same for many 
years, with slight modifications, on the in- 
troduction of the European implement 



668 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



may not be inappropriate to turn our atten- 
tion, for a moment, to the agriculture of the 
natives. 

Most of the hard work among the Indians, 
it is well known, fell to the lot of the 
women, with the assistance, sometimes, 
of the old men and little boys. Among 
their thankless tasks was that of farming, 
which they carried on to an extent quite re- 
markable, when we consider the rudeness of 
the implements with which they had to 
work, and the circumstances in which they 
were placed. They had no art of manufac- 
turing metal, and, of course, could have no 
suitable contrivances for tilling the ground. 
Their cultivation was not so rude, however, 
as one would naturally suppose. They made 
a kind of hoe by tying the shoulder-blade 
of a moose, bear, or deer, to a stick or pole, 
and managed to do much of the work with 
that. 

The land, when selected, was cleared by 
keeping up a fire around the foot of each 
tree till its bark was so burned that it would 
die. Then they planted their corn. When 
a tree fell, it was burned into pieces of such 
length that they could be rolled into a heap 
and burned to ashes. In this way, by 
degrees, a piece covered with wood was 
wholly cleared. An industrious woman 
could burn off as many dry, fallen logs in a 
day as a strong man could, at that time, cut 
with an axe in two or three. They used a 
stone axe, made much in the same manner 
as the hoe above described, to scrape the 
charred surface of the logs and hasten the 
burning. This mode of clearing was pretty 
common among the natives in different parts 
of the country. Sometimes the tree was 
first girdled with the axe and thus killed, 
allowed to become dry, and then burned by 
kindling a fire around it, as above described. 
Several of these stone axes, of different 
sizes, are now in my possession. 

The Indians taught the settlers to select 
the finest ears of corn for seed, to plant it 
at a proper time, to weed it, and to hill it. 
They were accustomed to dig small holes 
four feet apart, with a clumsy instrument 
resembling the one described, which was 
made, not unfrequently, of a large clam- 
shell. Those living in the vicinity of the 
sea-shore put into each hole a horse-shoe 
crab or two, or a fish, upon which they 
dropped four, and sometimes six kernels of 
corn, and covered it with the implement 
with which they had dug the hole. The use 



of fish in the hill as a fertilizer was common, 
also, in the interior. Beans were planted 
with the corn after it had come up, and 
grew up supported by it. 

Great attention was paid to the protection 
of their crops from weeds, while the corn 
was carefully guarded from destruction by 
insects and birds. To prevent loss by the 
latter, a small watch-house was erected in the 
midst of a field of corn, in which one of the 
family, often the eldest child, slept, and 
early in the morning rose to watch the birds. 
It was their universal custom to hill the corn, 
often from one to two feet high, for its sup- 
port, and spots are often seen at the present 
day which were evidently cultivated by 
them. The colonists very generally imitated 
this custom, and it has been continued down 
to our own times in many parts of the coun- 
try. The men planted and cured their tobac- 
co, which was, ordinarily, the only plant they 
worked upon, the women managing all the 
rest. 

This brief sketch of the farming of the 
Indians would not be complete without an 
allusion to their mode of storing grain for 
their winter supply. Large holes were dug 
in the earth, and the sides carefully lined 
with bark ; this was also the work of the 
women. The corn and the beans, after 
being dried in the sun, or on rocks or flakes 
over a fire, were thrown into these holes, and 
then they were covered up level with the 
surface of the ground. They were thus pre- 
served, if necessaiy, through the winter. 
These excavated barns were carefully con- 
cealed by the women from their lazy hus- 
bands and sons, lest they should discover 
and eat up their contents ; yet, with all the 
care they could take, the hogs of the colo- 
nists often unhinged their barn-doors, and 
helped themselves to the golden treasure. 
History says that one of these Indian barns 
was discovered by the pilgrims at Truro, at 
a time when their store of provisions was so 
reduced as to contain but five kernels of 
corn to each individual. 

They sometimes made additional provis- 
ion for winter by means of large boxes of 
wicker-work, or bags or sacks of hemp, 
which were filled and kept in the wigwam 
for the more immediate wants of the family. 
They had, of course, little or no occasion to 
cut grass, though it grew in abundance along 
the marshes and the rivers, and in places 
which had been cleared for cultivation. It 
was of a coarse quality, and served the colo- 




LIFE IN NEtt' ENGLAND, 1770. 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



B71 



nist9 a good turn till they resorted to the 
cultivation of better. 

We may imagine the surprise of the na- 
tives at the first sight of a plough. They 
could not understand so complicated a ma- 
chine. They wanted to see it work ; and 
when it tore up more ground in a day than 
they, with their clam-shells, could scrape up 
in a month, and they saw the colter and the 
share to be of iron, they told the ploughman 
if he was not the devil himself, he was very 
much like him. 

The first sight of a ship, it is recorded, 
had excited their wonder even to a greater 
extent. To them it was a floating island ; 
its masts were nothing but trees ; its sails 
were clouds ; its discharge of guns was 
thunder and lightning ; but as soon as the 
thunder and lightning ceased, they pushed 
off their canoes to go and pick strawberries 
on the island ! 

This cursory glance at the early surround- 
ings of the settlers of the country, will en- 
able us the better to comprehend the diffi- 
culties in the way of making rapid progress. 
When poor and miserable cattle, poor and 
miserable implements, poor and miserable 
ideas of fanning were the best of every thing 
they had, we can well imagine that little was 
done which was not forced upon them by 
the pressure of necessity. Their wants were 
too many, and required too vigorous exer- 
tions to provide what was indispensable, to 
admit of their spending time to experiment 
or seek out new principles to be applied to 
practical farming. As long as new lands 
could be had almost for the asking, it was 
not to be expected that they would till them 
very thoroughly. The soil was rich in 
mould — the accumulation of ages — and did 
not require very careful cultivation to se- 
cure an abundant return. But years of con- 
stant cropping exhausted its productiveness, 
when other lands were taken to subject to 
the same process. The farmer raised wheat 
year after year on the same land, till the soil 
became too poor, and then he planted corn ; 
and when it would no longer grow corn, he 
sowed barley, or rye, and so on to beans. 

Agriculture, so far as any real improve- 
ment was concerned, was, therefore, natural- 
ly enough, in a state of extreme depression 
for more than a century and a half after the 
establishment of colonies in various parts of 
the country. There were few intelligent cul- 
tivators previous to the Revolution, and there 
was no spirit of inquiry to give a charm to 



farm labor. It was performed ai as evil 

which must be endured from stern necessity. 
Hard work was the order of the day. The 

forests were to he cleared, the buildings for 

shelter erected, the stone walls to belaid, 
and little time or inclination was left for 
the " humanities" of life. 

The inhabitants of country towns, a hun- 
dred years ago, most of whom were, of 
course, engaged in tilling the soil, seldom 
visited even their neighboring towns, and 
many a farmer and farmer's son did nol 
his own township from one pear's end to an- 
other. The liberalizing influence of social 
intercourse was unknown and unappreciated, 
unless the village tavern and the frequent 
glass might be considered as forming an I x- 
ception, while it afforded an opportunity, of 
which most men availed themselves, of form' 
ing new acquaintances and talking over the 
stale gossip of the neighborhood, or indulg- 
ing in the ribald jest. 

People for some miles around tuned out 
to a "raising," as the erection of a frame 
building was termed, and a merry time it 
was, where the flip and the cider flowed like 
water. On a more limited scale, the '" husk- 
ings" brought together, also, a pretty large 
neighborhood, when the same favorite drinks 
did much to enliven a long autumn evening, 
the whole being followed by a sumptuous re- 
past of pumpkin pies, etc., continued into the 
small hours of the night. Then the "spin- 
ning bees" afforded a time for talk, and - 
and riddle. Election day often, how 
brought the people from a greater diets 

No butcher drove up t<> the tanner'- door, 
with his ever fresh supply of meats, togiv< va- 
riety to the daily and homely tare ; DO ba- 
ker, with his jingling bells, travelled his 
rounds on stated days to relieve the monot- 
ony of the housewife's toil. Salted i 
were the almost universal food from 
autumn till spring, and often from spring 
till autumn, though now and then a sheep 
or a lamb fell a victim to the oeceaaitj for 
change. No cottons, no calicoes, no ging- 
hams, no linens, no flannels loaded the 
counters of the village store, to be had at ■ 
sixpence, or a ninepence, or a quart 
yard. The farmer, and the farmer's family, 
wore homespun, and the spinning-wheel and 
the huge timber loom were a part of IN 
even household furniture, and their noise 
was rarely silenced. It' linens were wanted, 
the flax was sown, and weeded, and pulled, 
and rotted, and broken, and s\\ in-led— for all 



672 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



of which processes nearly a year was re- 
quired before the fibre was ready for spin- 
ning, and bleaching on the grass, and making 
and wearing. If woollens, the sheep were 
sheared, and the wool dyed and got in read- 
iness, and months were often required before 
it could be got into shape for wearing. 
Courtships were, therefore, of longer dura- 
tion than many of them now-a-days, and two 
years was about as soon as the betrothed 
farmer's daughter could get ready to go to 
keeping house. Not unfrequently the flax 
had to be sown as the preliminary step, and 
to pass through all its forms of transition in- 
to cloth and garments. With our present 
facilities for manufacturing by machinery 
every conceivable variety of 'fabric, and 
that, too, in the shortest space of time, it is 
impossible to appreciate fully the state of 
things among all classes of society a century 
ago. Even the old processes of curing and 
preparing flax, and the variety of fabrics 
made from it, have undergone an entire 
change. Processes which then required 
many months to complete, are now wholly 
avoided by the more perfect and economical 
ones at present known and in constant use. 

Owing to the imperfect provision for 
schools for the great body of the people, the 
boy was trained up to a narrow routine of 
labor, as his fathers had been for a century 
before. He often affected to despise all in- 
telligent cultivation of the soil, and not only 
scrupulously followed the beaten track, but 
was intolerant of all innovation, simply be- 
cause it was innovation. Very few of the 
rural population of that day saw a newspa- 
per or a journal of any kind. There were 
not, probably, a dozen published in the 
whole country a century ago. There was 
not one in New England at the beginning of 
the last century, and but four in 1750, and 
these had an extremely small circulation be- 
yond the limits of the metropolis. 

Obstinate adherence to prejudice of any 
kind is now generally regarded as a mark 
of ignorance or stupidity. A century ago, 
the reverse was the case. In many a small 
country town a greater degree of intelli- 
gence — except on the part of the parson and 
the doctor — than was possessed by his neigh- 
bors, brought down upon the possessor the 
ridicule of the whole community. If he 
ventured to make experiments, to strike out 
new paths of practice and adopt new modes 
of culture; or if he did not plant just as 
many acres of corn as his fathers did, and 



that, too, in " the old of the moon ;" if he 
did not sow just as much rye to the acre, 
use the same number of oxen to plough, and 
get in his crops on the same day ; or if he 
did not hoe as many times as his father and 
his grandfather did — if, in fine, he did not 
wear the same kind of homespun dress and 
adopt the same religious views and preju- 
dices, he was shunned in company by the 
old and young, and looked upon as a vision- 
ary. He knew nothing of a rotation of 
crops. The use and value of manures were 
little regarded. Even so late as within the 
memory of men still living, the barn was 
sometimes removed to get it out of the way 
of heaps of manure by which it was sur- 
rounded, because the owner would not go to 
the expense of removing these accumula- 
tions and put them upon his fields. The 
swine were generally allowed to run at large; 
the cattle were seldom or never housed at 
night during the summer and fall months ; 
the potato patch often came up to the very 
door, and the litter of the yard seldom left 
much to admire in the general appearance 
of things about the barn or the house. 
Farmers thought it necessary to let their 
cattle run at large very late in the fall, and to 
stand exposed to the severest colds of a win- 
ter's day, " to toughen." It was the com- 
mon opinion in the Virginia colony, that 
housing and milking cows in the winter 
would kill them. Orchards had been plant- 
ed in many parts of the country, but the 
fruit was, as a general thing, of an inferior 
quality, and used chiefly for the purpose of 
making cider. 

This is no picture drawn from the imagi- 
nation. It is strictly and literally true of 
the farming of the country as a whole, a 
century ago, though it should be remarked 
that a slightly modified state of things ex- 
isted in localities widely distant. But with 
some differences in detail, it w T ill be found to 
be consonant with historical facts. 

It would be extremely interesting, were it 
in our power, to support, by accurate sta- 
tistics, this general view of the condition of 
farming during the last century, but, unfor- 
tunately, no reliable statistics were taken till 
the year 1790, and then, chiefly to ascertain 
the number of the population, with special 
reference to the distribution of the represen- 
tation, or the political power of the several 
states. We are, therefore, wholly destitute 
of statistical information of the products of 
farming industry during the last century ; 



GAME OF THE EARLY SETTLERS AND PR 



RONTIERSMEN. 



- ; • \ 



:y : '• ? 



vs.; Ml] 



A \^ffA^Mt J -' 




DEER. 




CANVAS-BACK DUCK. 



QUAIL. 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 






nor was it till the fourth decennial census, in 
1820, that the population was divided ac- 
cording to industrial pursuits, so that we 
have no means of ascertaining even the 
number engaged in the occupation of farm- 
ing. We only know that the general esti- 
mate of the population at the time of the 
Revolution, which fixed it at three millions, 
was considerably too high. 

The occurrence of the Revolution, and the 
period immediately succeeding, very natu- 
rally brought men of all pursuits and from 
all parts of the country more frequently and 
closely together, and gave all classes, and 
farmers among the rest, a more general 
knowledge of what was passing in the world 
around them. Intercommunication became 
more easy and frequent, and had its influence 
upon the masses of the people. In the latter 
part of the last century many left the sea- 
board and removed to the interior to avoid 
the inconvenience arising from the difficul- 
ties between this and the mother country, 
and for other reasons ; more attention began 
to be paid to agriculture. Emigration from 
the east began to set toward the so-called 
inexhaustible west, which at that time meant 
central or western New York. 

Up to this point our survey of the con- 
dition of agriculture has necessarily been 
general. No one branch of farming had 
made any marked and perceptible progress. 
It has been said that a good strong man 
could have carried all the implements in use 
on the farm, except the cart and old clumsy 
harrow, upon his shoulders, fifty years ago, 
and we know that many a year occurred 
when grain, and even hay, had to be imported 
from England to keep the people and the 
cattle from starvation. Hereafter, it will be 
more convenient to trace the progress of the 
different branches of farm industry, and the 
means brought to bear in the development 
and improvement of agriculture, in a more 
distinct and separate manner, in order that 
we may get a clearer idea of the relative 
progress and influence of each. And first, 
of the origin and growth of 

ASSOCIATED AND LEGISLATIVE EFFORT. 

One of the characteristic features of the 
farming of the present day, is the extent 
to which associated effort is brought to bear 
upon all its details, by way of exhibitions, 

{>remiums, clubs for discussion, and the pub- 
ication of reports for wide and gratuitous 
distribution. This enormous power of mind 



upon mind, by means of association or Bocial 
intercourse, is of comparative}) recenl ori- 
gin in this country. It can scarcer) date 
back to the beginning of the present centu- 
ry, though the necessity of it had. even 
then, become impressed npon the mind 
patriotic and public-spirited men. 

On the 20th of July, iT'.M, Washington, 
then president of the United States, ad- 
dressed a letter to Sir John Sinclair, in which 
he says: "It will be sometime, I fear, bi 
an agricultural society, with congressional 
aid, will be established in this country. We 
must walk, as other countries have, before 
we can run; smaller societies must prepare 
the way for greater; but, with the lights 
before us, I hope we shall not be bo slow in 
maturation as older nations have been. An 
attempt, as you will perceive by the enclosed 
outlines of a plan, is making to establish a 
state society in Pennsylvania for agrieultural 
improvements. If it succeeds, it will be ■ 
step in the ladder ; at present, it is too much 
in embryo to decide upon the result." And 
again, in his annual address on the 7th De- 
cember, 179G, when he met for the last time 
the two houses of Congress, he said: "It 
will not be doubted that, with reference to 
either individual or national welfare, agricul- 
ture is of primary importance. In propor- 
tion as nations advance in population, and 
other circumstances of maturity, this truth 
becomes more apparent, ami render- the cul- 
tivation of the soil more and more an object 
of public patronage. Institution- for pro- 
moting it grow up, supported by the public 
purse; and to what object can it he dedica- 
ted with greater propriety .' Among the 
means which have been employed to this 
end, none have been attended with greater 
success than the establishment "t' boards, 
composed of proper characters, charged with 
collecting and diffusing information, and en- 
abled, by premiums and small pecuniary 
aids, to encourage and a-sist a spirit of dis- 
covers and improvement 

"This species of establishment contrib- 
utes doubly to the increase "( improvement, 

by stimulating to enterprise and experiment, 
and by drawing to a common centre t! 
suits, everywhere, of individual skill ami ob- 
servation, and spreading them thence over 
the whole nation. Experience, accordingly, 
has shown that they arc verv cheap instru- 
ments of immense national benefit." 

Some few individuals, even before this 
date, had felt the necessity for BODS SUI h BO- 



676 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



tion as would lead to the development of 
the agricultural resources of the country, 
and as the result, the South Carolina Agri- 
cultural Society had been established in 
1784, and still exists. The Philadelphia 
Society for the Improvement of Agriculture 
was formed in the same year, or the year 
after, followed by a similar association in 
New York in 1791, which was incorporated 
in 1793. The Massachusetts Society for 
Promoting Agriculture was incorporated in 
1792, and soon after commenced the publi- 
cation of a series of papers known as the 
Agricultural Rejyository, which, for sound 
good sense and judicious suggestion, chal- 
lenges comparison with any similar series 
ever published. It should be stated, how- 
ever, that the prime movers in the formation 
of these societies were not men actually en- 
gaged in farming, though many of them were 
owners of fine estates. The mass of farmers 
were not, as yet, fully prepared for this pro- 
gressive effort, and all the agricultural teach- 
ings of educated and scientific men prove un- 
availing, unless the people themselves, the 
actual tillers of the soil, are prepared to re- 
ceive and profit by their teachings. Many 
years elapsed after these early efforts were 
made, before the habit of reading became 
sufficiently common among the masses of 
practical farmers to justify the expectation 
that any general benefit would arise from the 
annual publication of the transactions of 
these societies. 

There was little or no disposition in the 
community to examine the subject, and they 
failed to excite any spirit of emulation in 
the public mind. The improvements pro- 
posed fell almost dead upon the people, who 
rejected "book farming" as impertinent and 
useless, and knew as little of the chemistry 
of agriculture as of the problems of astron- 
omy. A quarter of a century, however, ef- 
fected some change, and in 1816 the Massa- 
chusetts society held its first exhibition, at 
Brighton, at which a list of premiums was 
offered, and a ploughing match instituted, 
not so much with the object of improving 
the plough as to try the strength and docil- 
ity of the oxen. But the plough-maker hap- 
pened to be there, and to have his eyes 
open ; and since that day, an amount of 
knowledge has been brought to bear upon 
this implement sufficient to bring it very 
near perfection. 

The first national society established with 
this specific object in view, is believed to 



have been the Columbian Agricultural So- 
ciety for the Promotion of Rural and Do- 
mestic Economy, organized at a convention 
held in Georgetown, D. C, on the 28th No- 
vember, 1 809 ; and the first agricultural ex- 
hibition in this country was, probably, one 
held by that society in Georgetown, on the 
10th of May, 1810, when large premiums 
were offered for the encouragement of sheep 
raising, etc. In the October following, in 
the same year, Elkanah Watson exhibited 
three merino sheep under the great elm tree 
in Pittsfield, Mass., which was the germ of 
the Berkshire County Agricultural Society, 
whose regular exhibitions began the year 
following, and are believed to have been the 
first county exhibitions ever instituted in 
this country. To show the feeling with re- 
gard to what was, at that time, considered an 
innovation, in a strictly farming community, 
the projector of that society encountered the 
opposition and ridicule of all classes of so- 
ciety, from the moment the proposition was 
made. It was viewed by many with con- 
tempt. Gradually, however, the feelings of 
the people were enlisted in its favor, premi- 
ums were offered and awarded, and a large 
concourse, from all parts of the county, in- 
creasing rapidly from year to year, showed 
clearly that something had reached the heart 
of the community. 

But though this was the first county exhi- 
bition, so far as I am informed, it was not 
the first county society that was formed. 
The Kennebec Agricultural Society was in- 
stituted at Augusta in 1800 and incorpora- 
ted in 1801, being the second society incor- 
porated within the limits of Massachusetts, to 
which Maine, at that time, belonged. A 
voluntary association of the Middlesex hus- 
bandmen had also been formed in 1794, and 
incorporated in 1803, under the name of the 
Western Society of Middlesex Husband- 
men. 

These were some of the early efforts in 
this direction, and though they, like other 
similar attempts, met with some opposition on 
the part of the very class they were intended 
to benefit, the increasing intelligence of the 
people very soon enabled them to live it 
down. Now we have more than a thousand 
similar associations, all striving, by the offer 
of premiums, and by bringing together the best 
products of the farm and the garden, to en- 
courage improvement and stimulate enter- 
prise. Almost every state in the Union haa 
its state society, and almost every county, 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 






and, in. some of the states, every county, 
has its county organization. And what 
is the result? It is well known that by far 
the largest and most valuable part of our 
practical knowledge is that which is got in 
our intercourse with our fellow men, with 
those who are engaged in the same pursuits 
and have the same interests as ourselves. 
The farmer has, therefore, gained, and 
is gaining a vast amount of information, 
much of which he can apply to advantage on 
his farm. Emerging from his naturally iso- 
lated position, he has become a more social 
being. More frequent contact with others, 
by way of competition, has stimulated men- 
tal activity. Contrast him now with his 
father on the same farm half a century ajro, 
and see if there is not some improvement 
that can be traced to the social influences of 
the agricultural clubs and societies. 

In addition to these societies, most, if not 
all of which are encouraged by the several 
states in a substantial manner, there exist, in 
some of the states, boards of agriculture, or- 
ganized as departments of the state govern- 
ment, and having a general supervision of 
the societies, receiving their official returns, 
and publishing an abstract of the most valu- 
able papers presented, for general distribu- 
tion. 

I do not think it is claiming too much 
for the agricultural societies throughout the 
country, to say that the general spirit of in- 
quiry in relation to farm improvements, and 
much of the enterprise manifested by farm- 
ers of the present day, is due to their efforts. 
The most impartial judgment would, in fact, 
go much further than this, and say that a 
large proportion of the actual improvement 
that has been made in farm stock, farm im- 
plements, and farm products, may be traced, 
directly or indirectly, to the influence of the 
agricultural associations of the country. 

To appreciate this influence it is only nec- 
essary to consider the immense facilities 
which a well-conducted exhibition gives, not 
only to the agricultural mechanic for mak- 
ing known the nature and value of his im- 
provements, but to the farmer for becoming 
acquainted with them. Many an invention 
would have slumbered in oblivion, or enjoy- 
•ed only a limited and local fame, had it not 
been for the multitudes brought together at 
the state, county, and town fairs, which, it 
will thus be seen, furnish a most admirable 
medium of communication, both to the me- 
chanic and the farmer, making it for the in- 
36 



terest of both to attend and avail them* 
of the facilities offered them. Thus a neat 
public interest is served, notwithstanding the 
individual i manic or inventor maj have 

his own interest chiefly al heart. 

And what is true with regard to agricul- 
tural implements, is true to nearlj an equal 
extent or every thing else brought for exhibi- 
tion to the fairs of the societies. A tanner 
sees fruits that he knew nothing of, and 
could not obtain otherwise. Be knows who 
presented them, secures the same for his own 
farm, and within tive years can presenl SJ 
good samples himself. He sees animals 
brought to a degree of perfection of which 
he had never, perhaps, conceived. Thought 
is excited, lie asks himself whether they 
are more profitable than his own; procures 
them, perhaps, and thus an improved stock 
is disseminated over the country to take the 
place of that which is inferior, but which 
costs the individual nearly or quite a- much 
to keep as that more valuable and profitable. 

I need not enlarge upon this point 
Enough has been said, I think, to show that 
the modern system of associated effort is a 
most decided progressive movement ; but let 
us trace out more in detail some of it> re- 
sults. And first, in the multiplication and 
improvement of 



FARM IMPLEMI 



There is, perhaps, no branch of farm econ- 
omy in which the progress of improvement 
has been so apparent and unquestionable, as 
that made in the implements of agriculture 
during the last half century. It might al- 
most be said that progress in agriculture it- 
self may be measured by an increase.! de- 
mand for new and better implements, a- the 
advance in civilization is Shown by a greater 
demand for comforts and luxuries by the 
people. 

There was a time, as we have seen, in the 
history of American farming, when labor 
was cheap, when strong limbs and the power 
of endurance were the requisites chiefly 
sought for in the hired man. and when his 
labor was paid for as so much brute, physi- 
cal force. Intelligent labor, skill, and 
thought found higher rewards in other call- 
ings, and the practical tanner was thought 
to be sufficiently well informed if li- 
able to hold plough, to mow, to sow, and to 
reap. The labor — the physical force i 
sary to carry on the operations of the farm — 
could be obtained verv easily in those days. 



678 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



and it was natural that farmers should be 
satisfied with the limited variety of imple- 
ments then in use. The isolated position 
in which they were placed, their limited op- 
portunities for travel and observation, the 
difficulties, in fact, of getting about among 
people engaged in the same pursuits, all 
helped to strengthen prejudice and foster a 
repugnance to try new and unused imple- 
ments, or to strike out into new fields of ex- 
periments. Besides these obstacles in the 
way of improvement, the progress then made 
in the various branches of mechanics was 
extremely limited, and the adoption of new 
and improved implements must follow, of 
course, in the wake of mechanical invention. 
The few rude and imperfect implements in 
use at an early day were, for the most part, 
of home manufacture, or made by the 
neighboring blacksmith, who had a thousand 
other things to make at the same time. 
There was little idea of a division of labor. 
Jack at all trades was good at none. 

As early as 1617, some ploughs were set 
to work in the Virginia plantation, but in 
that year the governor complained to the 
company that the colony " did suffer for 
want of skilful husbandmen, and means to 
set their ploughs on work ; having as good 
ground as any man can desire, and about 
forty bulls and oxen, but they wanted men 
to bring them to labor, and iron for the 
ploughs, and harness for the cattle. Some 
thirty or forty acres we had sown with one 
.plough, but it stood so long on the ground 
before it was reaped, it was most shaken, and 
•the rest spoiled with the cattle and rats in 
the barn." This complaint had some effect, 
for, in 1648, a cotemporary resident says: 
" We have now going near upon a hundred 
and fifty ploughs"' and they were drawn by 
-oxen. 

It is recorded that in 1637 there were but 
thirty-seven ploughs in the colony of Massa- 
chusetts Bay. Twelve years after the land- 
ing of the pilgrims, the farmers about Bos- 
ton had no ploughs, and were compelled to 
break up the bushes and prepare for cultiva- 
tion with their hands, and with rude and 
clumsy hoes or mattocks. It was the cus- 
tom, in that part of the country, even to a 
much later period, for any one owning a 
plough to go about and do the ploughing 
for the inhabitants over a considerable extent 
of territory. A town often paid a bounty 
to any one who would buy and keep a 
.plough in repair for the purpose of going 



about to work in this way. The massive old 
wooden plough required a strong and well- 
fed team to move it through the soil, a 
heavy, muscular man to press it into the 
ground, another to hold, and another to drive. 
We may judge, therefore, of the economy 
of the work it performed. What was true 
of the early period of the settlement, was 
true, to nearly an equal extent, for a hundred 
and fifty years, so far as the implements and 
the processes of farming are concerned. All 
these last were traditional, handed down 
from sire to son, and adhered to in the 
strictest manner. The implements consisted 
almost wholly of the plough, the spade, a 
clumsy wooden fork, and now and then a 
harrow. I have in my possession two of 
these wooden forks, made, and in use, at 
least a hundred and fifty years ago, in the 
Massachusetts colony. They were regarded 
as curious for their antiquity in the youth 
of the grandfather of the donor, who died 
some years ago, upward of ninety years of 
age. That would date them back nearly 
two centuries, perhaps. 

At this time, the ploughs used among the 
French settlers in Illinois were made of 
wood, with a small point of iron tied up- 
on the wood with straps of raw-hide. The 
beams rested on an axle and small wooden 
wheels, the whole drawn by oxen yoked to 
the ploughs by the horns, by means of a 
straight yoke attached by raw leather straps, 
with a pole extended from the yoke back to 
the axle. The plough was very large and 
clumsy, and no small one was used by them 
to plough among the corn till after the war 
of 1812. The carts they used had not a 
particle of iron about them. 

During the last century, the old " Carey 
plough" was more extensively used in the 
Atlantic states than any other pattern, though 
the particular form of this instrument varied 
almost as much as the number of small man- 
ufacturers or blacksmiths who made it. 
The Carey plough had a clumsy wrought 
iron share, a land-side and standard made of 
wood, a wooden mould-board, often plated 
over, in a rough manner, with pieces of old 
saw-plates, tin, or sheet iron. The handles 
were upright, and were held by two pins ; 
a powerful man was required to hold it, 
and double the strength of team now com- 
monly used in doing the same kind of work. 

The " bar-side plough," or the " bull 
plough," was also used to some extent. A 
fiat bar formed the land-side, and a big 






Ill 




.ft 1 1 

i 
i 



4 



AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS. HIGGANUM MANUFACTURING COMPANY 

HIGGANUM, CONN. ^ l| 




CHARTER OAK SWIVEL PLOW. SANBORN'S LAST PATENT 
tog™eral°work. erfeCt **** PI ° W """^^ A Reverse Plow, adapted 



HOLBROOK'S 

'VETO" SEED DRILL. 

For Sowing Beet, Carrot, Onion, Turnip, 

Parsnip, Spinach, Fodder Corn, 

Peas, Beans, &oc. 





CIDER AND WINE MILL. 




PLOW HANDLES. 




WELLS' SEED SOWER. 
For grain or gnu* •ecd. 




COMMON SIDE HILL OR SWIVEL PLOW. 

Of the above Plow we manufacture nine different sizes— two with iron beams, 
and seven with wood beams. They are constructed so that the mold board is 
easily changed from one side to the other, which enables the operator to perform 
the work horizontally upon side hills, going back and forth on the same side. 




EAGLE SELF-SHARPENER. 

Fig. 1 of the above cut represents the point. As it wears, it is easily moved 
forward and turned the other side up, thus always presenting a sharp point of full 
length and proper shape. Fig. 2 is the wing or share, and is reversible, beirej 
Used either end or side up. Fig. 8 represents the cast iron colter a little back 
and above the point. Fig. 4 represents the cap that protects the shin or for- 

ward part of the mold. Four Sizes. 




DEEP TILLER PLOW. 

This cut represents one of the series of the Deep Tiller or Green»8Ward PloWi 
of the line of the celebrated J. Nourse Plows. Four Sizes. 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 






clump of iron, shaped a little like the half 
of a lance head, served as a point, into the 
upper part of which a kind of colter was 
fastened. The mould-board was wooden, 
and fitted to the irons in the most bungling 
manner. The action might be illustrated by 
holding a sharp-pointed shovel back up, and 
thrusting it through the ground. 

In the southern states, the " shovel 
plough" was in general use down to a von' 
recent date, and is, indeed, to some extent, at 
the present day. It was made of a rough- 
hewn stick for a beam, with another stick 
framed in, upon the end of which a piece of 
iron, shaped somewhat like a shovel, sharp- 
pointed, was fastened. The two rough han- 
dles were nailed or pinned on to the sides 
of the beam, having a wooden prop, with a 
draft iron, or a raw-hide loop, at the forward 
end of the beam 

Generally speaking, it might be said that 
the ploughs used in this country a century 
ago, were not very unlike those used by the 
old Romans before the Christian era, and by 
some of the people of southern Europe even 
at the present day. They were not unfre- 
qnently nor inaptly termed the "hog 
plough," on account, probably, of their pro- 
pensity to root into and out of the ground. 
And in describing the plough, an adequate 
idea of all other kinds of farm implements — 
the variety, as we have seen, being extreme- 
ly small — is clearly enough conveyed. These 
old-fashioned wooden ploughs continued, 
with little or no improvement, till after the 
beginning of the present century. 

By far the greater part of the draught of the 
plough, or strength of team required, is due 
to friction in the soil. The cutting, raising, 
and turning over of the turf add compara- 
tively little to the draught, though, it is true, 
the friction itself is somewhat increased by 
the weight of the plough, and this weight is, 
of course, increased by the weight of the 
farrow-slice as it is lifted from its bed. 
Hence, the draught of the plough is but slight- 
ly increased by an increase of speed, since 
the friction is not increased, but remains 
nearly the same on the bottom of the fur- 
row, on the land-side, and between the fur- 
row-slice and the mould-board, whether the 
motion be fast or slow. Modern improve- 
ments have aimed, therefore, to overcome 
the friction and resistance by an improv- 
ed construction of the mould-board and 
by the use of better materials, for it is 
now well established, by practical exper- 



iment, that the draught depends less on tho 
weight of the plough itself, tha it- con- 
struction. The draught does not increase in 
proportion to an increase of weight, and 
hence, though some still objecl to the mod- 
ern plough, as compared with the models in 
use fifty years ago, on account of their being 
heavier, yet it is a common remark that tin- 
draught is easier, and they require mucl 
strength of team to do the same, or a far 
better work. 

The excessive friction of the old-fashioned 
bull plough was the great objection to it. 
It was constructed awkwardly enough, in the 
first place, hut the form of the mould-board 
was especially defective, and this it was that 
required such great strength of team. It 
diil pretty fair work, no doubt, on light and 
easy soils, but the share and the mould-board 
were so attached, as to make the wedge to., 
blunt, which, of course, made the friction 
excessive. It broke and crumbled the fur- 
row-slice, in places, and was not calculated 
to turn a flat furrow. But the action of the 
old plough was not uniform, some furrows 
being set too much on the edge, while oth* 
crs were laid quite fiat. It was not its 
weight so much as its form that needed im- 
provement. Its construction not being 
based on such principles as to make it of 
easy draught, it was more difficult to hold, 
more easily thrown out of the ground, and 
required constant watchfulness on the part 
of the ploughman. It was difficull to culti- 
vate to any depth without the help of one 
or two men to ride on the beam to "hold 
down.'' The mould-board was frequently 
shod with iron, as we have seen, to diminish 
the friction and prevent wear; but it was in 
strips, and uneven, and the desired effect 
was not always produced. 

It is not to., much t<> Bay that the eh:.' 
and modifications made in the mould-board 
within the last fifty years, have effected such 
improvements a- to enable the fanner t<> do 
a much greater amount of better work, with 
far less expenditure of strength, and to nap 
larger crops as the result, while the original 
COSt of the implement is less than it former- 
ly was. The saving to the country from 
these improvements alone, within tie 
thirty-five Years, has been estimated at no 

less than $10,000, I a year in the work of 

teams, and $1,000,000 in the coat of ploughs, 
while the aggregate of the crops ha- been 
increased l>\ many millions of bushels. 

These improvements in the form of the 



682 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



mould-board will be understood, when we 
consider that one side of the furrow-slice, as 
soon as it is cut, begins to rise gradually, 
till, as the plough advances, it is turned en- 
tirely over. The mould-board should be so 
constructed as to offer the least possible re- 
sistance as it moves along, and to run as 
far as possible without clogging, to which 
the old plough was especially liable, the 
lines of its mould-board being concave, in- 
stead of convex or straight, according to the 
rules more recently laid down requiring the 
"board to be composed of straight lines in 
the direction of its length, with continually 
increasing angles to the line of the furrow ; 
and these last lines are severally straight, 
convex, and concave." Ransome, after the 
most mature study of this implement, says : 
" Although no one form of mould-board will, 
or can be applicable to every variety of soil 
and circumstance, there is no description of 
soil for which a perfect mould-board may 
not be made by this rule in some of its mod- 
ifications." 

Such was the condition of things with re- 
gard to this, and most other farm imple- 
ments, at the close of the last and beginning 
of the present century, or till within the last 
forty or fifty years. 

The first patent for a cast iron plough in 
this country, is believed to have been that 
of Charles Newbold, of Burlington, N. J., 
in 1797. This patent combined the mould- 
board, share, and land-side, all cast together. 
It was so great and manifest an improvement 
on the old wooden plough, that Peacock, in 
his patent of 1807, paid the original inven- 
tor of the plough of 1797 the sum of $500 
for the privilege of copying some parts of it. 

A cast iron mould-board had been invent- 
ed in Scotland, it is proper to remark, as 
early as 1740, by James Small, but he still 
continued to use the wrought iron share, 
cast iron not being used in its construction 
till 1785. Small established a plough man- 
ufactory in 1 763, and becoming familiar with 
the manufacture of cast iron, not long after- 
ward, he conceived the idea of making pat- 
terns of the principal parts of the plough. 
But whether the American inventor had a 
knowledge of the existence of these ploughs 
is not known. 

Such was the extreme importance of this 
implement, as to command the attention of 
scientific men in studying to improve its 
form and construction, and, in 1798, Thomas 
Jefferson applied himself to the task, and 



wrote a treatise on the form of the mould- 
board, discussing it on scientific principles, 
calculating mathematically its exact form and 
size, and especially its curvature, with a view 
to lessen its friction. I have seen his orig- 
inal manuscript of this essay, containing his 
drawings, etc., now in the possession of a 
gentleman of Boston. Since his time, such 
an amount of scientific and practical skill 
has been brought to bear upon this imple- 
ment, as to leave little to suggest. But it 
should be stated that the successive improve- 
ments were not readily adopted by the mass 
of farmers. Their introduction was far 
slower than that of an improved implement 
would be at the present time, though the 
prejudice against the use of new inventions 
has not yet wholly disappeared. Many a 
farmer, clinging to the old wooden plough, 
asserted that cast iron poisoned the ground, 
and spoilt the crops. Still, the modern 
styles gradually gained ground, as real im- 
provements always will. In one respect we 
have especially improved, and that is the 
adaptation of our ploughs to the different 
kinds of soil on which they are to be used. 
When attention was first directed to the im- 
provement of this implement during the lat- 
ter part of the last century, the principles of 
ploughing were not so well understood as at 
the present day. The work was neither so 
carefully done nor so critically examined, 
and, consequently, the want of different 
forms of the plough adapted to the varieties 
of surface and of soil was not so much felt as 
now, when nearly every farmer sees that he 
cannot produce directly opposite effects with 
the same implement. In another respect, 
also, custom has changed as much as the 
forms of the plough itself, for while a half 
century ago it was made by the blacksmith 
in nearly every small town in the country, 
it is now made in large establishments by 
those who devote themselves exclusively to 
the business, and, these establishments have 
gradually diminished in number, while the 
aggregate number of ploughs has largely in- 
creased. In the single state of Massachu- 
setts, for example, there were, in 1845, no 
less than seventy -three plough manufacto- 
ries, making annually 61,334 ploughs and 
other agricultural implements, while in 1855 
there were but twenty -two plough manufac- 
tories, making 152,686 ploughs, valued at 
$707,175.86. Up to- the year 1875 there 
had been more than one thousand three 
hundred patents issued from the Patent 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



C87 



Office at Washington, for changes and im- 
provements on this implement. 

I need not dwell upon the wonderful per- 
formances of the steam plough, the practical 
and successful operation of which is one of 
the proudest triumphs of modern agricul- 
tural mechanics and engineering. 1 need 
not dwell on the vastly increased facilities it 
will give for developing the resources of the 
west, through whose almost boundless prai- 
ries it will run unobstructed, like a thing of 
life. 

The harrow naturally follows the plough, 
and is equally indispensable. It has, prob- 
ably undergone fewer changes and modifica- 
tions, if we except those made within 
the last ten years, than any other of our 
farm implements, most of the forms of the 
modern harrow in use bearing a close resem- 
blance to those of the ancients, as illustrated 
on medals and sculptures. The old harrow, 
and that used by our fathers till within the 
memory of men still living, was made of 
wood, of simple bars and cross-bars furnish- 
ed with teeth. More recently the material 
used has been of iron, with teeth commonly 
pointed with steel, and this has partly obvi- 
ated the objections made to this implement 
on account of its great weight, which re- 
quired too slow a motion on the part of the 
team. 

A light, sharp-toothed harrow, moved 
quickly over the ground, accomplishes far 
the best w r ork in preparing the soil for the 
reception of seed. So important is it that 
this implement should be rapidly moved, 
that the work of the same implement, drawn 
sluggishly over the ground, or moved more 
rapidly, differs very widely in its results. A 
certain amount of weight is very important, 
it is true, and this weight differs according 
to circumstances ; but it is desirable to have 
it in the most compact form. The recent 
improvements, by which a complete rotatory 
motion is secured, together with a certain 
degree of flexibility gained by pieces of 
framework hinged together so that any part 
of the implement can be lifted or moved 
without disturbing the operation of the rest, 
seem to leave little to desire in respect to 
this important farm implement. This is a 
case, as well as that of the plough, of most 
decided improvement in an implement of 
very ancient date, handed down to us, in 
fact, from remote antiquity. 

As specimens of important labor-saving 
implements of modern invention and con- 



st nietion, we may mention a large clasa 
known as horse boes, grabbers, enftivat 
drills, Beed-sowers, and others of like char- 
acter. The bi ed-eowera and drills scatter 
the seed more uniformly than it could 
sibly be done by hand ; dropping also, when 
it is desired, any concentrated or pulverized 
manure, and covering the rows. All the 
implements named, of which there i- an 
infinite variety of forms, are most ma 
and decided improvements on manna] labor, 
which was required by our forefathers for 
the same processes. 

Another large class of implements, among 
the most important of modern inventions, 
are the various kinds of harvesters, particu- 
larly the reapers and the mowers. 

Many of our grain crops, like wheat, liar- 
ley, and oats, come to maturity at nearly the 

same time. Wheat is liable to BprOUl in 

moist weather, and barley to become dis- 
colored if allowed to stand too long. The 
work of harvesting by the old method was 
necessarily slow and protracted. Previous 
to the introduction of the reaper, ver\ 
quantities of our most valuable grain were 
annually lost, owing to the impossibility of 
harvesting it properly and at the proper 
time. It is not, therefore, too much t" say, 
that the successful introduction of the 
reaper into our grain fields has added many 
millions of dollars to the value of our an- 
nual harvest, not only by enabling ns to 
cure the whole product, hut also by making 
it possible for the farmer to increase the area 
of his cultivated fields, with a certainU of 
being able to gather in his whole crop. 

The sickle, whicb was in common use for 
harvesting the grain crop till the introduc- 
tion of the cradle, and, in fact, till a very 
recent date, was undoubtedly as old as Tubal 
Cain. No one who has had a practical ex- 
perience of its use, bending over in the most 
painful position from "early morn till dewy 
eve," can fail to appreciate the immense sav- 
ing of human muscle, and of slow and 
wearisome hand labor, by the introduction 
and use of the reaper. 

It would have been an astonishing evidence 
of stupidity on the pari of the ancients, who 
relied mainly on wheat and the other smaller 
grains, had they not tried, at least, to replace 

the sickle by something better. This they 
did, for it is recorded thai the Carmen of 
Gaul used a simple reaper, not long after the 
time of Christ. Pliny asserts that the in- 
habitants of that country fixed a serf* 



688 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



knives into the tail-end of a cart, and this 
being propelled through the grain, clipped 
off the ears or heads, and thus it was har- 
vested. 

Many efforts were made in England and 
Scotland, at the beginning of the present 
century, to accomplish the same result, but 
with no great success. In the year 1833, 
Schnebley, of Maryland, obtained a patent on 
a machine for reaping grain ; but that of 
Obed Hussey, of Baltimore, patented in the 
same year, has not only been successfully 
ai d somewhat extensively used from that 
time to this, in the western states, but has 
furnished the basis for the most successful 
models in this country, among the most 
noted of which are those of McCormick, of 
Virginia, and Manny & Atkins, of Illinois. 

The American reaping machines have been 
brought to a high state of perfection within 
the last twenty years. They have already a 
world-wide reputation. Their superiority 
is generally acknowledged, and the credit 
of having for the first time made the prin- 
ciples applicable to such machinery prac- 
tically useful, undoubtedly belongs to our 
own ingenious mechanics. In the summer 
of 1855, the American machines were 
brought to trial at the exhibition at Paris, in 
competition with the world. 

This trial took place in a field of oats 
about forty miles from the city, each ma- 
chine having about one acre to cut. Three 
machines were entered for the first trial, one 
American, one English, and a third from 
Algiers, all at the same time raking as well 
as cutting. The American machine did its 
work in twenty-two minutes, the English in 
sixty-six, and the Algerian in seventy-two. 
At a subsequent trial on the same piece, 
when three other machines were entered, of 
American, English, and French manufacture, 
respectively, the American machine cut its 
acre in twenty-two minutes, while the two 
others failed. The successful competitor on 
this occasion, " did its work in the most ex- 
quisite manner," says a French journal, 
" not leaving a single stalk ungathered, and 
it discharged the grain in the most perfect 
shape, as if placed by hand, for the binders. 
It finished its piece most gloriously." 

The contest was finally narrowed down to 
three machines, all American. Two ma- 
chines were afterward converted from reap- 
ers into mowers, one making the change in 
one minute, the other in twenty. Both 
performed their task to the astonishment 



'and satisfaction of a large concourse of spec- 
tators, and the judges themselves could not 
restrain their enthusiasm, but cried out 
" Good, good, well done," while the people 
hurrahed for the American reaper, crying 
out, " That's the machine, that's the ma- 
chine !" " All the laurels," says the report 
of a French agricultural journal, " we are 
free to confess, have been gloriously won by 
Americans, and this achievement cannot be 
looked upon with indifference, as it plainly 
foreshadows the ultimate destiny of the new 
world !" 

And so with the mowing machines. The 
hay crop of the country is estimated at 
three hundred and fifty millions of dollars a 
year. It must be gathered at a season when 
labor is to be obtained with difficulty, and 
at even higher than the usual price of 
wages, and when the weather is often fickle 
and precarious, generally oppressively hot, 
making the task doubly irksome and un- 
healthy. But besides this, many acres of 
grass on our ordinary farms ripen at about 
the same time, which, if allowed to stand too 
long, will decrease in quantity and value of 
hay which might otherwise have been made 
from it. By the use of the mowing machine 
it can be secured and saved most quickly, 
easily, and cheaply. 

Mowing is, at best, one of the severest of 
the labors of the farm, notwithstanding the 
efforts of poets and other writers to make us 
believe it is all fun. It calls into play 
nearly every voluntary muscle in the body, 
requiring not only the more frequent and 
regular movements of these muscles, but, cm 
account of the twisting motion of the body, 
an unusually great exertion of muscular 
power. Nor does it require any small 
amount of skill to become a good mower, 
since it is proverbial that, unless the boy 
becomes accustomed to the scythe, and 
learns while young, he can never become a 
skilful mower. It is not at all surprising, 
therefore, that mechanical ingenuity should 
have been directed to shorten and lighten 
this severe operation. 

The first mowing machine which met 
with any success in this country, is believed 
to have been that of William Manning, of New 
Jersey, patented in 1831, and which met 
with a limited success more than twenty 
years ago. In 1834 appeared the Ambler 
patent, simple in its construction, with a 
cutter bar of wrought iron, and a single 
smooth-edged knife, operated by means of a 




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AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED - 






crank -which gave it a vibratory motion. It 
was used in 1835 and 183G. A few other 
efforts were made about that time, and met 
with some slight success, but it was not till 
a recent date that the machine was con- 
structed in a manner to give a confident 
iiope of its ultimate and complete success. 
That hope has been fully realized, and the 
mower is one of the grandest agricultural 
inventions of modern times. Like all other 
inventions, it was adopted by the farmer 
with his usual caution, but its triumph has 
been so complete, that its utility and its 
economy are almost universally admitted, 
and the number manufactured, and the sales 
to farmers, have been immense, and are even 
now rapidly increasing every year. As an 
evidence of this, McCormick is reported to 
have sold no less than four thousand of his 
reapers to the farmers around Chicago, for 
the single harvest of 1860, and other manu- 
facturers have no doubt met with similar 
encouragement. 

Contrast also the slow process of raking 
hay by the common hand rake, with the 
rapid and easy method of gathering it with 
the horse rake, accomplishing with great ease 
to a single man who drives, the labor of at 
least ten men with the old hand rake. 
With a common revolving rake, from twenty 
to twenty-five acres a day may be gathered 
up, and sixteen acres a day have been raked 
with the simplest form. What a security on 
the approach of a storm, when the farmer 
would be comparatively helpless with nothing 
but the common rake to rely on ! 

But what shall we say of the modern 
threshing machine as compared with the 
flail ? Who does not well remember its 
familiar sound, and that beautiful description 
of Cowper — 

" Thump after thump resounds the constant flail, 
That seems to swing uncertain, and yet falls 
Full on the destined ear"? 

Only think of the difference in the results. 
At the trial of threshing-machines at the 
Taris exhibition, the victory was won by an 
American machine, and during the opera- 
tion, to ascertain the comparative rapidity 
of threshing, six men were engaged in 
threshing with flails, who in one hour 
threshed sixty litres of wheat. In the same 
time 

Titt's American machine threshed 740 litres, 
Clayton's hlnglisb " " 410 ' 

Duvoir's French " " 250 ' 

Pinet's " " •' 150 " 



and a French journal, in Bpeaking of the 

trial, said: '• This American machine liter- 
ally devoured the sheaves of wheat The 
eye cannot follow the work whir], i. , 
e.l between the entrance of the sheaves and 
the end of the operation. It is one of the 
greatest results whirl, it i„ possible I 
tain. The impression which this 
produced on the Arab chiefs was profound." 

At the great fair in New York, in I 
a machine was exhibited which DOl only 
threshed and winnowed the wheat, bul i 
ured it, placed it in bags read; forthe market, 

and recorded accurately the number of bush- 
els, and all by one continuous operation. 

These vast and acknowledged improve- 
ments in harvesting and threshing -rain will 
be seen to be of the utmost import 
when it is considered that we annually raise 
about two hundred millions of bushels of 
wheat, and of rye, barley, and oat- over one 
hundred millions, and that the resourct 
the country may be developed, by the me 
of machinery, to an extent far beyond the 
reach of present calculation. 

The reaper, the thresher, and the mower 
are tvpes of the ever restless and progi 
ive spirit of the age. They point out to us 
a glorious future, in which they will accom- 
plish for us and for our country triumphs 
grander than the triumphs of arms, for they 
will develop the means of supporting the 
millions of human beings which the imple- 
ments of war can only destroy. 

Could the learned Malthus — who proclaim- 
ed the gloomy theory that war, famine, and 
pestilence were cheeks, designed by an all- 
wise Being to keep down the increase "t" 
population to a level with the means <<( sus- 
tenance — now rise up from his sleep of death 
and see the population of England more 
than doubled since his day, and that t<( this 
country multiplied many times, while the 
people" arc better fed. and better clothed, 

with less labor and less Buffering, with the 

possibility of a famine wholly and for 

removed, lie might change his shameful 
doctrine, and adopt a more cheerful and 
hopeful view of the providence "( God. 
With an immense multiplication of the hu- 
man species in all civilized countries which 
have been devoted to the arts . f peace and 

the development of their material resource*, 
a bountiful Father has senl us a superabun- 
dance of food, instead of famine, and 
taught u- t<> rely on the exhaustion bounty 
ofthe fruitful earth, and upon hi- beneficent 



694 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



promise that seed time and harvest shall 
never fail to supply the daily wants of his 
children. 

But with all the progress which we have 
made in improving the implements of the 
farm, we have not reached perfection. No 
bound is set to human ingenuity, and further 
means may yet be devised to shorten labor 
and increase the products of the soil. 

We cannot hope, nor is it desirable, to 
avoid labor. This is not the object of im- 
proved machinery ; but to make labor more 
attractive, agreeable, and productive ; to 
bring into subjection the rude forces of 
nature, and make them do our bidding and 
increase our stores ; to redeem thousands of 
acres now lying Avaste from wildness and des- 
olation, and to make our country the gran- 
ary of the world — these are triumphs we 
may hope to gain from the introduction and 
use of improved machinery, and in this view 
the subject commends itself to the attention 
of the highest intellect, and opens a field for 
the labors of the noblest philanthropy. 

PROGRESS IN THE RAISING OF STOCK. 

Allusion has already been made, incident- 
ally, to the character of the cattle from which 
the early importations into this country 
must, for the most part, have been drawn. 

The first animals that arrived in any part 
of the present territory of the United States 
were probably those taken to the colony on 
the James river, in Virginia, previous to the 
year 1609, the exact date of their arrival 
not being known. Several cows are known 
to have been carried there in 1610, and dur- 
ing the following year, 1611, no less than 
one hundred head arrived there from abroad. 

It is probable that those first introduced 
there were brought over by the earliest ad- 
venturers, and others came from the West 
Indies. It is well known that some of their 
cattle came from Ireland. Those from the 
West Indies were the descendants of cattle 
brought to America by Columbus in his 
second voyage, in 1493. I have seen it as- 
serted that so important was it considered 
that the cattle introduced into the infant 
colony should be preserved and allowed to 
increase, that an order was issued forbidding 
the killing of domestic animals of any kind, 
on pain of death to the principal, burning 
of the hand and cropping the ears of the 
accessory, and a sound whipping of twenty- 
four hours for the concealer of a knowledge 
of the facts. Such encouragement being 



given to the raising of stock, it is not sur- 
prising to find the number of cattle in Vir- 
ginia in 1620 amounting to about five hun- 
dred head; and in 1639, to thirty thousand ; 
while from the fact that in 1648 the number 
had been reduced to twenty thousand, we 
may infer that the restrictions on killing 
them had been removed. Many also had 
been sent to New England. 

The first cattle that were introduced into 
the Plymouth colony, and undoubtedly the 
earliest brought into New England, arrived 
at Plymouth, in the ship Charity, in 1624. 
They were imported by Governor Winslow 
for the colony, and consisted of three heifers 
and a bull. A division of the stock, which 
appears to have been held in common, was 
made in 1627, when one or two are described 
as black, black and white, others brindle ; an 
evidence that there was no uniformity of 
color. These animals were to remain in the 
hands of individuals receiving them for ten 
years, they to have the produce, while the 
old stock was still to be owned by the col- 
ony in common. Twelve cows were sent to 
Cape Ann in 1626, and in 1629 thirty more, 
while in 1630 a u out a hundred animals were 
imported for the "governor and company 
of the Massachusetts Bay in New England." 
These cattle were kept at Salem. 

In the meantime, the first importation 
was made into New York from Holland by 
the Dutch West India Company, and the 
foundation laid for a valuable race of ani- 
mals. The number in all introduced was 
one hundred and three, consisting of horses 
and cattle for breeding. The company fur- 
nished each tenant with four cows, four 
horses, some sheep and pigs, for the term of 
six years, when the number of animals re- 
ceived was to be returned, their increase 
being left in the hands of each farmer. 
Then the cattle belonging to the company 
were distributed among those who were un- 
able to buy stock. 

And so, for the settlements along the 
Delaware, cattle were introduced by the 
Swedish West India Company in 1627. It 
will be seen, therefore, that before the close 
of the year 1630, the number of horned 
cattle in all the colonies must have risen, 
by natural increase and by the importations 
above named, to several thousands. 

And then, in 1631, 1632, and 1633, sev- 
eral importations were made into what u 
now New Hampshire, by Captain John 
Mason, who, with Gorges, procured the 




THRESH INC 



| ENGINES. MANUFACTURED BY AMES [RON WORKS, OSWEGO S S 



AGRICULlUKK IN THE UNITED STAII-. 









patent of large tracts of land in the vicinity 
ofPiscataqua river, and immediately formed 
settlements there. The prime object of 
Mason was to carry on the manufacture of 
potash, and for this purpose he employed 
the Danes ; and it was in his voyages to and 
from Denmark that he procured many Dan- 
ish cattle, chiefly for the purposes of draught. 
They -were, undoubtedly, considerably larger 
than the average of the cattle of England at 
that day, of a uniformly light yellow color, 
and made very fine oxen for labor. They 
soon became widely diffused over the whole 
region, and are said to have remained, with 
a great degree of purity of blood, or little 
intermixture, down to the year 1 820. Traces 
of them can be found even at the present 
day. They were, no doubt, large and coarse 
animals, and well adapted to endure the 
severity of the climate and the hardships to 
which they were subjected in the lumbering 
operations of that new colony. They, un- 
questionably, did much to lay the foundation 
of the "native" stock of New England, over 
which they spread in the course of a very 
few years, and became mixed with the cattle 
imported into Salem and Plymouth, and 
probably, to some extent, with the Dutch 
cattle already alluded to; perhaps, also, with 
the black cattle of Spain and Wales, and 
subsequently with the long-horns and the 
short-horns, most or all of which crosses 
were accidental, or the result of individual 
convenience or other local circumstances. 
From them the working oxen of New Eng- 
land derive much of their character and 
reputation for strength, hardihood, quick- 
ness, and docility. 

Now we find the sources from which the 
native cattle of this country sprang. The 
early importations into Virginia were origi- 
nally derived, mainly, probably, from Eng- 
land ; some were from the black cattle of 
Spain, though the importation of Kill 
probably came from England; the cattle of 
the Plymouth colony came from the coast 
of Devonshire; those brought into New 
York from the island of Texel, on the coast 
of Holland, and were mostly, without doubt, 
the black and white Dutch cattle; those on 
the Delaware were brought from Sweden ; 
those in New Hampshire were the large, 
yellow Danish cattle; and as the earlier im- 
portations were the most extensive that 
were made for many years, these various 
Stocks were crossed, and thus formed the 
sriffinal stock of the country. 



There is sufficient evidence to show that 
they were interchanged between the colo- 
nies to Bome extent, at an early dai 
of the Virginia cattle were eat 
New England, while others found their way 
t<> Virginia through Pennsylvania, so that 
the mixture was great ;uil i' bievital ■ . < >( 
the mode of keeping cattle in the Virginia 
colony, Glover, a cotemporary, in the i 
torical Register, says : - All the inhabit 

give their cattle in w inter is only the I 

of their Indian corn, unless it be some of 

them that have a little ir/,,nt strain, neither 
do they give them any more of these than 

will serve to keep them alive; bj n 
whereof they venture int.. the marsh) gronnda 

and swamps for food, where \.rv man 

lost." And Clayton, another equally high 

authority, says, "that they neither ho 
nor milked their COWS in winter, having a 
notion that it would kill them." And still 

another, a Swedish traveller, Kalm, more 

recently, 1749, in Bpeaking of the .lames 
river colony, say> : "They ma! 
any manure for their corn fields, hut when 
one piece of ground has heen exhausted by 

continual cropping, they clear and cultivate 
another piece of fresh land, and when that 

is exhausted proceed t.> a third. Their cat- 
tle are allowed to wander through the 
w (mxIs and uncultivated grounds, w her.- they 

are half starved, having long ago extirpate. 1 

almost all the annual grasses DJ cropping 
them too early in the spring, before they 
had time to form their tlow.rs or t.> shed 

their seeds.'' The poorness of past! 

and want of food had caused the catt 
diminish in si/.c from one generatioi 

another, till they had become stunted and 
small, and were not improperly termed "lit- 
tle runts," or "native-." 

In color, the natives, as already indicated, 

are exceedinglj various. Crosses of the Den- 
marks With the Spanish and Welsh would 
naturally have made a dark brindl.-; a 
of the Denmarksand the Devons often made 
a lighter or yellowish brindle ; while the 

more recent importations of Jerseys and 

short-horns have generally produced ■ beau- 
tifully spotted progeny. The prejudice in 

favor of deep red, which was long th< 

vorite c.lor of New England, i> fai 
w.i\ to more variegated colors. 
in the year 1653, some Portug 

taken cattle to Newfoundland and \ I 
Scotia, while in 1604, a frenchman had in- 
troduced the small French cattle ml 



696 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



from whence, in 1608, they were carried to 
Canada, and from there several animals were 
taken into what is now known as the 
"American Bottom," in Illinois, in 1682, 
where they increased rapidly. The first 
cattle imported into Carolina were obtained 
in England in 1670, and we find that the 
Indians on the Red River in Louisiana had 
cattle as early as 1690. The first importa- 
tion into Georgia was made, so far as we 
are informed, in 1732, followed by others in 
1735. 

In 1750 the keeping of stock had assumed 
some importance in certain localities, par- 
ticularly in the older eastern settlements, 
where it had become comparatively safe 
from molestation, for it is known that some 
large farmers in Rhode Island kept as many 
as one hundred cows and upward, and the 
sale of thirteen thousand pounds of cheese 
from one farm is recorded, and in one case 
seventy-three cows produced ten thousand 
pounds of butter in five months, or an aver- 
age of very nearly a pound a day to a cow, 
which, for that length of time, must be re- 
garded as a good yield. 

It will be borne in mind that up to this 
time, and in fact for nearly half a century 
later, no well-directed efforts at improve- 
ment had been made even in England ; but 
at that time some localities there possessed 
classes or races of animals peculiar to them- 
selves, whose merits had begun to attract 
attention, though there was no general in- 
terest in the subject before the days of 
Bakewell, who " sat in the huge chimney 
corner of a log kitchen, hung round with 
the finest joints of his dried oxen, preserved 
as specimens of proportions ; a tall, stout, 
broad-shouldered man, of brown, red com- 
plexion, clad in a brown, loose coat and 
scarlet waistcoat, leather breeches, and top 
boots," and demonstrated what could be 
done by attention to true physiological laws 
in the breeding of cattle. The choice of 
breeds and obtaining good crosses were 
nowhere thought of previous to his time. 
In fact, before the cultivation of the natural 
and artificial grasses and the introduction of 
the turnip and other root crops, the farmer 
had comparatively little control over the 
frames of his cattle. lie was obliged to 
give them such food as he had, or rather 
they were obliged to take such as they 
could get, which, on a vast majority of the 
farms, both of England and the American 
provinces, at that time, was what would 



now be considered pretty hard fare. Hard 
seasons and the want of winter feeding and 
shelter were obstacles vastly more difficult 
to overcome then than now. 

Those who should, " during the space of 
one year, keep the greatest weight of horned 
cattle," got the premiums ottered by the 
London Society of Arts, rather than those 
who should exhibit the greatest degree of 
improvement in their animals. But with 
the increase and abundance of good food, 
the tide of improvement set in, and size 
began to be the grand aim of the earlier 
graziers, and the production of enormous 
monstrosities was the result. Now Bake- 
well, a man of remarkable sagacity and close 
observation, steps in and establishes a new 
system of animal development. With him 
mere size was no object. He wanted to 
build up a breed which should give the 
greatest amount of saleable beef for the 
amount of food consumed, having the best 
parts bearing a larger proportion to the 
offal than what was usually found. Small- 
ness of bone, and tendency to fatten and 
mature early, he thought indispensable in 
cattle bred for the shambles. Up to his 
day, both in England and America, it had 
been customary to keep oxen till they were 
seven or eight years old, before they were 
fatted for the butcher. He travelled over 
England, Ireland, and Holland to find ani- 
mals adapted to his purposes. " The old 
notion was," says Arthur Young, "that where 
you had large bones there was plenty of 
room to lay the flesh on. This, Mr. Bake 
well has proved to be a mistake. He assorts 
the smaller the bones, the truer will be the 
make of the beast, the quicker she will 
fatten, and her weight will have a larger 
proportion of valuable meat." The greatest 
physiologists have shown, upon the highest 
scientific principles, that the formation of a 
large bony system is the result of defective 
nutrition. 

Other breeders, stimulated in part by 
Bakewell's efforts, and the wide and honora- 
ble reputation he achieved, immediately en- 
tered the field of competition, and Chaplin 
became the champion of the Lincolnshire 
sheep, as Bakewell of the Leicester's ; and the 
brothers Charles and Robert Colling direct- 
ed their efforts to improving the short-horns, 
as Bakewell the long-horns; while the Duke 
of Bedford, Quartly, and others, not to be 
outdone, espoused the claims of the Devons, 
and Benjamin Tomkins those of the Here- 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATER. 



697 



fords. So successful were these enterprising 
breeders, both in preserving purity 01 blood 
in their stock, and in extending the reputa- 
tion of their several herds, that at Charles 
Colling's sale on the 11th of October, 
1S10, Comet was bid off at 1,000 guineas, 
or $5,000, and many other animals about 
as high in proportion; the forty-eight head 
sold, including considerable young stock, 
bringing no less than $35,579. The cow 
Lily, sired by Comet, brought 410 guineas, 
or $2,050; the bull Petrarch, also by 
Comet, sold for 365 guineas, or $1,825, and 
the calf Cecil for 130 guineas, or $650. 
There were seventeen cows, eleven hulls, 
seven bull calves, seven heifers, and five 
heifer calves, for which this successful breeder 
received an average of $741 a head. That 
sale, and that of Robert Colling in 1818, 
that of Lord Spencer in 1846, that of the 
Bates, or Kirkleavington herd in 1850, that 
of Lord Ducie two years later, and some 
still more recent and extensive sales, are the 
marked eras in the history of the short-horns 
in England, and it was through these sales, 
and the universal enthusiasm awakened by 
them, that the short-horns have become more 
widely spread over Great Britain, and more 
generally fashionable than any other breed. 

Tomkins began with the Herefords in 
a small way about the year 1766, and at his 
decease in 1819, his whole herd, consisting 
of fifty-two animals, including twenty-two 
steers, and varying in age from calves to 
two-year-olds and upward, was sold at auc- 
tion, and brought an aggregate of $23,368, 
or over $445 a head ; one bull sold to Lord 
Talbot for $2,943, while several cows brought 
from $1,000 to $1,200 a head. 

Both these breeds are celebrated for early 
inatm ity. Either of them may be prepared 
for market at two or three years of age, far 
better than the old style of cattle could be 
at five, six, and seven years, and be of nearly 
equr.l weights. I have mentioned these facts 
to show how it was that the average weight 
o cattle sold in the Smithfield market in- 
creased from 370 pounds in 1710, to over 
800 pounds at the present time. A Belecl 
committee of the House of Commons, in a 
report printed in 1795, after a full investiga- 
tion, stated that since the year 1732, their 
neat cattle had, on an average, increased in 
weight and size at least one-fourth, or 
twenty-five per cent., which would fix tin- 
average weight in 1795 at about 462 pounds. 
The average age had formerly been over five 



years, in 1830, owing, in a large me* 
t<> the enthusiasm which had bee, 
commencing first by the efforts of indi' 
viduals, and radiating nut through the com- 
munity ill every , li|Vrt i, ,||, tile a\ . 

weight had increased to 656 pounds, an in- 
crease, in twenty-five years, of more than 
forty per cent in weight, while the average 
age had been reduced to tour year- instead 
of five. What a contrast ! A. saving of one 
whole year's consumption of forage, and an 
increase of forty per cent, in the profil 

results, in the course of a quarter of a cen- 
tury ! But since then the averag 

been still further reduced, and the av 
weight a good deal increased. 

Such being tlie striking results in England, 
it is not surprising that when an interest 
was awakened in the improvement of our 

agriculture, a desire w as felt by inteh _ 

breeders to avail themselves '■(' the advan- 
tages which had already been gained abroad. 
Importations began, and a more systematic 
course of breeding was adopted : at first, by 
a very limited number of enterprising far- 
mers, till, within the last twenty years, that 
number has rapidly increased, and the re- 
sults have become more marked and percep- 
tible. 

It may be remarked in passing, that two 
modes of improvement were open to the 
farmer and breeder, either of which, appar- 
ently, promised good results. The tir>t 
was to select from among our native cattle 
the most perfect animals not known or sus- 
pected to belong or t<> be related to at \ I f 

the well-established breeds, and to use them 
as breeders. This mode of improvement is 
simple enough if adopted and carried on 
with animals of any known race or I 
and, indeed, it is the only course of imp 

ment which preserves the puritj of hi I. 

This was chiefly the course adopted in i 
land by Bakewell with the Ions-horns, by 

the < Soilings and others with the short horns, 

by Tomkins, Price, and others, with the 
Herefords, and by the Duke of Bedford and 
others with the Devons. Bad the) resorted 

to any other, they would have run the risk 
of a total failure and ruin >>( those valuable 
races. Their object was not to build op a 
new breed by crossing, bo much a- to im- 
prove and perfect the races, already valuable, 
which were to he found in particular localities 

or counties, which gave them their name. 

But our circumstances were eiitireh dif- 
ferent. We had no race and no breed of 



693 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



cattle among us. The term race, properly 
understood, applies only to animals of the 
same species, possessing, besides the general 
characteristics of that species, other charac- 
teristics, which they owe to the influence of 
soil, climate, nourishment, and habits of life 
to which they have long been subjected by 
man, and which they transmit with certainty 
to their progeny, and it is essential that they 
should have possessed these characteristics 
from a time to which " the memory of man 
runneth not to the contrary." The term 
breed, on the other hand, applies to a family 
of animals built up by a long series of care- 
ful breeding, till certain desired character- 
istics become fixed, capable, and sure of 
being transmitted. As might be supposed, 
the characteristics and peculiarities of races 
are more inherent, more fixed and strongly 
marked than those of families, or breeds 
built up artificially. But in general the 
characteristics of both races and breeds 
are so permanent, and so well marked, that 
if an individual supposed to belong to any 
one of them were to produce an offspring 
not possessing them or possessing them only 
in part, with others not belonging to the 
race or breed, it would be just ground for 
suspecting a want of purity of blood. 

This being the acknowledged, and only 

f>roper sense and use of these terms, it fol- 
ows that no grade animals, and no animals 
not possessing fixed peculiarities or charac- 
teristics which they share with all other ani- 
mals of the class of which they are a type, 
and which they are capable of transmitting 
with certainty to their descendants, can be 
recognized by breeders as belonging to any 
one distinct race, breed, or family. 

The term " native," or " scrub," is applied 
to a vast majority of our American cattle, 
which, though born on the soil, and thus in 
one sense natives, do not constitute a breed, 
race, or family. They do not possess char- 
acteristics peculiar to them all, which they 
transmit with any certainty to their off- 
spring, either of form, size, color, milking, or 
working properties. It does not follow, to 
be sure, that because an animal is made up 
of a mixture of blood, almost to infinity, he 
may not be, as an individual animal, and for 
specific purposes, one of the best of the spe- 
cies ; and for particular purposes individual 
animals might be selected from among those 
commonly called "natives" in New England, 
and "scrubs" at the south and west.equal, and 
perhaps superior, to any among the families 



produced by the most skilful breeding, not- 
withstanding the fact that they have sprung 
from a great variety of cattle procured at 
different times on the continent of Europe, 
in England, and in the Spanish West Indies, 
brought together without any regard to fixed 
principles of breeding, but from individual 
convenience, and by accident ; but it is true 
that our native cattle possess neither the size, 
the symmetry, nor the early maturity of tho 
short-horns ; they do not, as a general thing, 
possess the fineness of bone, the beauty of 
form and color, nor the activity of the Dev- 
ons or the Herefords; nor do they possess 
that uniform goodness and quantity of milk 
of the Ayrshires, nor the surpassing richness 
of milk of the Jerseys ; but above all they do 
not possess the power of transmitting the 
many good qualities, which they often pos- 
sess in an extraordinary degree, to their off- 
spring, which is a characteristic of all well- 
established breeds. 

Now, to build up a breed, or family, on 
such a foundation, in the mode already indi- 
cated, requires great experience in selection, 
a quick and sure eye, and judgment of the 
true points in stock, a mind eminently un- 
prejudiced, and a patience and perseverance 
perfectly indefatigable and untiring. It is 
absolutely necessary, also, to pay special at- 
tention to the calves thus produced — to fur- 
nish them at all times, summer and winter, 
with an abundant supply of nutritious food, 
and to regulate it according to their growth. 

Few men could be found either capable or 
willing to undertake the herculean task of 
building up a new breed in that way from 
grade stock. A prominent and almost insu- 
perable objection would meet them at the 
very outset, that it would require a long se- 
ries of years — longer than the natural life 
of most men — to arrive at any very satisfac- 
tory results, from the fact that no two ani- 
mals, made up, as our " native" cattle are, of 
such a variety of elements and crosses, could 
be found sufficiently alike to produce their 
kind. The principle that like produces like 
is perfectly true, and in the well-known 
breeds it is not difficult to find two animals 
that will be sure to transmit their own char- 
acteristics to their offspring; but with two 
animals which cannot be classed with any 
breed, the defects of an ill-bred ancestry will 
be liable to appear through several genera- 
tions to thwart and disappoint the expecta- 
tions of the breeder. 

The second method is more feasible, and 



AGRICULTURE IX THE UNITED 8TATE8. 



890 



that is, to select animals from races already 
improved and Well-nigh perfected, to cross 
With our cattle, selecting such animals from 
the well-established breeds as arc best calcu- 
lated for the special purposes for which we 
want them. If our object is to improve 
stock for the dairy, taking such only as be- 
long to a race distinguished for dairy qual- 
ities ; or, if resort must be had to other 
breeds less remarkable for such qualities, 
such only as have descended from large and 
generous milkers. We ought to be able to 
rely with some confidence upon getting the 
qualities which we seek. Milking or dairy 
qualities do not belong to any one breed or 
race exclusively, though, as they depend 
mainly on structure and temperament, which 
are hereditary to a considerable extent, they 
are, themselves, transmissible. In almost 
every breed we can find individual milkers 
which greatly surpass the average of the 
cows of the same family, and from such, 
many suppose good crosses may be expected 
without much regard to other circumstances. 
It is not accidental good qualities that we 
want, so much as those which are surely 
transmissible. We do not want to breed 
from an animal — a cow for instance — that is 
an exception to the rule of her race or fam- 
ily. A good calf from her would be, to a 
great extent, the result of chance. We 
cannot expect nature to go out of her course, 
to give us a good animal, if we violate her 
known laws as developed by our knowledge 
of physiological structure. 

Such are a few of the considerations 
which, no doubt, led the early importers of 
the modern improved foreign stock to make 
an effort on our native and grade cattle. 
What has been the result ? It can be clearly 
shown that there has been a large increase 
in the number of the cattle of the country. 
Of that there could, of course, be no ques- 
tion, since this increase would naturally fol- 
low from an addition of new territory and 
the more perfect development of the agricul- 
tural resources of the country. But I think 
:t can be clearly shown, also, that there has 
been a positive improvement in the intrinsic 
qualities of the common stock of the coun- 
try as a whole. I am far from detracting 
from the merits of our native cattle. They 
are far better than could have been expected 
from the loose manner in which they were 
"made up." Many of them have great 
merit, and individual animals are to be found 
among them, as already remarked, which 



would be hard to brat by an\ pan bred an- 
imals. As working oxen, the native cattle 
of New England arc nnrarpaesed bj ai 
the known world, and tbey have the repot* 
tion of being bo, both in other part- or thin 
country and in Europe, where tic- 
arc known. But they have their di 
and it is useless to blind OUT CV"- to lie in. 

I expect, therefore, to be ahle to show 
that some actual progress bai been effected 
upon the common Btock of the country. 

But to what is this progress owing! la it 

merely that which is due to better ke. j.ii 1Lr , 
both summer and winter? I have already 
intimated that the treatment the cat: 
the country received during the mod of the 
last century was far from being calculated 
to improve them, scarcely, even, t.> l< p 
them on foot. Even so late as Is 11,. Mr. 

Colman asserted that the general treatment 
of cows at that time, in New England, Would 
not be an inapt subject of presentment by a 
grand jury. I was cognizant of the manner 
in which the stock was kept in many a coun- 
try town at that time, and I am Btrongly in- 
clined to agree with him; and, judging from 
the well-known anxietv of those who I 
milch cows now for premiums at the fail 
show r that their yield has been en- in 
and that they have lived npon little or noth- 
ing, one would suppose their keeping was 
not much improved, even vet. 

But, as compared with the last century 
and the earlier part of this, there has been a 
vast improvement in the shelter, mode of 
feeding, and the general treatment, and this 
lias, of course, had its effect in increasing 
their milking qualities and their appear) 
}'>ut, apart from this, there can be little 
doubt, I think, that there has been a positive 
improvement in our stock as a whole; that 

is, the general average of the stock of N 

England is better than it was forty or fifty 
years ago. There were individual an 
then, among the native or common stock of 
the country, whose yield of milk was quite 
remarkable, and would be, at the present 
day, and among the best stock of the pi • 
time; but we cannot, and ought not to rea- 
son from individuals, but from the general 
average stock <'i' the country. 

These remarks have special refereiic 
the stock kept in the eastern and older 
sections of the Country- tic-.' paiti where 
the herds are small, and kept not so much 

for raising for beef aa for their other prod- 
ucts, as milk, butter, cheese, and labor. 



700 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



In the great west, where cattle are reared 
for the Eastern and European markets, and 
early maturity and easy fattening are of 
prime importance, there has been a most 
gratifying advance m the intrinsic qualities 
of the stock. Every car load of these 
splendid cattle from Kentucky, Indiana, 
Illinois, and the states on the plains, demon- 
strates this most conclusively. Compare 
them with the cattle formerly brought from 
the west, and still raised in some of the 
Eastern States, and mark the contrast. 
Our cattle are now shipped to England for 
slaughter in large numbers, and immense 
quantities of fresh beef are exported which 
comes directly m competition with the best 
English beef, and is preferred to it. Our 
exports of fresh beef and beef on the hoof, 
in 1880, were nearly $21,000,000. 

In 1880, there were 33,258,000 head of 
cattle in the United States, of which 12,- 
027,000 were milch cows, and 21,231,000 
other cattle, including working oxen and 
cattle raised for market or slaughter; and 
the latter were increasing at a very rapid 
rate. The estimated value of the horned cat- 
tle was $621,060,574. In the same year the 
number of sheep was estimated at 48,765,- 
900, and their value at more than $105,- 
000,000. There were 34,034,000 swine, 
valued at $145,781,515, 11,201,800 horses, 
valued at $613,296,611, and 1,729,500 
mules, worth $105,948,319, making a 
grand total of value of live stock of about 
1,591 millions of dollars. Now if by the 
keeping of better stock we add to their 
value and the profit derived from them, 
without increasing' the cost, we make, of 
course an absolute gain on the receipts 
from the same amount of capital invested. 
A distinguished breeder places this in a 
clear light as follows- "Suppose that the 
thirty -three millions of neat cattle now in 
the United States, by the infusion of better 
breeds among them generally, should, m 
their earlier maturity and increased pro- 
duct of milk and flesh, with an equal con- 
sumption of food, and by a moderately 
increased amount of care, produce an ad- 
ditional profit of one-fifth, or only twenty 
per cent. — certainly a moderate estimate 
—the annual value of such improvement 
will be that which is derived from an ad- 
ditional invested capital of sixty millions 
of dollars; a vast sum in the aggregate of 
our agricultural wealth." 

But to return to the importation of 



modern improved stock from abroad fur the 
specific purpose of improving the stock of 
this country. In the year 1783, three gen- 
tlemen of Baltimore — Messrs. Goff, Ringold, 
and Patton — sent to England for superior 
cattle; and, in 1785, a bull from this impor- 
tation was taken to Kentucky, followed, not 
long after, by another lot of the same im- 
portation. A half-breed bull was taken to 
the same section about the year 1804, and 
is said to have greatly improved the stock 
of that state. Some of the cattle of that 
early importation were commonly called the 
" milk breed," and others the " beef breed." 
For a long time they went by the name of 
the " Patton stock." The beef breed were, 
probably, long-horns — large, coarse, and 
rough animals, but slow in maturing. The 
others are said to have been short-horns. 
Others were also taken from Virginia to 
Kentucky, but none of them were, probably. 
pure bloods, although the Patton stock 
gained a wide and deserved reputation. 

In 1817, Colonel Sanders, of Kentucky, 
sent for twelve head of the best that could 
be found in England. Six of them were 
short-horns, or Teeswaters. Two of these 
short-horns were also imported for Kentucky 
in 1818. These various importations, com- 
mencing with the first high-bred animals 
taken to the west in 1785, were the pioneers; 
and though the pedigree of some of them 
could not be given, they not only infused 
superior blood into the stock of that region, 
but excited a spirit of emulation among the 
farmers there which had an exceedingly 
salutary effect. There is little doubt that 
some of the best cattle in southern Ohio 
owe their origin to the early imported ani- 
mals of Kentucky. 

A few short-horns were brought into 
Westchester county, New York, as early as 
1792 and 1796. They were kept pure for some 
years, but finally became scattered, leaving 
their descendants in that section to this day. 
Other importations into New York were 
made as early as 1816 and 1822. In July, 
1818, a short-horn bull, widely known as 
" Coelebs," and a heifer, " Flora," were im- 
ported into Massachusetts by Mr. Coolidge, 
and sold, in 1820, to Colonel Samuel Jaqucs, 
of Somerville. From " Coelebs," by select- 
ing superior native cows, Colonel Jaques 
succeeded in raising a fine milking stock, 
long known as the " Creampots." " Flora " 
had fourteen calves between 1819 and 1833, 
ten of which were by " Coelebs." The same 




MILCH OOW. 




SHORT-HORN BOLL. DOT7BLB DUKK 



iiipiim^ 




AGRICULTURE IN TIIK IMTKl) BTATX8. 



ros 



year (1818J, also, Gorham Parsons, of 

Brighton, Massachusetts, imported a pine 
breed short-horn bull, called "Fortunatus," 
or " Holderness," and his descendants were 
widely disseminated through New England. 
Another short-horn bull was brought into 
Massachusetts by Theodore Lyman, of Bos- 
ton, from whence he was shortly after sent 
to Maine; and, in 182"), Mr. W. Pierce, of 
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, imported a 
celebrated short-horn, "Nelson," and the 
cow " Symmetry," the parents of the great 
ox " Americus," so large as to be taken about 
on exhibition, for which purpose he wa& 
afterward taken to England. 

It was also in 1818 that Stephen "Wil- 
liams, of Northboro', Mass., imported the 
famous bull " Young Denton," the sire of 
many very excellent grade animals, the 
heifers proving fine milkers. Many other 
fine short-horns were taken into Massachu- 
setts after the year 1820, but though they 
left some superior grades, they were not ap- 
preciated by the farmers generally, and at- 
tention was gradually directed to other 
breeds. New England, as a whole, is not 
the place for short-horns. They do better 
on more luxuriant pastures. Besides, they 
are not well adapted to the wants of the 
small dairy farmer, especially since the 
modern improvements of this justly cele- 
brated breed have taken all the milk out of 
them. For a region better adapted to rais- 
ing beef, and on naturally rich feed, they 
are unsurpassed for beauty and symmetry of 
form, for size and early maturity, and con- 
sequently for the profits they yield to the 
breeder and the grazier. 

In 1824, Mr. Powell, of Philadelphia, com- 
menced the importation of short-horns, and 
continued to breed them with great enter- 
prise and success for many years. He had 
frequent sales, some of his stock going into 
Kentucky, others to Ohio, and elsewhere. 

But the great impulse given to the im- 
portation of short-horns, was the formation 
of the Ohio Company for Importing English 
Cattle, in 183-1. The sum of $9,200 was 
subscribed in shares of $100 each, and agents 
sent abroad, who returned with nineteen 
head, selected from the herds of celebrated 
breeders, arriving in October of that year. 
They were kept together under the care of 
: m agent, and the number was increased by 
other importations till 1830, when they 
were sold at public auction and scattered 
extensively over Ohio. A dividend of $280 



per share was immediately declared on the 
ninety-two shares, amounting to 
The following year they made anoth i 
tensive importation, which sold rapid h 
well. Immense benefits have resulted from 
these efforts. 

The sketch given above of -'in.' of the 
earlier importations of short-horns, bat 
somewhat extended for the purpose of show- 
ing the gradually increasing and extending 
interest and enterprise in breeding, but since 
1840, importations of this magnificent breed 
have so far multiplied, that it would !«■ out 
of place to attempt to follow them. Tie- 
cream of the finest and most C< l( : 
herds in England has been taken t.. this 
country, without regard to cost. Fab 
prices have been asked, and live ail 
thousand dollars for a single animal have, in 
some eases, Keen paid, to which was added 
the cost of transportation. So successful, 
indeed, have the more recent efforts 
that England has sent over Inn- to buy 
short-horns from us; and so admirabh a. I 
to stock raising is the climate of Kentucky, 
that this tine breed has been improved there 

to such an extent, that very few of th( 
150 cows selected from among the !•' -t in 
England, could win the prizes from I 
born and bred on our native soil. 

These superior animals are not ail held in 
the hands of a few. They arc within 
the reach of thrifty farmers, who are now 
awako to the profit of raising cattle that 
will make as much beef at t\\" it three 
years old, as a native at double thai 

It is proper to refer very briefly to the 
efforts made at various times t,. introduce 
and experiment with the other well-estab- 
lished English breeds, and the Buccess which 
has attended these efforts. 

In 1817, the Hon. Henry Clay, 
tucky, made an attempt t" introduce the 
Hereforda into that state, by the pun 

of two hulls and two bpifl «, at a COSt "f 

£105, or about $500. This was the first 
well authenticated importation of this : 
of any note. The Herd'..!.!- the 

class of middle-horned cattle, and were in- 
digenous to certain district of England, 
where the] were known as far back a- tra- 
dition extends. They have nnderg 
siderablo changes within the last hundred 
years, commencing with the . I om< 

kins, already allude. 1 to— not however, hy 
means of cross* a with other - it by 

careful and judicious selections. 



706 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED 8TATE8. 



In point of symmetry and beauty of form, 
the well-bred Herefords may be classed 
with the improved short-horns, arriving, per- 
haps, a little slower at maturity, though re- 
markably inclined to take on fat. They 
never attain to such weights, but they gen- 
erally arrive at the Smithfield market at 
two or three years old, and so highly is 
their beautifully marbled beef esteemed, that 
it is eagerly sought by the butchers at a 
Binall advance, pound for pound, over the 
short-horn. Weighing less than the short- 
horns, they yield a larger weight of tallow, 
which is one reason of the preference for 
them. The short-horn produces more beef 
at the same age than the Hereford, but con- 
sumes more food in proportion. 

They have never been bred for milking 
or dairy qualities, and no farmer would think 
of resorting to them for that purpose. 

In 1824, Admiral Coffin, of the royal 
navy, presented the Massachusetts Society 
for Promoting Agriculture, a Hereford bull 
and heifer, bred by Sir J. G. Cottrel from 
the Torn kins stock. The bull was kept by 
the Hon. J. C. Bates, of Northampton, Mass., 
and left a numerous progeny, which was very 
highly esteemed in that neighborhood. The 
largest importation into this country was 
that of Messrs. Corning and Sotham, of Al- 
bany, N. Y., in 1840, consisting of five bulls 
and seventeen cows and heifers. Other im- 
portations of the same breed were added to 
this herd in subsequent years. The Hon. 
L. A. Dowley, of Boston, imported several 
animals of the same breed in 1852, apart of 
which were kept for some time on the State 
Farm at Westboro', Mass., and were after- 
ward sold to Mr. John Merryman, of Bal- 
timore Co., Md., who has one of the largest 
and finest herds of Herefords in the country. 

It will be readily seen from the character- 
istics of the race, as stated above, that they 
would be ill .adapted to the wants of New 
England farmers as a general thing. They 
are profitable for the grazier ; though, in a 
country of extreme fertility, like many parts 
of the west, and capable of bringing the 
short-horns to their highest development and 
perfection, they might not, on the whole, be 
able to compete successfully with them. 

The importation of Devons into this 
country has been more numerous. Indeed, 
there are some who assert that the native 
cattle of New England owe their origin 
chiefly to the Devons, since the cattle first 
brought into the Plymouth colony arc pretty 



well known to have been shipped on the 
Devonshire coast. But that they were any 
thing like the modern Devons there is little 
evidence ; they certainly have very few of 
the highest characteristics of that race left. 
The general impression has arisen mainly 
from the fact that many of the native cattle 
of New England are red, and that is the 
favorite color. 

However this may be, the improved North 
Devon is a very different animal from any 
that could, at that day, have been procured 
on the coast of Devonshire, or, in fact, any- 
where else. This race dates further back 
than its history goes. It has long been 
bred for beef, and for the working qualities 
of its oxen, which, perhaps, excel all other 
races in» quickness, docility, and beauty, and 
the ease with which they are matched. But 
as milkers the North Dev >n cows do not ex- 
cel, nor indeed do they equal, some of the 
other breeds. 

Some years ago a valuable importation 
was made by Mr. Patterson, of Baltimore, 
Md., who has bred them with special refer- 
ence to developing their milking qualities, 
and now they would be remarkable as dairy 
stock as compared with any other pure 
breed, but they are very different animals 
from the common modern improved Devons, 
the dairy qualities of which have been very 
much disregarded. 

The North Devons were also imported by 
the Massachusetts Society for Promoting 
Agriculture, and were kept together for some 
time, and then disposed of. So far as size 
is concerned, they are better adapted to New 
England farms than either the short -horns or 
the Herefords, while the form and color are 
so beautiful as to make them admired by 
many. But the milking qualities having 
been to a considerable extent bred out of 
them, especially those more recently im- 
ported, we have little to gain by preferring 
them over our native stock. They are good 
for beef, for which purpose they are chiefly 
raised in their native country, but the pro- 
duction of beef throughout most of the older 
sections of the country is an entirely secon- 
dary object. They are good for labor, on ac- 
count of their quickness and ease of motion, 
but New England has equally good working 
oxen in its natives. They give rich milk, 
but the Jerseys give richer. 

The Ayrshires and the Jerseys are, and 
have for a long time been bred with special 
reference to the dairy. The former, though 






AGRICULTURE IN THE INITED STATES. 



a comparatively recent breed, were early im- 
ported into this country, and, I think, have, 
as a whole, proved very satisfactory, partic- 
ularly as giving valuable crosses with our 
common stock. Grade Ayrshires are among 
the best animals for the use of small and 
dairy farms, and the cross-breds are, for all 
practical purposes, equal to the pure breds. 

One of the cows originally imported by 
John P. dishing, of Massachusetts, gave in 
one year 3,864 quarts of milk, beer measure, 
being an average of over ten quarts a day 
for the year ; and the first Ayrshire cow im- 
ported by the Massachusetts Society for 
Promoting Agriculture, in 1837, yielded 
sixteen pounds of butter a week for several 
weeks in succession on grass-feed only. Our 
climate is not so favorable to the production 
of milk as that of England and Scotland. 
No cow, imported after having arrived at 
maturity, could be expected to yield as much 
under the same circumstances, as one bred 
on the spot where the trial is made, and per- 
fectly acclimated. The Ayrshire cow gen- 
erally gives a larger return of milk for the 
food consumed than a cow of any other 
breed. 

Within the last 35 years the Jerseys 
have been extensively imported into this 
country by the Massachusetts Society for 
Promoting Agriculture, and by many in- 
dividuals in New England, New York, 
Maryland, Ohio, Illinois, and Iowa. They 
give richer milk than any other known 
breed, but the quantity is less than that 
yielded by the Durham or Hereford, which 
makes them unprofitable for the dairyman 
They are usually small in body, and rather 
large consumers. On a dairy farm devoted 
exclusively to the making of butter, an in- 
fusion of Jersey blood is highly desirable. 
One or two Jerseys m a herd of twenty 
will often make a perceptible difference m 
the quantity and richness of butter. As 
the production of butter has become a 
science, and its export has been largely 
increased, the infusion of Jersey and Al 
derney blood in the butter dairies has 
become much more general, and there has 
also been a considerable admixture of 
Holstein and Brittany cattle, both breeds 
yielding rich and excellent milk. Among 
the western dairy-farmers the Holstein cat- 
tle are preferred, and there is no finer but- 
ter made than some of theirs. 

The influence which the introduction of 
euperior foreign stock has exerted, has not 
37 



been confined to their own intrinsic merit*, 

nor to the actual improvement which they 
have effected by means of crossing upon the 
common stock of the eountry. ft baa led 
to better treatment of native Bto 
by increasing, to Borne extent, the im 
in cattle and the knowledge of their « 
;1, "I requirements, and partly from th< 
thai there was a general disposition an 
the mass of farmers to Bay that if the rial 
were kept as well, they would outstrii 
fancy stock. 

But still the improvement in the common 
stock of the eastern and middle states, or 
those portions devoted to the dairy and 
other stork interests than the raising of 
beef, over and above what can be ascribed to 
better treatment, has hem small compared 
with what it has been in those Btafe • 
voted mure exclusively to grating. Daring 
the past thirty-fivo years, for example, the 
live stock of Ohio has increased in valuation 
— according to the official returns made to the 
state auditor — more than two hundred per 
cent., while, in the same time, no 
stock has increased in numbers one hundred 
per cent. A part of this, to he sure, may 
he fairly ascribed to an increased demand 
| for stock, and a consequent higher value, hut 
there can he no question that intrinsically 
better animals have superseded the inferior 
native stock to a considerable extent The 
number of horned cattle in that state, in 
1830, was 872,866, valued at & . 
In 1846 the number had increased t-> I 
995 head, and the valuation to $7,527,123. 
| In 1850 the number was 1,103,81 l. and the 
valuation $11,315,560. In 1880 the number 
was 1,492,750, and the valuation 
244,730 The ratio of increase in value has 
been accelerated since the means of commu- 
nication by railway have so greatly inc 
ed. When the first great importation and 
sale was made, in 1834-6—7, it was ft I ac- 
cessible to the mass of cattle lee. 
acquired more of a local than a general 
utation. What is true of Ohio is true to a 
still greater extent of Illinois. Wisconsin, 
Iowa, and most of the other \ 

While Bpeaking of the different obj< 
for which cattle are kepi in various pari 
the country, i1 may he interesting to com- 
pute the actual products, per cow, in butter 
and cheese in the several sections. Accord- 
ing to the census of 1 860, th( Ull- 

her of pounds of 1. utter produced per cow, per 

annum, in the various states, was - ! — 



708 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



lbs. per cow. 

Washington 25 9 

Nebraska 5:5.2 

Florida 1.6 

Texas 8.9 

California 48.6 

Oregon 29.3 

Georgia 19.7 

South Carolina 14.8 

North Carolina 21.0 

Alabama 18.8 

Arkansas 21.4 

Mississippi 15.0 

Tennessee 39.3 

Missouri 36 3 

Kansa* 40.7 

Virginia 37.0 

Rhode Island 50.0 

Kentucky... 48.0 

Louisiana 3 1 

Colorado 15.7 

Idaho 27.0 



lbs. per cow. 

W. Virginia 48 3 

Montana 32.9 

Nevada 18.0 

Illinois 56.3 

Maryland 52.9 

Indiana . .. 58.2 

Iowa 74.4 

Delaware 48.7 

Wisconsin 72.7 

Massachusetts 57.1 

Ohio 76.9 

Minnesota 78.4 

Maine 83.5 

Michigan 97.3 

New Hampshire 65.8 

Connecticut 68 

Pennsylvania 86 3 

New Jersey... 62.0 

Vermont 98.9 

New York 79.9 

Dakota 50.5 



Some of the states, like New York, for 
instance, sell vast quantities of milk in its 
natural state, and yet the quantity of butter 
per cow will be found to be large compared 
with those states where cattle are kept more 
especially for beef. To conclude that the 
stock of Kentucky, Illinois, or Ohio is 
inferior to that of New York, because the 
yield of butter per cow is inferior, would 
be premature. The objects for which the 
stock of those states is kept are different, 
and for the purpose of grazing the cattle 
of the western states may be far better 
adapted than any other would be. 

Let us now see what is the amount of 
cheese annually produced per cow in the 
several states. In some of them it appears 
to be infinitesimally small. The list stands 
as follows, beginning with a hundredth 
part of a pound : 

lbs. per cow. 

Nebraska 1 .59 

Oregon 164 

Illinois 2.59 

Pennsylvania 1.62 

Utah 3.96 

Iowa 2.91 

Minnesota 1.92 

Wisconsin 5 16 

California 20.69 

Rhode Island 4.36 

Michigan 2.67 I 

Maine 8.27 I 

New Hampshire 9.37 

Connecticut 2.05 1 

Ohio 12.82 1 

Massachusetts 19.57 

New York 16.86 

Vermont 26.79 

The total number of pounds of cheese 
produced in the United States in 1870 was 
£3,492,153, of which 22,769,964 pounds— 
about 40 per cent. — was made in the state 
of New York, 8,169,486 in Ohio, 4,130,- 
700 pounds in Vermont, 2,245,873 in 
Massachusetts, 2,031,194 in Connecticut, 
1,145,239 in Pennsylvania, 849,118mNew 
Hampshire, and 3,395,074 in California. 



lbs. 


per cow 




.. 0.01 




.. 08 




.. 0.25 




.. 0.29 








.. 0.06 


Maryland 


.. 0.14 


Arkansas 


.. 0.06 




.. 0.26 




.. 0.08 




.. 0.85 


Tennessee 


.. 0.58 


Kentucky 


.. 0.47 




.. 0.51 


Virginia 


... 0.38 


Kansas 


.. 1..S3 


New Jersey 


. . . .29 




.. 0.72 



The other thirty-nine states and territories 
only made about nine million pounds in 
all. This production was equivalent to 
about one and two-fifths pounds to each 
inhabitant. The export in 1870 was 57.- 
296,327 pounds. The manufacture of both 
butter and cheese has greatly increased 
within the decade 1870-1880. There are 
in the United States over 1,200 factories 
for making butter and cheese, using the 
milk of about 700,000 cows. We have no 
reliable statistics of the quantity of either 
butter or cheese made since 1870, as these 
statistics can only be obtained (and not 
very accurately even then) by the machin- 
ery of a general census. The exports of 
cheese in 1880 were 137,911,559 pounds 
of an invoiced value of SI 5,71 7,447. The 
export of butter in the calendar year 1880 
was 37,422,479 pounds at an invoiced 
value of $7,389,578 ; that of the year 
1879 was 43,280,166 pounds, but the 
invoiced value was only $6,471,772. Let 
us now consider the proportion of cows 
kept in the various states to the population. 
"We give the proportion of milch cows in 
1880, and the census population of that 
year, as the latest available, and have added 
the average value of cows in each state 
the same year. The proportion to the 
population is stated in decimals : 





Em 


3 




O O 










State. 




° 5 

M O 




6~~ 5. 


> o 




» 


-< 

24.10 


Maine 


0.25 


New Hampshire 


0.29 


2S.00 


Vermont 


0.62 


25.051 


Massachusetts. . 


0.09 


35.00 


Rhode Island. . . 


0.08 


3<>.00! 


Connecticut. ... 


0.19 


29.37 


New York 


28 


29.06 


New Jersey — 


0.13 


35.10 


Pennsylvania... 


0.19 


26.66 




0.17 


82.60 


Maryland 


0.16 


27.20 


Virginia 


0.16 


18.86. 


North Carolina. 


0.16 


1260; 


South Carolina. 


0.13 


1525) 




0.18 
0.27 


13.26 

9 27 


Florida .... 


Alabama 


0.17 


13.50 1 


Mississippi, , , 


0.17 


13.06 



Stati 



Louisiana 

Texas 

Arkansas 

Tennessee. . . . 
West Virginia 

Kentucky 

Missouri 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Ohio 

Michigan . 
Wisconsin. ... 
Minnesota. . . . 

Iowa 

Kansas 

Nebraska 

California. . . 
Oregon 



2-_ * 

9 = 



0.12 18.00 

0.36 13.85 

0.25 113.66 

0.16 17 09 

0.21 2".!i7 

0.16 22.62 

024 19.21 

0.23 26.63 

22 25.09 

0.22 26.44 

0.25 26.68 

0.85 21.79 

(i.SO 20.16- 

0.45 24.20 

0.35 23.68 

■0.32 20.' 

0.55 28.65 

0.70 17.71 



The products from stock might be stated 
in another interesting point of view as fol- 
lows. The northern states, comprising New 
England, NewYork, New Jersey, and Penn- 
sylvania, with 169,668 sq. miles, and apopu- 



AGRICULTURE IN TITE DOTTED STATES. 



TOO 



lation of 14,508,077, keeping 3,195,800 
milch cows, produced, according to the 
estimates of 1880, more than 700 million 
pounds of butter, 250 million pounds of 
cheese, and 370 millions of gallons of milk 
sold. They kept, also, 2,121,500 oxen and 
other cattle, not, of course, including 
horses, sheep, or swine. At the same time 
the western states, and the territories, with 
an area of 1,942,242 sq. miles, and a 
population of 10,963,006, had 5,292,900 
milch cows, and manufactured 595,000,000 
pounds of butter and cheese, valued at 
$99,350,000. They had also 8,789,100 
oxen and other cattle. The southern states, 
with 891,032 sq. miles, and a population of 
19,681,853, had 3,538 300 milch cows, and 
manufactured 123,870,500 pounds of butter 
and cheese, valued at $29,780,325. They 
also had 10,320,400 working oxen, and 
7,450,290 other cattle. The aggregate 
number of neat cattle was given in 1840 
at 14,971,586, and in 1850 at 17,778,907 
The amount of butter produced in 1850 was 
313,266,962 pounds, and that of chees< 
105,535,219 pounds; neither of which 
were given in 1840 as separate items. Wt 
had, in 1850, 1,700,744 working oxen: 
and of other cattle 16,078,163. The en- 
tire number of milch cows in 1860 was 
8,581,735; of working oxen, 2,254,911, 
and of other neat cattle, 14,779,373, mak- 
ingatotalof 25,618,019. The amount of 
butter produced in 1860 was 459,681,372 
pounds, and of cheese 103,663,927 pounds. 
The entire number of milch cows in 1870 
was 8,935,332; of working oxen, 1,319,- 
271; and of other cattle, 13,566,005, mak- 
ing a total of 23.820,658, or 1,797,361 less 
than 1860. This was due to the great de- 
mand of cattle for slaughter, and the cattle 
raids of the great war of 1861-5, and 
perhaps also to imperfect enumeration from 
the unsettled condition of the country; 
for the loss was wholly in the oxen 
and other cattle, the milch cows having 
increased in the decade 353,597. The 
amount of butter produced in 1870 was 
514,092,683: pounds of cheese, 53,492,. 
153. of gallons of milk sold, 235,500,599. 
For 1880 the census report of milch cows, 
oxen and other cattle is not yet published: 
but the Dairy and Live Stock Associations 
estimate the number of cows at about 15,- 
000,000. and oxen and other cattle at 25,- 
000.000. The amount of butter produced 
IB estimated at 1,500 million pounds, of 



cheese at 600 millioD pounds, and of milk 
sold at 570 million gal: 

11'iKSES. 

That the horses in this country have un- 
dergone a vast change an. I 
during the last century— or, rather, dv 
the last eighty years— therecan benodi 
A simple change in the uses tow) i 
are put would oaturally have produc 
change in the hor elves, wil 

any well-directed effort at breeding. . 
in the last century, the chief I 
rying on our inland business, includi 
vast amount of heavy transportation, 
the horse. The roads were g in a 

most wretched condition. T 
dom built of any thing but the natural -■> 1 
thrown up from the sides, ami 
this. The forest was felled, and the gr 
left for many a thousand miles without the 
precaution of making any side ditch 
all, and over such a pathway th 
of a great part of the country \ 
moved, in wagons made so as to 
ble of the hardest usage. < hrersuch i 
light carriages would have been i 
tively useless, and a speed now seen every 
day would have been unsafe for t 
The mail contracts over a very large part 
of the country were made at i 
than four and five miles an hour, 
heavily loaded teams, and heavy mail 
passenger coaches, kepi the roads for a 
considerable part of the year in a state not 
calculated to encotr [riving. The 

farmer had to haul his produce often bng 
distances to market, an I 
kind of horse. Now he has a in: 
almost at his very door. As many h 
are now required, and even : 
i' ire, hut their work is very differ 
vast improvements in agricultural in 
ments have also lightened the lat 
horse. Our wagons are of lighter 
struction, our plows run 
are freer from rocks and stun 
quick, hardy 1: 

oxen, and of thelarger, hea\ ter, an I i 
slower horses of half a century a 

The farmer orthe country gentleman 
is accustomed to ride in 
f tin! rty miles an hour. v.. 

ho satisfied to - I them and ha. 

. at i!,,. rate, f five Mi-six miles 1 

Speed formi rl itl re i 

sidered an indi pensable requisite in a 

good horse, i ad though ourh 



710 



AGRICULTURE IX THE UXITED STATES. 



ap, as we shall see, of almost, if not quite 
as great a variety of blood, and with as little 
regard to the true principles of breeding, as 
our native cattle, yet they are, in many re- 
spects, distinct from all other horses. They 
possess, in many sections of the country, a 
surpassing degree of speed and power of 
endurance, the result, in part, of the altered 
condition of things, and greatly, also, of 
more attention to breeding and training. 

The first horses taken from Europe to the 
western continent, were brought over by 
Columbus in his second voyage, in 1493, 
and the first introduced into any part of the 
territory now comprised within the United 
States, were brought over and landed in 
Florida by Cabeija de Vaca, in 1527. These 
numbered forty-two, but all perished for 
some cause or other soon after their arrival. 
The horses found wild on the plains of 
Texas and the western prairies are, probably, 
descendants of the fine Spanish horses aban- 
doned by De Soto on the failure of his expe- 
dition and the return of his disheartened ad- 
venturers. In 1604, a French lawyer, M. 
L'Escarbot, brought over horses to Acadia, 
and from there the French, who extended 
their settlements into Canada in 1608, took 
the horses which, probably, laid the founda- 
tion of what are now known as Canadian 
ponies, having, no doubt, lost much of their 
original size by the severity of the climate 
and limited summer forage. Though degen- 
erated in size, they still show traces of Nor- 
man blood, from which they probably sprang. 

In 1609 six mares and a horse were taken 
to the settlement at Jamestown, in Virginia, 
and in 1657 the exportation of horses from 
that colony was strictly prohibited. In 
1629-30 horses were introduced into the 
colony of the Massachusetts Bay by Higgin- 
son. These were brought from Leicester- 
shire, in England. The Dutch West India 
Company had imported horses from Flan- 
ders, probably, into New York, in 1625, and 
it is thought by some that the Conestogas 
derive their origin from this source. The 
French, who settled in Illinois in 1682, had 
many Canadian horses, which were allowed 
to run on the extensive " ranges" in their 
vicinity. 

Thus we see, in part, the varied sources 
from which the native horses of this country 
came. To these were added, from time to 
time, in the middle and southern states, more 
or less of thorough-bred, or racing stock, 
which essentially modified the stock with 



which it became mixed. The horses of 
New England, especially of Vermont and 
Massachusetts, have been used chiefly as 
roadsters and for general utility. They pos- 
sess the most admirable qualities of power, 
speed, and endurance, and, for quick work 
and travel on the road, they are unsurpassed 
by any horses in the world. Low, in his 
"History of Domestic Animals," says of the 
people of this country: "They prefer the 
trot to the paces more admired in the old 
continent, and, having directed attention to 
the conformation which consists with this 
character, the fastest trotting horses in the 
world are to be found in the United States." 
Among the changes which have been 
effected within the last eighty years in the 
horses of New England, on which the high 
encomium given by Prof. Low is chiefly 
based, none, certainly, have been more mark- 
ed than the increase of speed. Fast trotting 
was scarcely known in the time of the old 
"Justin Morgan," nor was the speed of the 
horse considered of any special money value 
till the invention of the modern light buggy 
and the improvement of the roads, already 
alluded to. This quality has now become 
essential to the convenience and comfort of 
nearly all classes of society. Most people 
want a horse to go off easily at the rate of 
eight, ten, or twelve miles an hour, and the 
horses that do it are now very common, 
whereas formerly, they were only the very 
rare exception to the general rate of speed. 
A demand very soon creates a supply, and 
the farmer who breeds horses knows his 
own interest well enough to study the tastes 
of the community, and to breed accordingly. 
In point of speed, therefore, there can be no 
question that a very great increase has been 
attained by careful breeding, particularly 
within the last twenty years. In other 
points some improvement has been made, 
such as general good qualities of style, ac- 
tion, temper, form, constitution, and endur- 
ance. The aggregate money value has been 
greatly increased, because the number of 
fast horses and the general average of in- 
trinsic good qualities in horses has been in- 
creased, and these command their value. 
But, perhaps, the tendency has been to con- 
gregate the best horses in the cities and 
large towns, and to draw them from the 
country. Few farmers want to keep a horse 
for farm and general purposes, that will 
bring from two or three to five hundred dol- 
lars. 




PERCIIEROX STALLION. 




PERCHERON MARE. 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



15 



Two distinct varieties of horses are now, 
and have for the last few years been favorites 
for the road. Neither of these can have any 
pretensions to the claim of being a distinct 
race, though they have both become distinct 
families, well known under their respective 
names. The peculiarities of both are so 
well marked, as not to deceive the practised 
eye. Of these, the Morgan has been alluded 
to, as deriving its name from the owner of 
the founder of the family, or the old "Justin 
Morgan," foaled in West Springfield, Mass., 
in 1793. The sire of this remarkable stal- 
lion is supposed to have been " True Briton," 
a half thorough-bred. The old "Justin 
Morgan" soon went to Vermont, 1795, and 
there laid the foundation of the Morgans of 
that state, producing the celebrated " Bul- 
rush," " Woodbury," and "Sherman" Mor- 
gans, all of which added vastly to the wealth 
of the breeders and farmers of that section. 
The descendants of these horses have been 
spread far and wide. The " Justin Morgan " 
was a small horse, only about fourteen hands 
high, and weighing only about nine hundred 
and fifty pounds. The Morgan horse of the 
present day is of somewhat larger size, and 
usually varies from nine hundred and fifty 
to ten hundred and fifty pounds. He is re- 
markable for compactness of form, strength, 
and docility ; and for the infinite variety of 
purposes for which the New England horses 
are wanted, is probably unsurpassed. He is 
much sought after for use on the road, and 
in omnibuses, hacks, and lighter carriages. 

The other family, also widely known, not 
only in New England, but throughout the 
country, is the Black Hawk. The foun- 
der of this family was a horse of that name, 
celebrated for transmitting his qualities to 
his offspring, as well as for his great speed 
as a trotter. He was kept in Vermont till 
his death in 1856, at the age of twenty-three 
years. As roadsters, the Black Hawks are 
often very excellent, possessing a high and 
nervous style of action, an elastic step, and 
a symmetrical and muscular form. It is not 
too much to say that those two classes of 
horses have added many millions of dollars 
to the value of the horses of this country. 
They infused a new spirit into the business 
of breeding in New England, and had an 
effect on the enterprise of the farming com- 
munity, similar to that which the introduc- 
tion of short-horns had on the general im- 
provement of the stock of the western states. 

The style of horse which has been most 



imported and bred in tin' southern si 
especially in Maryland ami Virginia, is 
different. The cavaliers cultivated and 
couraged the Bports of the tint', and the 
thorough-bred was early introduced, 
bred with much enterprise, 
horses, which in New England are com] 
tively rare, arc very common at the -'.nth, 
where the manly an.! healthful exercisi 
horseback-riding has for a long time been 
almost universally practised, 1-th OS a pas- 
time and a common mode of travelling. 
The interest in breeding thorough-bred 
horses has been kept up in Kentucky, 
ami some of the mosl renowned rui 
horses of this country hail from that Bt 

There is a difference of opinion among 
goo.l judges of horses, a- t<> whether the 
cross of the thorough-bred horse on the 
common horse of the country would effect 
any improvement when viewed from the 
stand-point of general utility. For sj.c-ial 
purposes, as fir the production of good sad- 
dle horses, the value of this cross would, no 
doubt, be conceded. But the gail most 
highly prized ami most desirable for 
eral utility is the trot, ami the mechanical 
structure best adapted ti> trotting ami run- 
ning is quite different At the same time 
it must he admitted, 1 think, that some of 
our best trotters have had strmiL: infus 
of thorough-bred blood. Some say, how- 
ever, that the firm of the thorOUgh-brcd has 
been changed, ami so far as compact 
muscle, and endurance an^ concerned, degen- 
erated. This is an opinion merely, which 
would apply with greater force to the gen- 
eral average of thorough-breds or racers in 
England than in this country. The experi- 
ment is undergoing full and lair trial 
throughout the' Northern States at the 
present time. 

The Conestoga is a large ami very heavy 
breed of horses, often met with in the mid- 
dle states, and used mostly forthepur] 
of slow draught in the drays ui our ! 
towns and cities. The bleed, originally 
Norman, has been greatly improved Dj 
importation of the finest Percheron 1 
man stallions and mares. The la 
draught horses in our cities are i 
of the finest in the world. 

Both the quality and number of Ameri- 
can horses have greatly advanced u 
past eighty years. The number of ho] 
in 1850, exclusive of those of large cil 
and towns, was 4,336,719. 



716 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



The number of horses, mules, and asses, in 
1S40, was 4,335,609, while the aggregate 
number of these classes in 1850 was 4,896,- 
050, tbat of mules and asses being 559,331. 
The number of horses in the United States 
in 1860, including those in cities and towns, 
was 7,434,688, and excluding these, as in 
1840 and 1850, 6,249,174. The number of 
asses and mules was 1,317,934, or excluding 
those in cities and towns, 1,151,148. The 
war made sad hovoc with these animals, 
many being killed on the battle-fields, or 
by overwork, exposure and malignant epi- 
demics. In 1870, the number of horses 
was 7,145,370, their average value was 
$84. 16, and their aggregate value #607,354- 
,339. The same year the number of mules 
and asses was 1,125,415; their average 
value $106.74, and their aggregate value 
$120,126,797. In 1880 the Agricultural 
Department estimated the number of 
horses at 11,201,800. The average price 
was estimated to be $54.75, and the ag- 
gregate value $613,296,611. The num- 
ber of mules was 1,729,500, average price 
$61.26, and aggregate value $105,948,319. 



Another branch of farming which has 
been subject to more or less vicissitude, is 
that of sheep husbandry. The first sheep 
imported into this country were, probably, 
those taken into Virginia in 1609. They 
came from England, and thrived so well 
that in 1648 they had increased to three 
thousand. 

About the year 1625, some sheep were 
introduced into New York by the Dutch 
West India Company. These came from 
Holland, and, together with others which ar- 
rived in 1630, proved to be too much of a 
temptation to dogs and wolves, for it is 
stated that in 1643 there were not more 
than sixteen sheep in the whole colony. 

Sheep were brought into the Plymouth 
colony, and that of the Massachusetts Bay, 
very soon after the settlement. They were 
kept on the islands in Boston harbor as 
early as 1633, and in 1635 the number of 
sheep in the New Hampshire settlement, 
near Portsmouth, was ninety-two. In 1652 
the number of sheep in and around Boston 
had largely increased, since there were four 
hundred in Charlestown. In 1660 they were 
introduced upon the island of Nantucket, and 
the raising of wool grew up to be of some 
importance there. 



Sheep husbandry, in the earlier history of 
the country, was carried on very differently, 
for the most part, from what it has been 
more recently. There were few extensive 
flocks, but in the days of homespun it was 
very common for the farmer to keep a num- 
ber sufficient for home consumption. In 
fact, it was almost a matter of necessity. 
But the old native sheep was a coarse, long- 
legged, and unprofitable animal. The first 
fine-woolled sheep introduced into the coun- 
try were those brought from Spain by Mr. 
Win. Foster, of Boston, in 1793. He 
speaks of them as follows : — 

" In April, 1793, on returning from Cadiz, 
where I had been passing several years, I 
brought out an original painting, by Mu- 
rillo, and three merino sheep — two ewes 
and a ram — the export of which, at that 
time, was severely prohibited, and attended 
with much difficulty and risk. We had a 
long passage — seventy-five days — and the 
sheep were in a dying condition. Fortu- 
nately, there was on board a Frenchman, 
that had been with the Spanish shepherds, 
who cured them by administering injections. 
Being about to leave this country for France, 
soon after my arrival in Boston, I presented 
these sheep to Mr. Andrew Craigie, of Cam- 
bridge, who, not knowing their value at that 
time, ' simply ate them,' as he told me years 
after, when I met him at an auction, buying 
a merino ram for $1,000." 

Another small importation of merinos was 
made in 1802, and again in 1809 or 1810, 
about which time a complete merino fever 
ran through the whole farming community, 
which had its day, and then subsided. 

The embargo of 1808 led many to turn 
their attention to wool growing, and fine 
wool soon rose to the high price of $1.50 
and $2.00 a pound. In "l 809-10, no less 
than 3,650 merinos were imported and dis- 
tributed throughout the United States. The 
importance of these early importations can 
hardly be overestimated. They furnished 
our woollen manufactories with the raw ma- 
terial at a time when it would have been ex- 
tremely difficult to obtain it from abroad. 

In the ten years from 1840 to 1850, the 
sheep of the United States increased two and a 
half millions, and numbered about twenty-two 
millions, or more accurately, 21,723,220. 
But in New England there was a remark- 
able falling off from 3,811,307 in 1840, to 
2,164,452 in 1850, making a loss of forty- 
five per cent., while in the five sea-board 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED 8TATES. 



719 



states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsi 1- 
vauia, Delaware and Maryland, the decrease 
was twenty-two per cent. The increase was 
chiefly in the southern and western states. 
The production of wool steadily increased, 
for in 1840 we raised 35,802,114 pounds, 
valued at $11,345,318; in 1850 we raised 
52,516,959 pounds, worth $15,755,088 ; and 
in 1855 we raised 61,560,379 pounds, worth 
$23,392,944, being a gain of forty-six per 
cent. But as some evidence of improve- 
ment, it may be stated that the average 
weight of iieece increased from 1.84 pounds 
in 1840, to 2.43 in 1850. In 1860, the 
number of sheep had increased to 23,977,- 
085, a gain of about 2,200,000. There was 
again a heavy falling off in the New England 
states, which had only 1,880,767, aboul 
367,000 less than in 1850. The Mid. lie 
States had 4,629,285, a loss of a little more 
than a million. The South had 5,674,000, a 
gain of a little more than 1,100,000, of 
which full}- nine-tenths was in Texas. The 
west, including the territories, had 1 1,750,877, 
an increase of nearly 2,250,000 ; mainly in 
California, New Mexico, Michigan, Missouri, 
and Minnesota. The amount of wool produc- 
ed in 1860 was 60,264,913 pounds, about 
1,300,000 pounds less than in 1855, though 
the price being a little higher, it brought 
about the same amount. In 1870 the num- 
ber of sheep was 28,477,951, a gain of 
4,510,866 over the previous decade. New 
England had 1,450,145, a loss of 430,022 
since 1860. The Middle States had 9,024,- 
581, or almost double the number in 1860. 
The Southern States reported 6,693,7 1 5, an 
increase of 1,019,715. The Western 
States and Territories reported 1 1,239,390, 
or 51 1,487 less than in 1860, the war hav- 
ing drawn very heavily upon the flocks in 
the West and the great resources of Cali- 
fornia, New Mexico, and Colorado being 
as yet undeveloped. The greatest increase 
had been in the Middle States. In 1880. 
the west had become the best region for 
sheep farming. The estimated number of 
sheep in the whole country was 48,765,900, 
of which New England had 1,725,600, an 
increase of 275,455 over 1870; the Middle 
States 8,002,900, a falling off of about a 
million from 1870; the Southern States 
had 13,493,800, an increase of 6,800,000, 
much of it in Texas; the Western States 
reported 27,546.400, of which New Mex- 
ico had nearly 10,000,000 and California 
7,646,800. This was an advance of more 



than 16 millions on the number in 1 
Sheep farming is a profitable pui 
especially in the Western States an I 
ritories. Growing mutton and land, for 
the market at even the present 
prices of those articles in fch< 
markets, is not an unprofitable branch 
of fanning; the early spring lam': 
ially, bringing a good remuneration to 
the grower. The great supply of mut 
for the eastern markets comes fro::. 
prairie states, where it can be grown much 
cheaper than is possible on the Atlantic 
coast. 

In the meantime the capaciti - and B lap- 
tation of the climates of the south and 
for raising wool are being more and i 
appreciated, and those sections aregn wing 
more wool. It lias been shown |, v the i 
rience of the last Ion years, that by proper 
attention to breeding, the hilly portions 
even of the extreme south may he profita- 
bly devoted to the production of woo]. At 
the World's Fair, at London, in 1851, the 
fleece that commanded the highesl premium 
for the fineness and beauty of staple, "as 
grown in Tennessee. Germany, Spain, 
onv, and Silesia were there in Btrong and 
honorable competition. "Nature," says the 
owner of the premium fleece, "gave me the 
advantage in climate, hut the noble lords and 
wealthy princes of Europe did not know it, 
neither did my own countrymen know- it, 
until we met in the Crystal Palace of Lon- 
don, before a million of spectators. While 
their flocks were housed six months in the 
year, to shelter them from the Bnow >•( a 
high latitude, and were ted from tin- grana- 
ries and stock-yards, mine were roaming 
over the green pastures of Tennessee, wai 
by the genial influence of a Bummersun; the 
fleece thus softened and rendered oily bj the 
warmth and green food, producing a tine, 
even fibre." 

The American Commissioner of the Paris 
Exhibition of IstiT, slates that our woolen 
manufactures, in the quality of the wool, and 
in efficiency of Bystem, processes and ma- 
chinery of fabrication, are on an equality 
with the most advanced nations, The total 
product of wool in the United States in I 
was one hundred fifteen million poun 

little more than double that of I860, and 
fifty-five million pounds more than the yield 
of 1860. The import of wool the pn \ 

year (1866,) had I n 67,917,081 pounds, 

"hut the tariff of L867 raising the dutj on 



720 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



foreign wool, the importation dropped at 
once to 36,318,299 pounds. The export of 
wool the same year was 307,418 pounds. 
The value of the imported wool was $5,915,- 
178, and of the exported $130,857, leaving a 
balance against us of $5,784,321. The im- 
ports of woolen manufactures the same year 
amounted to $45,813,212, and on exports of 
woolen goods of our own manufacture were 
less than $100,000. The consumption of 
raw wool for the years 1862, 1863, 1864, 
1865, and 1866, averaged one hundred and 
ninety-seven million pounds per annum. 
It increased to 211 million pounds in the 
four years, 1867—70. In 1860 the census 
reported 60,264,913 pounds of wool pro- 
duced. According to the census, there 
were 6,578,064 pounds of wool produced 
in New England in 1860, a falling off of 
500,000 pounds from 1850. In the Middle 
States (N. Y., N. J., Pa., and Ohio,) the 
production of 1860 was 25,165,173 pounds, 
an increase of almost ten million pounds; 
the Southern States reported in 1860 14,- 
807,960 pounds, an advance of about 6,- 
5 , pounds. The W estern States pro- 
duced in 1860, 13,713,680 pounds. 

In 1870 the total production of wool, ac- 
cording to the census was 100.102,387 
pounds; according to Nimmo's abstract 
162,000,000 pounds; the latter is likely to 
be nearest right, but in the detail of States 
we must follow the census. New England 
produced, according to the ninth census, 
6,643,863 pounds; the Middle States, 38,- 
037,299, nearly 13 million pounds advance 
on 1860; the Southern States, 14,251,352, 
a slight falling off from 18 60; the Western 
States and territories, 41,832,040, an ad- 
vance of 28,000,000 over 1860. 

In 1880 the total production according 
to Nimmo's tables was 232,500,000 pounds, 
an increase of 70,300,000 pounds. We 
have not yet the details from all the States, 
but enough is known to make it certain 
that a large portion of this increase is in 
States and territories lying west of the 
Mississippi river. The States of California 
and Texas, and the territory of New Mexi- 
co alone yielded in that year not less than 
75,000,000 pounds of wool, and these and 
other States will continue to increase their 
production till we shall no longer import 
wool, but shall largely export it. 

SWINE, AND THE PORK BUSINESS. 

Few animals are so susceptible of change 
and improvement in the hands of the skillful 



breeder as the hog. This animal comes to 
maturity in so much less time than the 
horse or the cow, and increases with so much 
greater rapidity, as to offer larger induce- 
ments to improve and perfect it. 

Ferdinand de Soto probably brought the 
first swine into this country, in 1538. These 
came from Cuba, and were landed in Flor- 
ida. They were probably descended from 
some brought over by Columbus in 1493. 
The Portuguese, it is well known, brought 
swine into Nova Scotia and Newfoundland 
as early as 1553, where they rapidly multi- 
plied. 

The London Company imported swine in 
to Virginia in 1609. They increased so 
fast, that in 1627 the colony was in danger 
of being overrun with them, while the In- 
dians fed on pork from the hogs that had 
become wild from running at large in the 
woods. 

Meantime, they were introduced into the 
Plymouth colony in 1624, by Gov. Winslow, 
and into New Netherlands — now New York 
— in 1625, by the Dutch West India Com- 
pany. In all the colonies, as well as in the 
French settlements in Illinois, they were al- 
lowed to run at large with considerable free- 
dom, and fed on mast, though it was soon 
found that pork fed on Indian corn was much 
sweeter than that mast-fed. 

It is not probable that any special atten- 
tion was paid to breeding, with reference to 
improving this animal, till near the close of 
the last century. The first improvements 
effected that excited any considerable inter- 
est, seem to have been produced by a pair 
of pigs sent from Woburn Abbey by the 
Duke of Bedford to General Washington. 
Parkinson, the Englishman to whom they 
were entrusted for delivery to the general, 
was dishonest enough to sell them on his ar- 
rival in this country. They were long known 
as the Woburn, and, in some sections, as the 
Bedford hog, and were originated by a for- 
tunate cross of the Chinese and the large 
English hog. There is no doubt they were 
splendid animals, with many fine points, small 
bones, deep, round barrel, short legs, feeding 
easily, and maturing early,and often weighing 
at a year or a year and a half old, from four 
to seven hundred pounds, with light offal, and 
the first quality of flesh. They were mostly 
white — somewhat spotted. They were very 
common at one time in Maryland, Delaware, 
and Virginia, and were bred somewhat exten- 
sively by Gen. Kidgeley, of Hampton — a fine 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



m 



country seat in Baltimore county, Md. — who 
sent a pair of them to Col. Timothy Pick- 
ering, of Hamilton, Mass., who bred them 
till they became quite noted over a wide ex- 
tent of country. They are now extinct. It 
is worthy of remark that the Byfield breed 
originated in the same way, by a cross of 
the Chinese and the common hog, bred by 
Gorham Parsons, in Byfield, Mass. This 
breed became famous, "and was very much 
sought after for many years, and is even now 
found in Ohio. 

Previous to the introduction of the Wo- 
burn hog, the classes of swine that had pre- 
vailed in the eastern and middle states were 
coarse, long-legged, large-boned, slab-sided, 
and flab-eared, an unprofitable and an un- 
sightly beast, better calculated for subsoil ing 
than for filling a pork barrel. An eftbrt had 
been made to improve them, about fifty 
years ago, and before the valuable breeds 
above alluded to had become generally 
known, by the introduction of an animal 
commonly called, at that time, the grass-fed 
hog, which appeared about the time of the 
introduction of merino sheep, and were 
often sneered at as the "merino hog." 
Chancellor Livingston took very great pains 
to disseminate them, if, indeed, he did not 
originally import them. They are said to 
have been an exceedingly well-formed beast, 
with small heads, round bodies, compact 
and well made, legs short and small-boned, 
spotted in color, with a kind of dusky white 
on a black ground. As they were looked 
upon as an innovation, they had to encoun- 
ter the force of public sentiment, but their 
intrinsic good qualities finally prevailed, and 
they became popular. 

Since that period the introduction of many 
varieties of superior hogs, both from Europe 
and Asia, has effected a very marked im- 
provement in the common hog of the present 
day, though it has been a too frequent prac- 
tice to breed indiscriminately. A pure 
breed, like the Suffolk, the Berkshire, or the 
Essex, may be used to cross for a specific 
purpose, hut the pure breed ought again 
and constantly to be resorted to, or the re- 
sult will be likely to be unsatisfactory. It 
requires great skill and judgment to lucid 
judiciously, and it ought to be made a spe- 
cial branch of farming to a greater extent 
than it usually is, in order to insure the 
preservation and perpetuation of purity of 
blood. 

It is well settled that neither the eastern 



nor the middle states can compete ra< 

fully with the wot in the raising 
and the production of p,,rk ..n .1 La 
The cost of main in those sections i 
country would prevenl it. A limited • 
ber of hogs can be kept to advantage in a 
section of Bmall farms, sufficient to coi 

arid thus < omize the refuse of the dairy 

and other farm products, thai would other- 
wise be liable to waste, but beyond this, the 
keeping of swine is uol only n.it proffi 
but an absolute bill of expense. 

In Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska. Illi- 

nois, Indiana, and other States wl i corn is 

raised with little labor, and in lai- 
ties, the costof pork is small compared 
the keeping of swine in the eastern states. 
The raising and packing of pork has, there- 
fore, very naturally grownup in the western 
states, and vast quantities are exported from 
there every year, including pigs on foot, by 
railway, slaughtered and sent off in the 
whole carcass, and in hams, Bhoulders, and 
sides, sm.ike.tl, and in the shape of barrelled 
pickled pork. 

The native hogs of the west — that is, the 
descendants of those taken there by the 
earlier settlers, and common there till within a 
very recent period — were admirably calcula- 
ted for the primitive condition of civiliza- 
tion in which they were placed. Thej 
well calculated to shirk for themselvi 
they had to do, and became as fleet as tin- 
deer, while their strength of head, neck, and 
tusks enabled them to tight any wild beast of 
the forest, and withstand any extent of ex- 
posure to the weather. '1 hey were diamet- 
rically opposite in every prominent g 1 

quality to the improved swine of the presenl 
(lav. Instead of speed and fleetness of foot, 
the farmer wants sluggishness in his I 
instead of coarse, rawny boms, he wants 
fine, small-boned animals; and instead 
thick, hard coat, he wants a tine head, thin 
coat, ready fattening qualities, and general 
thriftiness. And so the Suffolk* became the 
favorites, and produced many most excellent 
crosses with the old natives. In other parts 
of Ohio, where improvement has taken 
place, the Byfield, the Chester < '.unity, the 
Berkshire, the China, the Irish Grazier, or 

some Other of the many excellent improved 

breeds have been introduced, and effected ■ 
great and perceptible change, The western 
farmer wants greater si/e than he finds in 
the pure Suffolk or the pure hrd Bss S X , 
and he finds the l'oland China, the Chi 



722 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



YV hite. and some of the improved Berk- 
shires, the best breeds for his use. In Kan- 
sas and Iowa the breeding of swine has 
b 3en reduced more nearly to an exact science 
than elsewhere, and in spite of all losses, it is 
found profitable when Indian corn or its 
equivalent can be bought for 20c. a bushel. 
From 1840 to 1860 the number of swine in 
the U. S. largely exceeded the number of 
sheep; in 1850 there were 30,354,213 swine 
to 21,723,220 sheep; 1860, 33,512,867 swine 
to 22,47 1 ,275 sheep. During the war, and 
after it the proportions were reversed; in 
1870 there were 25,134,569 swine to 28,- 
477,951 sheep; in 1880, 34,034,100 swine 
to 48,765,900 sheep. Although there has 
been, as will be noticed, an advance of near- 
ly 9,000,000 in the number of swine in the 
last decade, this increase would have been 
more than doubled if the swine plague, pop- 
ularly known as "hog cholera,'' and other 
fatal diseases of swine had not been so 
prevalent. The investigations of the U. S. 
Agricultural Department will result in re- 
moving many of the remote causes of this 
dreaded disease, and in stamping it out 
where it appears. From 1850 to 1860, In- 
diana took the lead in the raising of swine, 
having in the latter year 3,099, 110, though 
Kentucky had led in 1850 with 2,891,863. 
In 1860 Illinois was next to Indiana, fol- 
lowed by Missouri and Tennessee, and Ken- 
tucky held the 5th place. In 1870 the 
order was changed, Illinois taking the lead 
with 2,703,343, Missouri came next with 
2,306,430, and Indiana took the 3d place 
with 1,872,230, followed closely by Ken- 
tucky, Tennessee, and Ohio. In 1880 Illi- 
nois still leads with 3,202,600, but Iowa 
has reached the second place with 2,778,- 
400, Missouri has the third place with 
2,620,400, and Indiana has dropped to the 
fourth place with 2,186,000, while Ohio 
stands fifth, Texas sixth, Kentucky seventh, 
and Tennessee eighth. In one or two years 
more Kansas, now 1 2th in order, will have 
risen to the third place — so rapid has been 
the development of this industry in that 
State, and so thorough its organization. 
The value of the living swine at the end 
of 1879 was estimated at $145,781,515, 
and in the year ending June 30, 1880, 
$85,000,000 of hog products were exported. 
Pork-packing has been for the last thirty • 
five years a very large and constantly in- 
creasing business in the west. Cincinnati 
long took the lead in this enterprise, pack- 
ing, in favorable years, nearly 500,000 



hogs in a single season. St. Louis and 
Chicago both became rivals for this trade 
as early as 1857 or 1858, but in 1862, 
Chicago at one bound distanced Cincinnati 
and St. Louis, and taking the lead has kept 
it ever since, packing in 1879-80 nearly 
five million hogs. It is now much the 
largest pork market in the world. A de- 
scription of one of the great packing es- 
tablishments may fee interesting, though 
they differ in some of the details. The 
hogs are drawn up an incline to the top 
of the building where they have pure air and 
good ventilation, and are kept quiet two 
nights and a day before being killed. When 
all is ready the hogs are driven, some twenty 
at once, into a small pen with a fine grated 
floor. A man then enters, and, with a long 
handled hammer, deals each hog a heavy 
blow on the forehead between the eyes, 
which instantly drops him on the floor. 
After he has lain a few moments, another 
man enters the pen with a sharp knife and 
sticks each hog, the blood flowing through the 
floor, and being conducted by spouts to large 
tanks outside the building. While this is 
being done another lot is let into an adjoin- 
ing pen and served in the same manner. 
The first lot, by this time, having bled suf- 
ficiently, is slid down an inclined plane di- 
rectly into the scalding tub or vat, made of 
wood, some six feet wide, twenty feet long, 
and three feet deep, the water in which is 
heated by steam-pipes, and kept at a regu- 
lar temperature ; here they are floated along 
and turned by men at the sides until they 
reach the further end, where they are taken 
out of the tub by a simple contrivance, oper- 
ated by a single man, and deposited upon 
the end of a long inclined table. Two men 
stand ready and take from the back in an in- 
stant all the bristles that are suitable for the 
brush-maker and cobbler, depositing them in 
boxes or barrels for removal. Other pairs of 
men, standing on opposite sides of the table, 
divest another part of the hog of its coat and 
so on through some eight or ten pairs of men, 
who each have a different part to perform in 
cleaning the hog, until it reaches the last 
pair, who put in the gambrel stick and 
swing it on a hook on an overhead railway, 
there it receives a shower bath of clean cold 
water, washing it clean from any particles of 
dirt that may remain, giving it, at the same 
time, a parting scrape with knives. It then 
passes along to a man who opens it and re- 
moves the large intestines. It then passes 



AGRICULTURE IN TIIK UNITED BTATB8. 



23 



to the second man, who takes out the small 
intestines, heart, lights, &c. ; the hog then 
receives a thorough drench of clean water, 
and passes to another man who splits the 
backbone down. They are then taken from 
the hooks and borne away by overhead road- 
ways, and hung up to cool, one man being 
enough to handle the largest hogs with ease. 
At this point a man loosens up the leaf lard 
ready to be removed when cooled, which, 
together with the splitting of the backbone 
before mentioned, helps very much to thor- 
oughly cool the meat. The hogs are allowed 
to hang in this cooling-room, before being 
cut up, two days, when all animal heat is 
gone. 

After the small intestines, <fec, are re- 
moved from the hog, they are taken by men 
and boys, and all the fat separated from 
them and placed in large vats of wafer to 
wash it clean, going through two waters, 
when it is ready to go into the lard tank, 
which will be described hereafter. 

Having now got the hog ready for cutting 
up, he is taken from the cooling-room and 
carried to the room for this purpose, each 
hog being weighed as he is brought up, and 
its weight entered in a book kept for that 
purpose. Having been rolled on to the 
block, one blow from an immense cleaver 
severs the head from the body ; another blow 
severs the saddle, that is, the hind parts, 
containing the hams'; another lays it open 
at the back ; another one for each leg ; the 
leaf lard having already been loosened is now 
taken hold of with the hands, and instantly 
stripped out of the carcass. The remainder 
of the hog is then cut up according to the 
kind of meat it is most suitable for, the 
whole cutting-up process occupying but a 
few seconds of time, two smart men having 
cut over two thousand in less than eight 
hours. The usual day's work, however, is 
from 1,100 to 1,200 head. 

The lard-house is 35 by 156 feet and three 
stories high. In the second story are. ar- 
ranged seven iron tanks, made of heavy 
boiler iron, twelve feet high, and six feet in 
diameter, capable of sustaining a high pres- 
sure. These extend up through the floor 
above into the third story, where each one 
is provided with a large man-hole into which 
the leaf lard, head, gut lard, and pork trim- 
mings are emptied, until the tank is full, 
when it is closed and the whole mass sub- 
jected to a jet of steam from the boilers, of a 
pressure of fifteen pounds per inch ; each 



tank is supplied withasafetj valve, so that 
on reaching the maximum pressure allowed, 
it pa>.-e. off, causing a continuous flow of 
steam through the whole mass. B) this 
process every particle of lard i from 

the mass. 

One of the tanks is reserved for m . 
white grease, into which tic- intesl 
paunches, and all refuse from the slaughter 

house are placed, and subjected to tho 

steam process. 

Another tank is used tor trying out d 
hogs that are killed by accident, suffocation, 
&c, into which they are dumped whole, with 
the "pizzles" from the slaughter \, 
The product of this is called yellow gn 

After the mass in the lard tanks ha- had 
steam on the necessary length of time, a fau- 
cet is opened midway of the tank, or about 
where the lard and water would meet, ami 
the lard drawn off into an immense open 
iron tank, called a clarifier, with a concave 
bottom, provided with a Bteam-jackel "n the 
bottom; here it is heated up to 300° F., 
sending all foul matters in a thick scum at 
the top, when it is skimmed off, all heavy 
matters of dirt, &C, settling on the bottom, 
this process thoroughly clarifying the lard. 
A faucet is then opened at the bottom, and 
the sediment allowed to run out until clear 
lard appears, when it is shut off, and the bal- 
ance drawn into the coolers, thence into bar- 
rels', where it is weighed and branded pure 
lard, and the product is the purest article we 
have ever seen manufactured by any pi 
it being perfectly free from any unpleasant 
odor, and as pleasant to taste a- new on- 
Baited butter. 

After the lard has been drawn from the 
tanks a large man-hole is opened at the bot- 
tom, and the whole mass i- drawn out in 
large wooden tanks set even with the floor. 
Here the mass is again subjected to a boil- 
ing heat, by steam-pipes laid around the in- 
side; any remaining grease is tfc 
and rises to the top and is skimmed off A 
plug is drawn and the water disappears into 
the sewer. A gate is opened at the 
ami the mass is turned out door-, read] to 
be carried oil: Here you will find every 

hone that entered the tank whok and sound 

a bleached mass, bo soft that even the teeth 
of the hog may 1"' easily mashed between 
the ringers. The bristles and hair are readily 
purchased by those who prepare hair for 
mattresses, "finding" dealt re, a . 

The Curing room. Thu the 



724 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



lower floor. The first process is to dress all 
the meats, except the shoulders, with a solu- 
tion of saltpetre, which is applied with a 
swab to the green meat, and while wet with 
it is covered and rubbed with salt, and then 
packed in tiers to cure. In three weeks it 
is all handled over and treated to a second 
dressing of salt, and again in seven days 
more, when it is pronounced cured. After 
lying a few days, the English meats are taken 
andcarefully scraped and smoothed off pre- 
paratory to packing. These meats are usually 
packed in square boxes containing 500 pounds. 

The barrel meat is packed in the second 
story. Enough pieces of the various kinds 
are weighed out for a barrel, (200 pounds.) 
It is then packed in the barrels, a layer of 
meat, then salt, until filled, the whole headed 
up and branded. Each barrel is then filled 
with as much brine as the barrel will take, 
and allowed to stand with a small bung open 
a short time. 

Description of meats. Mess pork is made 
of the sides of the thickest and fattest hogs, 
cut in strips six to seven inches wide, run- 
ning from back to belly. 

Mess 0. pork (mess ordinary) is cut from 
the sides of a lighter class of hogs, ranging 
from 170 to 200 pounds, cut up in the same 
manner. 

Prime mess is cut from a still lighter class, 
ranging from 100 to 150 pounds weight, the 
shoulder being included. While on the 
block this class, after being divested of the 
head, saddle, and lard, is cut lengthwise 
about mid-way of the ribs, and then cut up 
cross-ways into 4 pound pieces, so that it 
takes just fifty of them to make a barrel. 

The hams and shoulders are taken by the 
trimmers — the hams nicely rounded off and 
shaped ; the shoulders the same — when they 
are dropped through a spout to the lower 
floor, as is all the other meat cut for curing. 
The heads, trimmings, leaf lard, gut lard, &c, 
are all gathered and taken to the lard-house. 

The feet generally go to the glue makers. 
Quantities, however, are prepared for eating 
by thoroughly cleaning and freeing from the 
toe nails ; then thoroughly cooking and pick- 
ling in vinegar. 

The tongues are packed in barrels, the 
same as mess pork, and always in demand, 
large quantities finding a foreign market. 
For home consumption they are prepared 
and pickled the same as the feet. 

Lard oil is made by placing the lard in 
heavy duck bagging, and subjecting it to 



powerful pressure, the residuum being stear- 
ine, which is extensively manufactured into 
candles of excellent quality. 

The quality of smoked meat depends very 
much upon the curing of it previous to - 
smoking. 

The process of curing varies with different 
houses, some applying the saltpetre and salt, 
and packing in bulk to cure ; while others 
prepare a pickle (sweet pickle generally) by 
the use of three ounces of saltpetre, and one 
to two quarts of molasses for a tierce, the 
brine being made to show thirty degrees of 
saltness by the meter. 

After the meat has lain sufficient time in 
the pickle, it is taken out and packed in bulk 
for curing, or, which is better, hung up in 
the smoke-house, remaining at least four 
weeks before it is thoroughly cured. 

If the meat is designed for shipment to 
foreign ports, it is seldom smoked, but ship- 
ped "packed in tierces, with salt, like other 
barrel meat, and the cask filled with the 
sweet pickle. 

The following table shows the number of 
hogs packed in Cincinnati, in the desig- 
nated years, beginning with 1848: 



1848 475,000! 1860. 



1850 393,000 

1852 352,000 

1854 421,000 

1856 405,300 

1858 446,077 



1803... 

1865 350,000 

1M57 402,000 

1869 350,555 

1871 500,006 



434 49911873 626,306 

6U8, „7 1875 560.164 

1877 523.572 

1878 632,308 

1879 623,584 

1880 607.895 



The number packed in Chicago in the 
years specified below, was, 



1853^ . . 
1855-6 . . 
1857-8 . . 
1859-60 . 
1861-2 . . 
1862-3 



52.849 1864-5 
80.380 1865-6 
99,202 1866-7 

167,968 18(57-8 

511.1181868-9 

970,2641869-70 ... 



760,514 
463,450 
635,732 

800,000 



1874-5 . 
1876-7 . 
1877-8 . 
1878-9 



719,000,1879-80. 
688,1401 



..1,781.796 
. 3.220.621 
..4.222.774 
. . 5,232,737 
..4,940,172 



St. Louis, Louisville, Toledo, Dubuque, 
Cleveland, Terre Haute, and 1 44 other cities 
and towns in the western states, are engaged 
in pork-packing, and the entire number 
packed range from 5,000,000 to 9,000,000 
per annum. The business has steadily in- 
creased since 1850, when it first assumed 
a considerable magnitude, being in 1879 
more than seven-fold greater than thirty 
years before. 

"We have thus alluded briefly to the vari- 
ous classes of live stock in the United States, 
and have given some idea of its progressive- 
ly increasing value. Let us now recapitulate 
the aggregate of the census of 1870, and of 
the estimates of the Agricultural Depart- 
ment for 1880, in such a shape as to show 
the growth of the country in this branch of 
agriculture. The statistics of live stock in 
the United States in 1850, 1870, and 1880 




SOUTHERN PINE WOODS HOG. 




WESTERN BEECH NUT HOG. 




IMPROVED ESSEX. 




IMPROVED SUFFOLK. 




BERKSHIRE HOG. 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATE3. 






are as follows, the value at the last date 
only being given: 



Aoimala. 



Horses 

As*es and Males. 
Milch Cowb. . . 
Worklnc Oxen. . 
Other Cattle. . . 

Sheep 

Swine 



No. 1S50. 



$l,3:i«,719 
65«.:«I 
6,St-5.094 
1,700,694 
10,188,069 
21,728,82!) 
30,851,213 



No. 1870. 



17.145,87(1 
1,817,984 
8,935,33:1 

1.319, '.'71 
IH,SR6,00S 
■28.477,951 
21,134,669 



11,201,S00 
1-.',(I'.'7.ikiii 
[ 21.231,000 
18.766,906 
81,084,100 



Value 1880. 



(618,296 mi 
105,948,819 
219,899,420 

341,7(11,154 

107,772,639 

145,781,515 

$1,594,459,658 



The advance in numbers of these ani- 
mals averaged nearly forty per cent., but 
the valuation in 1870 was a currency val- 
uation, and inflation was at its highest 
point; the valuation of 1 880 was made after 
resumption, when prices had fallen about 
70 per cent., so that the $1,594,459,658 
represents an actual intrinsic value equal to 
$3,000,000,000 at least, in 1870. 

The value of slaughtered animals for the 
year 1870 was $398,956,376. The export 
demand for American beef, mutton, and 
provisions which has increased so rapidly 
within the last decade, and the growing 
market for meats at home justify us in es- 
timating the value in 1880 at $800,000,- 
0U0. The value of the farms in 1870 was 
$9,262,803,861. Notwithstanding the gardedas themosi eminenl authority, saya 



golden com, rearing it. imperial form and 
taaseUed banner high oyer .'.II its com, 
and founding its claim to royalty, a 
prince of cereals, by the universalit} of it. 
usea and its intrinsic importance to mankind. 
Its flexibility of organization ia truly 
wonderful; for while it growa best on moist, 
rich soils, ami uitl, greal beats, there at 
rietiea "fit whirl, can be raised at the height 
of more than eight" thousand feel aboi 
level of the sea. The wannest 1 regio 
the torrid zone produce it in abund 
while the short summers of Canada have 
varieties adapted to them which arri 
maturity with almost the same certain! 

those under a hotter sun and a longer Season. 

Indian Corn, therefore, as being the great 
staple crop of the country, demands our first 
attention. 

This plant is of American origin. It was 

found in cultivation :i Qg the aboril 

of the country at the time of it- discovery 

by Columbus. It is referred to by tl Id- 

est historians of Peru. It has been found 
growing wild in various parts of <Vntral 
America, and Humboldt, who must be re- 



downfall of prices from resumption, this 
valuation must have increased at least one- 
third, which would be $12,350,405,148. 
The farming implements and machinery in 
1870 were valued in the census at $336,- 
878,429, but the past decade has been re- 
markable for the increase of agricultural 
machinery, and its present value is at 
least $620,000,000. 

Our grand aggregate, then, of agricul- 
tural property in 1880, farms, farming 
machinery, live stock, and slaughtered ani- 
mals is $15,367,864,806. Let us next 
inquire what is the annual income of this 
vast sum invested in farming and labor, 
and refer to the farm products for a reply. 

PRODUCTS OF THE SOIL. 

In a range of latitude extending almost 
from the tropics to the regions of frost and 
■now, we should naturally expect to find a 
great variety of climate, and the products 
more especially adapted to it. And such is 
the case. The products of our agriculture; are 
infinitely varied, and all the great staples 
form a most important part in promoting the 
national prosperity. But if, among them all, 
one can be said to hold pre-eminence over 
the rest, the palm must be yielded to the 

•Asses not enumerated. 



"It is no longer doubted among botanists that 
Maize, or Turkish corn, is a true American 
grain, and that the old eminent receiyi 

from the new.'' 

It is well known that Indian corn entered, 

in some form or other, into the myth 
and the religious ceremonies of tic Indians, 
both of North and South America) long 
before they were disturbed by the appear- 
ance and approach of civilization, school- 
craft mentions an interesting allegory of the 
Ojibwas, which has since been clothed with 
an unusual fascination by the graceful lan- 
guage of Longfellow. 

A young man went out into tie 
fast, at the period of life when youth i- . \- 
changed for manhood. He buill a lodge of 
boughs in a Becluded place, and painted his 
face of a Bombre hue, Bj day he an 
himself in walking about, looking at tl 
rious Burubsand wild plants, and at night he 
lav down '" bia bower, from which, being open, 
he could look up into the sky. He sought a 
gift from the Master of Life, and he hoped it 
would be Bometbingto benefit Ids race. On 

the third day he became tOO weak to 

the lodge, and aa he lay rating upward he 

saw a spirit conic down in the sh.ap. 

beautiful young man. dressed in green, and 
haying green plumes on his head, who told 



730 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



him to arise and wrestle with him, as this 
was the only way in which he could obtain 
his wishes. He did so, and found his 
strength renewed by the effort. This visit 
and the trial of wrestling were repeated for 
four days, the youth feeling at each trial 
that, although his bodily strength declined, 
a moral and supernatural energy was impart- 
ed, which promised him the final victory. 
On the third day his celestial visitor spoke 
to him. " To-morrow," said he, " will be the 
seventh day of your fast, and the last time I 
shall wrestle with you. You will triumph 
over me and gain your wishes. As soon as 
you have thrown me down, strip off my 
clothes and bury me on the spot, in soft, 
fresh earth. When you have done this, 
leave me, but come occasionally to visit the 
place, to keep the weeds from growing. 
Once or twice cover me with fresh earth." 
He then departed, but returned the next 
day, and, as he had predicted, was thrown 
down. The young man punctually obeyed 
his instructions in every particular, and soon 
had the pleasure of seeing the green plumes 
of his sky visitor shooting up through the 
ground. lie carefully weeded the earth, 
and kept it fresh and soft, and in due time 
was gratified at beholding the mature plant, 
bending with its golden fruit, and gracefully 
waving its green leaves and yellow tassels in 
the wind. He then invited his parents to 
the spot to behold the new plant. " It is 
Mondamin," replied his father, " it is the 
spirits' grain." Tradition says they imme- 
diately prepared a feast, and invited their 
friends to partake of it ; and that this is the 
origin of Indian corn. 

However this may be, we know that the 
first attempt by the English to cultivate it 
within the present limits of the United 
States, was made on James river, in Virginia, 
1608 or 1G09. The pilgrims found it in 
cultivation by the Indians around Ply- 
mouth, and immediately began its cultiva- 
tion, manuring it with alewives As early 
as 1621, Gov. "VVinslow visited the Nemas- 
ket Indians, at Middleboro', Mass., who fed 
him on maziinn. 

In 1850 the production of Indian corn 
was 592,071,104 bushels, a decided ad- 
vance on the crop of 1840; in 1860 it was 
838,792.742 bushels, an increase of almost 
40 per cent, on 1850, the crop of 1869 
reported in the census of 1870, was much 
smaller than that of tho previous year, 
amounting to only 760,944,549 bushels; 



that of 1879, reported in the census of 
1880, was 1,773,106,576 bushels, more 
than double that of 1869. The increase 
was very large in most of the States, and 
was particularly great in the Western 
States. The crop of 1880 was estimated 
as 1,537,535,900 bushels, 236,000,000 bush- 
els less than that of the preceding year, but 
perhaps from the advance of price of near- 
ly equal money value. 

Among the earlier exports of the country 
we find frequent mention of the number of 
bushels of Indian corn, showing that a con- 
siderable surplus was produced in many lo- 
calities a century ago. Thus, the amount ex- 
ported from South Carolina in 1748 was 
39,308 bushels, and in 1754, 16,428 bush- 
els. The amount shipped from Savannah in 
1755 was 600 bushels, and in 1770, 13,598 
bushels. And so North Carolina exported 
no less than 61,580 bushels as early as 1753. 
Virginia for several years previous to the Rev- 
olution exported 600,000 bushels a year, 
and from the port of Norfolk alone, 341,- 
984 bushels in the year 1791 ; while in 1795 
the amount from that port reached 442,075 
bushels. At the same time the amount sent 
from City Point, Virginia, in 1791 was 21,- 
180 bushels, including meal, and in 1795, 
33,358 bushels. 

The amount shipped from Philadelphia in 
1752. was 90,740 bushels, and in 1767 there 
were exported from there 60,206 bushels. 
In 1771 it reached 259,441 bushels, and in 
1796 it amounted to 179,094 bushels, in ad- 
dition to 223,064 barrels of Indian meal. 

There were 2,510 bushels shipped from 
Portsmouth, N. H., in 1776; and in 1777, 
1,915 bushels; which amount increased in 
1778 to 5,306 bushels; while in 1779, the 
export amounted to 3,097. The export of 
this grain from the same place was 6,711 
bushels in 1780, and 5,587 bushels in 
1781. 

But previous to the first-mentioned date 
(1776), this grain was on several occasions 
imported into Portsmouth, and up the Pis 
eataqua river, to the extent, in 1765, of 
6,498 bushels, owing, probably, to a sevei 
drought in the year previous, and the spring 
of 1765, which seriously affected the cor 
crop. And again, in 1769 the import to that 
section amounted to 4,097 bushels, followec" 
in 1770 by 16,587 bushels. During that 
year there was a " very melancholy dry time," 
in July and August ; a drought of such se- 
verity that there was little prospect of com. 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



• ;l 



The worms had done much injury in the 
spring, and a " very uncommon sort of worm, 
called the canker worm, ate the corn and 
grass all as they went, above ground, which 
cut short the crops in many places." Ami 
again, in 1772 the pastures all dried up, and 
there was very little corn, and all kinds of 
grain suffered very much ; so that the amount 
of corn imported into 1'ortsniouth and vi- 
cinity was 4,096 bushels in that year. 

But the total amount of Indian corn ex- 
ported from the colonies in 1770 was 578,- 
349 bushels. In 1791 it amounted to 2,064,- 
936 bushels, including 351,695 bushels of 
Indian meal. In 1800 the aggregate num- 
ber of bushels exported was 2,032,435, in- 
cluding 338,108 bushels of meal ; while in 
1810 the export of this grain was only 140,- 
996 bushels, of which 86,744 bushels were 
in the form of Indian meal. 

The product of Indian corn, as may be 
gathered from the amount exported, had 
never reached any thing like the figures 
which it has attained within the last thirty 
years. This was not owing merely to the 
fact that the avenues to the great west were 
not then opened — though, of course, they 
have vastly multiplied the market facilities 
for this and other products — but chiefly to 
the fact that the real advantages of cultiva- 
ting this as a staple or reliable crop, were 
not then appreciated as they arc now. Add 
to this the fact that it was comparatively 
little used as human food in any part of 
Europe, and we have a reason sufficient to 
account for the fact that the product was 
comparatively small. The inland farmer had 
no market for it, the cost of transportation 
of so bulky a product prevented him from 
teaming it to any great distance, and the lo- 
cal demand was so limited that there was no 
object in raising much more than was abso- 
lutely needed for home consumption. 

In the year L816 the crop of Indian corn was 
very generally cut off throughout the north- 
ern states by frequent and severe frosts, so 
that as a cultivated crop it fell into disrepute 
in many sections, and was cultivated less for 
some years, by individual fanners, till its in- 
trinsic importance as a sure and reliable crop 
brought it gradually into favor. At the time 
it was first included in the United States cen- 
sus, in 1840, the aggregate yield >>( the coun- 
try was 377,531,s7o, or nearly four hundred 
millions bushels. In 1850 it had reached 
within a fraction of six hundred millions, 
Iwxng returned as 592,071,104, occupying 



31,000,000 of acres. The value of this 
enormous crop was *-_".h;, o:it, ;,.-._-. 
Was a irain of 61 per cent, or 214,1 
229 bushels, while the incn pnla- 

tion during the same period wa 
per cent According to the estimate >■( 
the secretary of the treasury, the cr< p 
Indian cm ' m i 865 was between »ev< i 
eighl hundred million-, .. r nearly doubl< 
of 1840. Bu1 this estimate wa- i ntin 
low, the crop being the largest and best that 
year thai had e\er been raised in the coun- 
try, and amounting, at least to L,0( I 

bushels, and its value, at a low estimate, was 
-^400,000,000. 

We see, therefore, on reference to the 
census, that this crop formed aboul I 
sixteenths of the whole agricultural product 
of the country in I860, and that the propor- 
tion of improved land devoted to coi 
.333, while the number of bushels t<> each 
person in the country wa- 25.53.* 

Prom the amounts of corn Btated aboi ■ 
raised in 1S40 and in 1850, it will be seen 
that we had a very large surplus over and 
above what we needed for home consump- 
tion; though it must he evident thai 
quantities are, and must he required to 
to tin; large number of , •attic and swine, 
which we have Been are annually prepared 
for the shambles. It appear- from official 
statistics that the exportation of Indian 
corn has rapidly increased Bince l-.", when 
it amounted to only 607,277 bushels, valued 
at $261,099, and 131,669 barrels of Indian 
meal, value. 1 at $345,180, making an agj 
gate of $616,279. In L830-1 the numher 
of bushels of corn exported from the coun- 
try was 571,312, valued at $896,61 7, and 
lmi7,('.04 barrels of Indian meal, valued at 
$595,434. In 1840-1 the numher of bush- 
els of corn exported was 535,727, 
$812,954, «iih 232,284 barrels of 
worth $682,457. 

Bui in I 8 15-6 the amount rose to 1,8 
088 bushels, valued al $1,186,663; and from 
that in L846-7 to 16,326,050 bush< 
worth $] ^,:;'.^-^L , lL , . The nexl 17-8, 

it reached nearly -i\ millions of 
in 1848-9 to upward of thirteen n i 
valued at $7,966,869. 



* France produoed in 1826 bul ' 

els while ia is-17 she produced 9 I 
els— being mi in 

in twenty oduoed 16,1 

bushels in I 



732 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



The exports of Indian corn and meal in 

different years from 1851 to 1868, were as 
follows : 

Year. Bush.ofcorn. Value. Bbls.Iud.Meal. Value. 

1851 3,426.811 $1,762,549 203.622 $622^66 

1856 10.292.280 7.622,565 293.607 1,175,688 

1860 3,726,786 2.399,808 289.570 912.075 

1862 18.904,898 10,387,383 253.570 778,344 

18156-7... 14,889,828 14,871.092 284.281 1,555,585 

1870-1... 9,826.809 7.458,997 211,811 951.830 

1872-3... 38,541,930 23,794,694 403.111 1,474,827 

1876-7... 70.860.983 41,621,245 447,907 1.511,152 

1873-9... 86,296.252 40,655.120 397,100 1,052,231 

1879-S0. . 98,169,877 53,298,247 350,613 981,361 

The amount of exports is, of course reg- 
ulated very much by foreign demand, but 
is steadily increasing and latterly in a very 
rapid ratio, as the above table conclusively 
shows. It is but a few years since the 
foreign demands for breadstuffs began 
to any great extent. Now and then 
would occur a year of unusual scarcity, 
such as in 1856, 1862, and 1866-7, when 
our exports ran up to large amounts, reach- 
ing in 1862 over 19 millions of dollars, 
to be sure, but it was rare to find any exten- 
sive demand year after year for our surplus 
products. The increase of population be- 
yond the point of capacity to produce, in 
Great Britain and the continent of Europe, 
now gives the bread question an importance 
paramount to all others with the European 
statesman, and it is having and will have a 
powerful influence on our agriculture. Con- 
sumption has overtaken production — got be- 
yond it, in fact, in some of the countries of 
Europe — and henceforth importation must 
supply an ever increasing demand, since, 
however much the agricultural production 
of western Europe may increase by the im- 
proving condition of its agriculture, it can- 
not hereafter keep up with the natural in- 
crease of population, which, at the present 
time, in Great Britain, is at the rate of a 
thousand per day. This crowding popula- 
tion will appear in its true light, in an agri- 
cultural point of view, when it is considered 
that if the United States and its territories 
were as thickly populated as Great Britain, 
they would contain about 1,250,000,000 of 
people, a number almost equal to the whole 
population of the globe. 

The year 1824, it is asserted by some, was 
the turning point at which consumption 
overtook and exceeded production in Eng- 
land. Since that time the agricultural pro- 
duction of Great Britain has been vastly in- 
creased by the improvement of agriculture 
and live stock ; but great and perceptible as 
improvement has been, it has not, and can- 



not fully supply its overgrown population. 
The famine in Ireland in 1847, causing the 
loss of half a million of lives by starvation, 
and the political revolution which soon fol- 
lowed on the continent in 1848, growing out, 
to a great extent, of a short supply of food, 
are fresh in the minds of every one. 

Now this surplus of population and the 
consequent permanent demand for the pro- 
ductions of our soil are of comparatively 
recent date, and we have hardly, even yet, 
begun to realize their importance and the in- 
fluence which they are hereafter to exert in 
developing the resources of our soil. A cen- 
tury and a quarter ago (1756 M. D'Anque- 
ville, a political economist of France, said : 
" England could grow corn enough in one 
year to supply herself for four." Now, 
though she has, at least, three times as much 
land under cultivation as then, and though 
the yield of her products to the acre has 
been more than doubled, yet she imports 
food in the shape of corn, wheat, oats, meal, 
and flour to the extent of more than £55,- 
000,000, or $280,000,000, of which in 1880 
more than one-half came from the United 
States. Russia, Roumania, and Egypt, 
which had hitherto furnished much of the 
grain supply of England and France, are 
now hardly able to supply their home de- 
mand, and British statesmen and journals 
recognize the fact. The Mark Lane Gazette, 
the highest authority on this subject, say- 
ing: "'One fact is clear, that it is to "West- 
ern America that we must, in future, look 
for the largest amount of cereal produce." 

It was fortunate, therefore, ior the pros- 
perity of the country, and especially for the 
prosperity of its agriculture, constituting by 
far the largest and most important interest, 
that just about the time when a more exten- 
sive demand for its surplus products grew up 
in Europe, the means were provided for 
throwing this surplus into good markets. 

After the triumphant termination of the 
war of the Revolution, the importance of 
developing the material resources of the 
country impressed itself upon the minds of 
far-seeing statesmen. Washington himself 
projected a canal, extending up the Potomac, 
to connect the great west — then compara- 
tively uninhabited — with the Atlantic coast, 
and though the enterprise was premature, 
and the requisite capital could not, at that 
time, be procured, it shows the grand con- 
ception of his noble mind, and that he fore* 
saw the vast importance which the agricul- 







THE MARSH WIND MILL 



tn^ e t5^5AK«U^a™ffi t i6r/%i^ , , t ^™ t i , T, Cn T k **?- «««*«««! box*,, 




THE MARSH WIND MILL. 



The only Mill with a Graduating Crank, that gives a longer or a shorter stroke ti pump in 
proportion to tne force of wind. 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 






ture of that great country was destined t<> 

assume. But that state of things could not 
always remain in a country rapidly recover- 
ing from the stagnation of a long protracted 
struggle for independence, and the events 
of a second war showed most clearly the ne- 
cessity of increased facilities of intercommu- 
nication. Then we had no canals to speak 
of, and no good roads. The great extent of 
sea coast, the magnificent bays, and the 
mighty rivers which intersected the country 
were the chief means of industrial inter- 
course, and these could he blockaded, crush- 
ing our commerce and bankrupting individ- 
uals, to the serious injury of the whole coun- 
try. Then DeWitt Clinton conceived the 
project of connecting the waters of the 
Hudson with those of Lake Erie, by a canal 
so vast in extent as to strike everybody with 
astonishment. President Madison went so 
far as to express the opinion that it could 
not be accomplished, even with the treasures 
of the whole federal government. But Clin- 
ton persisted, and in 1825, eight years from 
the time it was begun, a canal of three hun- 
dred and fifty miles in extent, costing at that 
time over $9,000,000, bore the produce of 
the west to the New York market. 

The success of this grand enterprise stim- 
ulated other improvements of a similar char- 
acter, and opened up sources of wealth, the 
mere enumeration of which would appear to 
be fabulous. Railroads soon followed, anni- 
hilating distance, as it were, and bringing 
the growing centres of trade into close com- 
munication. We now have about 10'.),000 
miles of railroads, forming a complete net- 
work all over the country. At the time of 
the Revolution, the great state of Ohio was 
a wild forest that had rarely been penetrated 
by any white man, except, perhaps, the ad- 
venturous hunter. In 1800 she had but lit- 
tle over 40,000 inhabitants. Now railroads 
connect her many large and prosperous 
cities and her innumerable villages, and take 
the produce of her fertile farms to the sea- 
board markets. 

These means of communication arc of so 
recent date, that any prediction of their ulti- 
mate results in developing the agricultural 
resources of these states would be prema- 
ture. Indeed, the capacity for the produc- 
tion of human food, which is still compara- 
tively undeveloped in that section, can hard- 
ly be estimated. The progress within the last 
thirty years lias been so rapid and unprec- 
edented, as to appear altogether marvellous. 
38 



Bui Indian corn, while it U the mo*1 im- 
portant product in its monej value, i- Dot 
the only great itaple production of the 

country, and we turn our attention 

WHEAT. 

The wheat crop of the country is of about 
three-fifths the value of Indian corn, and, 
in some respects is quite as important 
This, like the other grains, was cultivated in 
this country at a very early date, having 
Keen bowb by Goanold, on the Elizabeth 
Islands, on the southern coast of Massachu- 
setts, as early as L603, at the time he t i r - 1 
explored that coast. In if.; l it Beems to 
have been first cultivated in Virginia, and no 
much did it commend itself to the ear 
tiers, that in 1C48, if history is to be l 
on, there were several hundred acres in that 
colony. It soon fell into disrepute, howev- 
er, as a staple crop, for the cultivation of 
tobacco was found to pay better, and for 
more than a hundred years it was compara- 
tively little cultivated. Premiums were 
offered to encourage its culture, hut they 
were not sufficient to check the growi] 
tention to tobacco. 

It is certain that wheat hail been cultiva- 
ted by the Dutch colony of the New Neth- 
erlands, for it is recorded that samples of 
this grain were taken to Holland in L626, to 
show what could be done in the new coun- 
try. 

It is not certain that it was cultivated in 
the Plymouth colony immediately upon it* 
settlement, though it is highly probable that 
not more than a year or two would hav< 
been allowed to pass before so importanl a 
plant would have received its due attention. 
in IGl'9, wheat ami other grains for - 
were ordered from England, and in 1631 
there arrived a vessel with thirty-four 1 
heads of wheat flour. 

The culture o\' wheat was undoubtedly 

commenced almost simultaneously with the 
settlement of the country, hut • ver 

to have attracted any very _ tion 

for more than a century, Indian corn and 
potatoes being more relied upon for subsist- 
ence. It was never raised in New England, 
in early times, with so much BUC< 
has been during the present century. \- 
early as Hie.:;, it was found to he ven sub- 
ject to blast and mildew. Early in July of 
'that year, "the best wheat." says ai 

manuscript diary that I ha\ e consulted, "as 

also some other grain, was blasted in many 



736 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



places, so that whole acres were not worth 
reaping. We have had much drought the 
last summer (1662), and excess of wet sev- 
eral other springs, but this of blasting is the 
first so general and remarkable that I yet 
heard of in New England." 

But this blasting is frequently " heard of" 
afterward, for the very next year (1664) the 
wheat was very generally blasted, " and in 
sundry towns scarce any. left." And the 
blast returned again in 1665 and 1666 with 
great severity. This explains why it never 
became a prominent crop in New England. 
There never was a time in the history of this 
section of the country when it was a sure 
and reliable crop, unless it be the present, 
with our improved modes of culture, our 
better knowledge of proper modes of tillage, 
deep ploughing, and thorough drainage. I 
have no patience to read the cant which is 
constantly paraded in the papers of this and 
other countries about the exhausted soils of 
New England. How often do we see it 
stated that they are "run out," that they won't 
bear wheat, and the return of the census of 
1860 is compared with that of 1850 to show 
an enormous falling off, as if it were owing 
to the fact that it is impossible to grow 
wheat. It is not so. As good crops can be 
and are grown in Massachusetts now as 
there ever were. It is as safe a crop now as 
it ever was, and as profitable. But " the 
census shows a falling oft'," is constantly 
sounded over the country, till people are led 
to believe it cannot be raised on account of 
the impoverished condition of the soil. The 
census does show a decline of this crop in 
New England between 1840 and 1850, and 
a large one. But the wheat crop was injured 
in 1849 — that being the year on which the 
statistics of the crops of 1850 are returned 
— to a degree wholly unprecedented, not 
only in New England, but in several of the 
largest wheat-growing states. The returns, 
therefore, made in June, 1 850, do not cor- 
rectly indicate the usual quantity of grain 
grown in the United States. Nor did the 
census of 1860 give anything like an ade- 
quate idea of the magnificent crop of wheat 
produced in that year (1860) throughout the 
northern, middle, and western states. 

But wheat is subject to many losses by in- 
. sects, rust, smut, frost, drought, storms, and 
other casualties, as well as poverty of the 
soil. Some years since the crop was very 
greatly damaged in central and western New 
York, and in Ohio, by the wheat fly; in 



other years by the weevil. When the form- 
er, the wheat fly, makes its appearance, there 
is no known remedy but to discontinue the 
culture of wheat in that locality till it dis- 
appears. After a time, the culture of wheat 
may be resumed with a reasonable hope of 
freedom from this pest. This is one reason 
of the little attention, comparatively, paid 
to the culture of this crop in New England 
for the last few years. The farmers in many 
localities have resumed its culture again. 
There are many magnificent wheat fields in 
Massachusetts which have averaged for 
several years past twenty-five, thirty, and 
thirty-five bushels to the acre, of as full and 
fair a kernel as ever grew; and many an 
acre in Massachusetts has yielded over forty 
bushels of excellent wheat. It is the opin- 
ion of many practical farmers that they can 
raise thirty-five bushels of wheat as easy as 
fifty bushels of corn to the acre. But the 
census of 1860 did not return the full crop. 

There were other reasons for the falling otf 
than the impoverishment of the soil. A 
part of these have been alluded to, and are 
to be found in the comparative uncertainty 
of the crop; but a more direct and important 
cause was the opening of direct railroad 
communication, and the cheap freight sys- 
tem, with the west. The farmer could pro- 
duce other crops for the market which paid 
well, and it was better for him to buy flour 
than to raise it. He could not compete 
with the west in raising wheat, but he could 
in raising milk for the market, in raising 
fruit — which finds a ready sale at his door — 
in raising vegetables, which the multiplica- 
tion of manufacturing villages in his neigh- 
borhood created a demand for. And so his 
industry was merely turned into another 
channel for a time, and very wisely too. 

During the last century considerable 
quantities of wheat were raised along the 
Hudson and the Mohawk, and in New Jer- 
sey and Pennsylvania ; and, as we have seen 
in the case of Indian corn, the exports were 
somewhat respectable in years of scarcity in 
Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, and 
the West Indies, even previous to 1723. In 
1750 New Jersey took the lead of all the 
colonies in orowinu -wheat. 

The amount of flour exported from -New 
York in 1749-50, was 6,721 tons, besides 
many bushels of grain ; in 1756 it was 80,000 
barrels. The amount exported from New 
Jersey in 1751 was 6,424 barrels. The 
amount shipped from Philadelphia in 1752 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATE8. 



was 125,960 barrels, and 86,500 bushels of 
wheat. In 1771 the export of flour from 
that place was 252.744 barrels, and in 1772, 
284,82* barrels; in 1784, 201,305 barrels; 
in 1787, 193,720 barrels; in 1791, 315,785 
barrels. Virginia, for some years prior to 
the Revolution, exported about 800,000 
bushels of wheat. 

EXPORTS OF WHEAT AND FLOUR FROM THE 
UNITED STATES AT CERTAIN DATES. 



Year. 


Flouis, bbls. 


Wheat, bush. 


Total Vai.cks. 


1701 


619.6S1 


1,018,339 




1S00 


663,058 


26,858 




1810 


798,481 


825,024 




1803 


4,883,033 


87,289,572 




1S70 


8,468,383 


86,584,115 


$f>S,340.822 


1874 


4,094,094 


71,089,928 


1»',679,668 


1879 


6,629,714 


m,353,93( 


160,268,792 


1880 


6,011,419 


153,753,;'./:, 


225,879,602 



From 1840 to 1850 the increase of the 
wheat crop was, according to the census, 
only 15 per cent., mainly from the fact 
that the crop of 1849, the census year, was 
a very bad one. In the next decade, (1850 
to 1860) the increase was 60 per cent. In 
1870 the distinction was first made be- 
tween spring and winter wheat, and the 
increase from 1860 was 66 percent. From 
1870 to 1880 the increase was 73 per cent. 
The aggregate number of bushels in 1840 
was84,823,272; in 1850 it was 100,485,944; 
in 1860, 173,104,924; in 1870.287,745,626; 
in 1879-80, 459,591.093 bushels. During 
these four decades the center of wheat pro- 
duction was moving rapidly westward. In 
1850 and 1860 there was no considerable 
falling off in the wheat production of New 
England, which had at no time been act- 
ually large, averaging a little less than 
1,100,000 bushels annually. Of the Middle 
States New York, Pennsylvania, and ( hio 
had been the largest producers in 1851), in 
about the ratio of 13, 15, and 14,000,0<»l 
bushels; in 1860 the ratio changed to 8| , 
13, and 15, while Illinois, Indiana, and 
"Wisconsin had passed them all. In 1870 
New York had sunk to the eleventh place, 
while Illinois and Iowa contended for the 
first, and Indiana, Ohio, and "Wisconsin 
were not far in the rear. New England 
had 958,000 bushels, all told. In 1880 
New York had dropped to the 15th place, 
and Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan 
occupied the leading position, followed 
closely by Minnesota, Iowa, California, 
Missouri, and Wisconsin. The indications 
are that in five years, Minnesota, Iowa, 
Kansas, and California will occupy the 



leading places, and Dakota and \ 
will contest the places <»f Illi 
Ohio, and Michigan. 

The first foothold that agric tain. 

ed in this vast field 

year of the founding of Philadelphia, I 
when white settlement* were made u 
southern partofwhal is known asthe M Amer- 
ir; '" bottom," a trad of country extending 
for about a hundred miles in length- 
Alton, twenty miles above St Louis, down t<» 
Chester, at the mouth of the Kass 
river — byfive miles in width. This r< 
lies in Illinois, and forms the i astern border 
of the Mississippi river. Ib-re, far ren 
from eastern civilization, a bold and hardy, 
but honest and peaceable company of French, 
from Canada, and from France itself, ■ 
lished the old villagesof rlaskaskia, Prairie 
du Rocher, St. Philip, Cahokia, etc, chiefly 
for the purpose of opening a fur trade with 
the Indians. A part, probably al least half, 
of the settlers, however, finding thi 
ceedingly rich, devoted themselves to the 
cultivation of land, and the country for a con- 
siderable extent around these village* soon 
became productive of wheat and othei 
essaries <>f life. 

Tins was the first settlement beyond the 
Alleghany mountains, and preceded by a 
whole century the first settlements of \\> n- 
tucky and Tennessee. For a hundred and 
fifty years those tanners lived in l 
harmony with the natives. They were not, 
to be sure, very skilful in the art of agricul- 
ture. It was but rudely pursued at that 

time in the mother country. The imple- 
ments used in farming, even in the besl cul- 
tivated regions of Europe, were then ex- 
tremely rude as compared with those < t" the 
present day ; but here, in this remote out- 
skirt of civilization, thej were far more rude 
and uncouth than those used \>\ farmi rs who 
had greater facilities for making them. 

But notwithstanding this rude and in 
feet 'Milt ure. -,, great was the fertility of the 
soil to which it was entrusted, that tho 

wheat grew luxuriantly, and they often had 

a surplus, useless and comparatively worth- 
less to them, since the expense of gettii 
to market exceeded its value when it had 
arrived there. Who would ! ■• I to 

make improvements in farming under such 
circumstances .' With the demand for b 
consumption supplied with but t i i t ! 
with no inducements beyond a supply of 

their own limited wants, thev cool I 



738 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



expected to exhibit the enterprise and thrift 
of fanners having Greater interests at stake. 
But they went further, and entertained the 
same prejudice against any new notion, and 
Repugnance to any change, as that cherished 
at the same time in the older colonies. The 
old-established practice was good enough 
for them, and they clung to it with a tenac- 
ity worthy of a better cause. 

The cultivation of Indian corn was not 
introduced among these early western far- 
mers till long after they established themselves 
in that region — not, indeed, till after Louisi- 
ana had become a part of our national ter- 
ritory; but then, it took the place of wheat 
to a considerable extent, it being thought a 
more reliable crop, while the stalks furnished 
a more valuable winter fodder for cattle. 
When once introduced, it was cultivated on 
the same land year after year, for many 
years in succession, a practice which was 
continued in that section till a very recent 
date. Instead of linens and woollens, which 
were mostly worn at the same period among 
the country people at the sea-board, these 
farmers usually raised a small patch of cot- 
ton, and made their own garments, often 
using, also, the skins and furs of wild beasts. 
These latter became so important, as to be 
used as the currency in business negotiations, 
a deer-skin being of the highest value, and 
serving as the unit. 

Thus lived these quiet colonists, without 
change, and with slight improvements, from 
one generation to another, poor but inde- 
pendent, with food enough, cattle and hogs 
enough, few wants to supply, clinging with 
inveterate tenacity to old customs, and re- 
sisting innovations, till the time of the ces- 
sion of the country east of the Mississippi 
by France to England, in 1763, at which 
time the colony was at the height of its 
prosperity. The horses they raised were 
the small Canadians, said by some to have 
been derived from the pure Arabian, and 
obtained originally through Spain. They 
were very hardy, more so than the American 
horses of that time, and were rarely crossed 
with any other race ; but little or no care 
was taken of them for more than a hundred 
years, and they were allowed to run on the 
range without grain. Their cattle were 
small, with black horns, derived also from 
Canada. The French kept large numbers 
of fowls, usually had excellent gardens, and 
cultivated some fruit, among which were 
some valuable varieties of pears and apples. 



That section of country being conquered 
and taken from England in the Revolution, 
not a few of the American soldiers, rinding 
the country so fertile, remained and settled 
there; and it is said, that at least three- 
fourths of the Americans who had settled in 
Illinois previous to the war of 1S12, had 
served as soldiers in the Revolution. 

After the Revolution still more numerous 
settlements were made, till, in 1817, the 
state was admitted into the Union. After 
that period, farms and Farmers increased 
more rapidly than they had hitherto done, 
and the production of wheat and Indian 
corn rapidly increased. The cradle soon 
took the place of the sickle. In 1880 the 
first successful steam flour mill was erect- 
ed, and gave a new impulse to the raising 
of wheat. Up to this time, comparatively 
few cultivated meadows were to be found, 
and the wild, coarse grasses of the prairies 
and river bottoms were chiefly relied upon 
for winter fodder for horses and cattle. Of 
course, when cattle are running at large, but 
little improvement can take place in the 
breed, and but little had actually been at- 
tempted in this direction. But now the 
spirit of improvement began with renewed 
vigor, and we shall see how rapidly the agri- 
cultural resources of that great state have 
been developed within the last quarter of a 
century. 

What applies to this particular state, 
will apply with nearly equal truth to almost 
the whole of the great north-west. The prog- 
ress of agriculture in Illinois and the ad- 
joining states cannot be better illustrated 
than by referring to the rise and growth of 
the city of Chicago, which lias now become 
the greatest primary grain depot in the 
world, its exports being nearly twice as great 
as those of St. Petersburg, and exceeding 
those of Galatz and Ibrail combined, by up- 
ward of five millions of bushels a year. 

In 1829, Chicago may be said to have had 
no existence. It was then laid out, and the 
sale of lots took place in the autumn of that 
year. In 1840 it contained but 4,853 inhab- 
itants. In 1845 its population had crown to 
12,088, in 1850 it amounted to 28,269. In 
1855 it had increased to 88,509, in 1860 to 
109,264, in 1870 to 298,977, and in 1880 
to 503,304. 

The pre-eminence of Chicago as a grain de- 
pot is due in part to its geographical position, 
but to a great extent, also, to the great facili- 
ties for receiving, warehousing, and shipping 



AGRtCLLTl'RE IN THE UNITED STATES. 






on the river and its branches, and railroad 
tracks run in the rear of them, so that a 
train of loaded cars may be standing at one 
end of a 



grain. Her immense warehouses are erected 1857, 489,934 barrels; in 1864, 1170- 

274 barrels, in I ,1 j n 

1877, 2.568,724 barrela T\ 
grain earl, year were generally from' 
large elevating warehouse, ami 25 per cent, beyond the shipm- ■ 

quantities of wheat and corn b 
verted into flour and meal in the 
ducing the flour to grain, theehi] 
cereals, of all sorts, were, in 1854, 12,902,- 
320 bushels; in 1857, 1 - 
in 1862, 56,484,110 bushels, and in I 
93,153,002 bushels. 

The returns of receipts and shipments 
1878 and 1880. which exhibit thi 
from the Red River Valley, and the ■ 
landsof Dakota and Montana shoii 
increase. The country is still sparse] 
tied, compared with the oldi and 

the operations of agriculture are carried on 
under great disadvantages, with a great 
scarcity of labor, and in many cas is a want 
of capital. 

The reader will now be able to appreciate, 
to some extent, the vast importance of the 
improvements in agricultural implements and 
machinery, which have alreadj been de- 
scribed en a preceding page as having been 
made within the la-t twenty-five 3 
With the implements and processes in use 
within the memory of most men. it would he 
impossible to attain such magnificent n 
in the way of agricultural produce. There 
are at the present time, in the city of Chi- 
cago, some ten or twelve large man u fact 
engaged in making and Belling agricultural 
implements ami machinery, each employing 
from one hundred to three hundred b 
besides other large establishments at Rock- 
ford, Freeport, Alton, aid many other p 
employing throughout the state more than 

ten thousand persons. There are at l.a-t 
fifty reaper ami mower manufactories, and 
other establishments devoted to ma 

threshers, cultivators, ploughs, drills, lawn 

mowers, etc., and the demand tor I 
improved machines is rapidly increasing. 

But enormous as are the facilities of Chi- 
cago for receiving and ship] 

tural products, she has rivals in SOUK 
the departments of this traffic which ; 
her very olosely, though none has 
a trade in all descriptions of produce, Mil- 
waukee has. for the la.-' I 
equaled and Bometiinea surpassed her in 

,],',, d shipments ..f w 

wheat flour; St I. her 



while its load is being raised by elevator 
at the rate of from 7,000 to 8,000 bushels 
per hour, at the other end the same grain 
may be running into vessels, and be on 
its way to Buffalo, Montreal, or Liverpool 
within six hours' time. The Illinois Central 
railroad grain warehouses can discharge 
twelve cars loaded with grain, and at the 
same time load two vessels with it, at 
the rate of 24,000 bushels per hour. They 
can receive grain from twenty-four cars 
at once, at the rate of 8,000 bushels per 
hour. And numerous other immense grain 
houses can do the same thing. Grain can, 
therefore, be handled with wonderful dis- 
patch as well as with cheapness. The 
warehouse alluded to, that of the Illinois 
Central railroad, is capable of storing 1,500,- 
000 bushels of grain. It can receive and 
ship 05,000 bushels in a single day, or 
it can ship alone 225,000 a day! But this 
is only one of the magnificent grain ware- 
houses, and there are many others, some of 
which are of nearly equal capacity, and in 
the aggregate they are capable of storing 
3,395,000 bushels. They can receive and 
ship 480,000 bushels in ten hours, or they 
can ship alone 1,340,000 bushels in ten 
hours, and follow it up the year round. In 
busy seasons these figures are often doubled 
by running nights. 

The amount of capital in grain warehouses 
alone exceeds eight millions of dollars, to 
say nothing of a large amount of capital in- 
vested in other incidental meaus of conduct- 
ing this immense business. 

The first shipment of wheat from Chicago 
was made in 1838, and consisted of 78 bush- 
els. In 1853 the shipments were, of wheat, 
1,680,999 bushels; Indian corn, 2,780,253 
bushels; oats, 1,748,493 bushels. In 1857 
they had risen to, wheat, 10,783,292 bushels; 
Indian corn, 6,814,615; oats, 416,778 bush- 
els. In 1867 they were, wheat, 10,360,458 
bushels; Indian "corn, 20,213,790; oats, 
9,732,146; rye, 1,008,623; and barley, 
1,680,950 bushels. In 1877 they were, 
wheat, 15,406,123; corn. 46,532,795; oats, 
12,721,435; rye, 1,577,172; barley, 4,381,- 
857. The shipments of flour had been 
increasing in an equally rapid ratio. In 



1853 131,130 barrels were shipped; in in the provision trade, but none oi tnem 



740 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



maintains the supremacy in all respects. 
which Chicago has attained and holds. But 
Milwaukee, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Detroit, 
Cleveland, Buffalo, Louisville, New Orleans, 
and to a less extent Richmond, Charleston, 
and Norfolk are points of great importance 
for the receipt and shipment of agricultural 
products. 

In view of these facts we can realize that 
agriculture produces, as was estimated in 
1 S80, by the superintendent of the census, 
more than thirty-five hundred millions of 
dollars a year, and that in the State of New 
York where the assessed value of the reai 
estate is twenty-seven hundred millions of 
dollars ($2,681,970,833 in 1880) notwith- 
standing the enormous wealth of the me 
tropolis, the agricultural interest pays three- 
fifths of the taxes. 

It is interesting to notice, how rapidly 
the west has gained upon the east in the 
production of this crop (wheat) in the past 
forty years. In 1840, and even in 1850, 
the great wheat growing States were New 
York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio; while In- 
diana and Illinois were gradually advanc- 
ing to the first places. In 1860 the largest 
production was west of the Ohio River; 
in 1870 it was west of the west line of 
Ohio; in 1880 it was west of the west line 
of Indiana, and in 1 890 and perhaps earlier, 
it will be west of the Mississippi River. 
That portion of the Southern States lying 
east of the Mississippi, and especially Vir- 
ginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, and 
North Carolina, raised considerable wheat 
of an excellent quality before 1860, but 
their production has since that time greatly 
diminished, and the whole region east of 
the Alleghanies, north and south, with 
Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana thrown 
in, does not now produce more than one- 
seventh of the wheat crop of the United 
States, while the States and territories ly- 
ing on the Mississippi and its branches, and 
west of that river, and the States of Michi- 
gan and Wisconsin produce over 400,000,- 
000 of wheat, or six-sevenths of the whole 
crop. In 1879 half this amount was still 
grown east of the Mississippi, but in 1880 
the great crops of California, Oregon, Min- 
nesota, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and Dakota 
had turned the scale. The production of 
these seven States and territories alone 
exceeded 200,000,000 of bushels, and with 
the other States and territories made up 
an aggregate of at least 225,000,000. 



Two or three causes have aided largely 
in producing the wonderful development 
of wheat culture in the trans- Mississippi 
region. It was early discovered that in the 
rich soil of California wheat was not only 
very productive, but the berry was large** 
and contained a much larger proportion of 
gluten than the eastern wheat, and was 
better adapted to exportation. The area 
cultivated in wheat has increased rapidly, 
as it proved a profitable crop. Later it was 
found that the wheat of Oregon and Wash- 
ington possessed similar qualities. 

It was long supposed that the region 
above the 46th parallel in Minnesota, Da- 
kota, Montana, and Idaho was too cold for 
wheat to be a certain crop; the winter 
wheat in all that region, which has an ele- 
vation above 1,000 feet above the sea was 
liable to be winter killed, but it was finally 
discovered that spring wheat uniformly 
yielded good crops on this elevated land in 
these high latitudes, and when the further 
discovery was made that the spring wheat 
was substantially identical with the Cali- 
fornia wheat, weighing from 62 to 69 
pounds to the bushel, and that under the 
••new process" of grinding — using the 
•• middlings purifier " it made the best flour 
in the world, there was a very speedy de- 
velopment of wheat culture in all the new 
northwest. The Valley of the Red River 
of the North and the plains west of it have 
now the reputation of being the best wheat 
region on this continent — but they grow 
only spring wheat. Iowa farmers sow both 
spring and winter wheat but their crops 
are more sure with the former. Missouri, 
Nebraska, and Kansas, on the contrary, 
sow winter wheat exclusively. 

PRODUCTION OF OTHER GRAINS. 

Rye was introduced and cultivated in all 
the colonies at the earliest periods of their 
settlement, and was mixed with Indian 
meal for the making of bread, in New Eng- 
land, as early, certainly, as 1648, and per- 
haps even as early as 1630, and that custom 
became very common. The export of this 
grain has never been very extensive, and 
since the demand for wheat has been so 
much increased, its extent of cultivation has 
diminished rapidly. 

In 1796, no less than 50,614 barrels of 
rye meal were exported from Philadelphia, 
and in 1801 the United States exported 
392,276 bushels of rye. In 1842 the export 
was only 82,705 bushels. 



AGRICULTURE IN TIIE UNITED STATES. 



741 



The variation in the amount of the rye 
crop from one decade to another is not very 
great. It is less used for distillation now 
than it was forty or fifty years since, but it 
is more in demand for breadstuffs. In 
18-10 there were 18,645,567 bushels return- 
ed; in 1850, only 14,188,813 bushels; in 
1860, 21,101,380; in 1870, 16,918,975, and 
in 1880, 19,863,632 bushels. Illinois, New 
York, Pennsylvania, "Wisconsin, Kansas, 
Ohio, Nebraska, and Kentucky grew about 
three-fourths of the crop. The straw is 
very valuable and in great demand. 

Oats. — The culture of the oat was intro- 
duced into the colonies immediately after 
their settlement by Europeans, having been 
sown by Gosnold, on the Elizabeth Islands, 
as early as 1602. and cultivated to greater 
or less extent from that time to the present. 
But though much more extensively pro- 
duced than rye, its consumption as food for 
animals is so great in this country, that it 
has never formed any considerable article 
of export, though an average of about 
70,000 bushels was shipped for some years 
previous to 1820. 

The oat crop in 1840 was returned as 
123,071,341 bushels; that of 1850 as 146, 
584,179 bushels; that of 1860 as 172.643, 
185 bushels; that of 1870 as 282,107.157 
bushels, and that of 1880 as 407,770,712 
bushels. The geographical distribution of 
the crop of 1879-80 was as follows: The 
New England States raised 9,683,400 bush- 
els; the Middle States, 107,400,590 bush- 
els; the southern and southwestern States 
39,634,000; the Western States and terri- 
tories, 206,848.330 bushels. Illinois takes 
the lead in this crop, producing nearly 
47,670.400 bushels; New York comes next 
with 40 millions, and Iowa is third with 
37,256,400. The other states which yield 
the largest crop of this grain are Pennsyl- 
vania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Ohio. 
None of the other States produced 20 mil- 
lion bushels. 

Barley, like the other grains already 
mentioned, was sown on the first settlement 
of the colonies, having been first cultivated 
by Gosnold as early as 1602, on the Eliza- 
beth Islands, on the Massachusetts coasl 
and by the settlers at Jamestown, in \ it 
ginia, in 1611, where, however, it soon gave 
way to the more lucrative production of 
tobacco. Samples of it were sent from the 
Dutch colony at New York, in 1626. Good 
crops of it were raised in the colony of the 



Massachusetts Bay as eai d in 

179H the principal agricultu i 

the State of Rhode Island wi 

For many years, barlej 
crop in any pari oi the country; and was 

raised only for malting and d 
even for this purpose the supply \ 
rially below the demand, On tl 
coast, however, it succeeds better than 
and is preferred for feeding borsi -. an I 
for distillations. In 1840 the barley 
was returned as 1. 161,504 bus! e -. in 
as 5,167,015 bushels, in I860, as 1 " 
898 or three-fold what it was in 1 850. < 'al- 
ifornia already took the had. in 1 H 
turning 1.4 15.-1 26 bushels, while New ] 
returned only 4,186,668, Ohio i 
and Illinois 1,036,338 bushels. In I 
the larley crop was 29,761. J -. of 

which the Pacific State- and I 
raised 9-J millions, or nearly i ne third. In 
1879-80 the yield was reported at 44.149,- 
479 bushels, of which the Pacific coast fur- 
nished 15,500,000. The crop of 1880 was 
not less than 46 million bush 

Buckwheat. — This grain 
cultivated toany gn this coun- 

try, though it was a I into the col- 

ony at Manhattan I y the Hutch 

West India Company, and n ised there as 
early as 1 625 or 1 626. 1 was con- 

tinued by the Dutch to a me exl 
they used it as provender for horses. It 
was also cultivated by the Swedes, who 
settled along the Delaware, in New J< 
and Pennsylvania. 

None of the southern or sout! 
states, except Virginia and West Virginia, 
have ever made much account of this i 
A few acres were sown with it in North 
Carolina, Kentucky, and 'I but 

Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, and 
Ohio are the principal states for buckwl 
In 1840, the number of bushels • 1 
wheat returned was 7,291,743, in 
8,596,912; in I860, 17,571,818; in - 
9.821.721 ; in 1880 was some inci 
previous years, 11,851.738 
reported. The value of the cro] 
was about $10,000,000, and in 18* 
was $7,856,191. The gri md 

wheat growing belt, N< 5 N Jer- 

sey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Micl igan, I 
Illinois. Indiana, Wisconsin, and Minn 
produced in 1879, 12,421,40 1-V 

140.000 bushels yielded that year. 

The cultivation of buckwheat has the 



742 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



effect to cleanse the land, which has been 
one reason for its increase, while the price 
it commands makes it a profitable crop. 

CLOVER AND GRASS SEED. 

The production of clover and other grass 
seed for seeding lands intended for meadow 
purposes has become an item of some im- 
portance, though it is doubtful whether 
the crop is increasing in this country. 
There are considerable quantities imported 
every year, though not, we believe, much 
exceeding a value of $650,000. 

The crop of clover seed reported in 1860 
was 956,188 bushels. In 1 8 7 it had fall- 
en off to 639,657. The production of other 
grass seeds in 1860 was 900,040 bushels; 
in 1870 it had decreased to 583,188 bush- 
els. The amount produced in 1880 of 
both can only be known when the agricul- 
tural statistics of the tenth census are 
ready, but it is probable that there has not 
been a large increase. The crop of 1870 
was worth nearly $5,000,000. Pennsylva- 
nia led in clover, and Illinois in grass seed. 

THE POTATO. 

The potato is more universally cultivated 
in this country than any other crop, except- 
ing, perhaps, Indian corn. At what time 
it was first introduced, as a cultivated plant, 
into the American colonies, is not known, 
but it was, no doubt, soon after the settle- 
ment. It is mentioned among the seed or- 
dered for the Plymouth colony, as early, cer- 
tainly, as 16J9, but it was not recognized, 
probably, as an indispensable crop, till near 
the middle of the last century, when it ap- 
pears to have been very widely known and 
esteemed. As many as 700 bushels were 
exported from South Carolina in 1747, and 
in 1796 no less than 9,004 bushels were 
shipped from Philadelphia. 

It is well known that the sweet potato was 
first introduced, and came to be regarded as 
a delicacy in England, and the allusions to 
the potato by the earlier English writers who 
mention this plant, refer to the sweet, and 
not to the common potato. 

It has formed a somewhat important arti- 
cle of export, though by no means to be 
compared, in this respect, with wheat ami 
Indian corn. We exported in 1821-2 about 
129,814 bushels, valued at ■ $45,758. In 
1844-5 the export amounted to 274,216 
bushels, valued at §122,926. The number 
of bushels of potatoes returned by the census 
of 1840 was 108,298,060. In 1850, 05,787,- 



896bushels; in 1860, 111,848,817; in 1870, 
143,337,473; in 1879, 181,626,400, and in 
1880, 168,385,900. In 1850 there were 
38,268,148 bushels of sweet potatoes: in 
1860,42,095,026; in 1870, 21,709,824.' 

Peas and Beams. — Though not entering 
extensively into the commercial interests of 
the country, the product of peas and beans 
is still important, both from its extent and 
value for home consumption. 

Beans are said to have been first cultivated 
by Capt. Gosnold, on the Elizabeth Islands, 
as early as 1602. They appear to have been 
cultivated by the Dutch, at Manhattan, in 
1644, and about the same time in Virginia; 
but are said to have been previously raised 
by the natives. 

In the year 1755, the amount of peas ex- 
ported from Savannah was 400 bushels, and 
in 1770, 601 bushels. The amount exported 
from Charlestown in 1754 was 9,162 bushels. 
North Carolina exported 10,000 bushels in 
1753. 

The total amount exported annually from the 
United States for 20 years previous to 1817, 
was 90,000 bushels, while the beans annually 
exported during the same period amounted 
to from thirty to forty thousand bushels. 

The census of 1850 returned the amount 
of peas and beans as 9,219,901 bushels. The 
value of these crops exceeded $16,000,000; 
that of 1860, as 15,061,995 bushels, valued 
at about $45,000,000; that of 1 870, as only 
15,746,027 bushels, value not given. 
the grass and hay crop. 

Owing to the necessity that exists through- 
out all the northern portion of the United 
States to stall-feed the stock from three to six 
months of the year, the grass and hay crop as- 
sumes there an importance which it has not 
in the more southern portions of the country. 

I have alluded, briefly, on a preceding 
page, to the fact that, at the time of the 
early settlement of the colonies, no attention 
had been paid in the mother country to the 
cultivation of either the natural or the arti- 
ficial grasses. Attention to this branch of 
farming was gradually forced upon the set- 
tlers of the more northern portions of the 
country. For want of sufficient and suita- 
ble winter nourishment, the cattle, which 
were scarce and expensive, were often found 
dying of starvation, notwithstanding the 
efforts made to secure a supply of salt hay 
from the many marshes in the vicinity of 
the Plymouth and the Massachusetts, as well 
as the Dutch and Swedish colonies. 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 






It was, no doubt, many years before it 
became possible, in tbe nature of things, to 
provide full supplies for their cattle, and it 
was not unfrequcntly the ease, even after the 
culture of grasses was introduced, that the 
cattle were obliged to browse in the woods 
in a long and hard struggle for life, owing to 
the loss of crops by drought and imperfeel 
cultivation. 

The cultivation of timothy, the most im- 
portant and valuable of the forage grasses, 
was not introduced, according to J ami 
Eliot, who wrote in 1750, till a few years 
previous to that date, having been found by 
one Herd, in a swamp near Liscataqua. lie 
propagated it till it was taken to Maryland 
and Virginia by Timothy Hanson, after 
whom it is most frequently called. The 
well-known orchard grass was cultivated as 
early as the middle of the last century, for 
we know it was introduced from Virginia 
into England in 1764, or thereabout. The 
June, or Kentucky blue grass, was probably 
indigenous, and sprung up in the pathway 
of the settlers, as it does now, wherever the 
footstep of civilization penetrates. But it 
was not till a recent date that the general 
culture and improvement of the grasses re- 
ceived the attention it deserved. 

The grasses spring up almost spontane- 
ously in many localities, it is true, other- 
erwise the settlers would have suffered far 
more severely than they did. From the 
time when the great mandate went forth, 
even before the creation of man, " Let the 
earth bring forth grass," it has been a law 
of nature to clothe the earth with verdure as 
soon as the advance of civilization lets in 
the light upon the soil by the first clearings 
of the pioneer settler. 

The progress made in the cultivation of 
grasses and the production of hay has Keen 
greater within the last half century than 
ever before. This will appear, especially 
when we consider the improvement in the 
means of cultivating and harvesting the 
crop. The culture of clover had been com- 
menced, in some parts of the country, pic 
viousto that time, but it had not established 
itself in the farmer's favor to any very great 
extent, and the indigenous grasses were chiefly 
relied on, while the seed used m many parts 
of the country was that which had fallen 
from the hay-mow, foul, of course, and full 
of weeds. 

According to the census of L840, the hay 
crop of the United States was 10,248,108 



tons. In 1850 it was 13,83H,C42 ton- 
increase of 3,590,533 tons. In 18i 
18,083,896 tons with a value of 
than 209 million dollars; in 1-7 
27,316,048 tons, worth $366,474,426; in 

1879 there were 35,493,1 t qg worth 

$330,884,494; a greater an.' 
other agricultural product, excepl 
corn. If we add to this the vain 
grass crop (pasturage and Boilii 
which is more than equal to thai ol the hay. 
we have an amount exceeding that of corn. 

The production of hay is, to a certaii 
tent, a tax upon the farmer imposed 1 
severity of climate. In a mild climate and 
short winters, the necessity for curing hay 
in any considerable quantitii 
Less hay is made, of course, at the south 
than at the north. The same number 
size of cattle would require less artificially 
prepared fodder in a mild climate than in a 
severe one. Maine, for instance, in 1879, 
raised 1,248,000 tons of hay. and kept 446,- 
000 head of cattle and horses, about 
third of her hay crop being exported Illi- 
nois, with 2.548*500 tonsof hay kept H.008,- 
000 head of cattle and horses, osing about 
thirteen-fifteenths of a ton per head;- while 
Alabama, which made only 34,900 to' 
hay, kept 599.G12 head of" cattle, the pro- 
portion being but one ton of hay to seven- 
teen head of cattle. There is some eon 
sation in this, and that is the extreme diffi- 
culty of growing the ordinary natural 
grasses in a southern latitude, on ace 
of the severe droughts. It is almost im- 
possible to produce a fine, close, perm.. 
turf south of 39° N\ latitude, and 
erable quantities of cured hay are I 
from the north to southern ports every 

There is, also, another most important 
compensation in the greater facility afforded 
by the wintering of cattle for econon 
manure, and thus keeping up the fertility of 
the soil, for example, tobacco culture is 
said to have impoverished the soil of \ ir- 
ginia. < hie reason for it was, that k. i 
comparatively fe* cattle, and never ho 
them, hut rather "browsing" them fron 
year's end to another, th. ;• 
Bibilitj of Baving and making 
tity of manure Till th.' introdoctl 
guano, it was extremely difficult U 
mire for the tobacco field, and exhaustion 
was inevitable. In Massachusetts, 

Other hand, there is no crop that a wh< 

corn crop will follow so well as r 



744 



AGEICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



bacco, for the reason that the grower, know- 
ing the requirements of the plants, manures 
it very highly, as he easily can, and the soil, 
instead of being exhausted from year to 
year, is actually growing richer. 

The geographical distribution of the crop 
was returned in 1879 as follows: — 

The Eastern and Middle states produced 
17,835,800 tons, valued at $193,042,992; 
the west produced 1,475,300 tons, valued 
at $18,303,324; and the south and south- 
west produced 16,181,900 tons, valued at 
$119,056,078. 

No account of crops for winter feeding 
would be complete at the present time 
which neglected to give some account of 
the newly introduced system of ensilage 
which increases five-fold or more the num- 
ber of cows or other cattle which can be 
kept on a given area of land, greatly re- 
duces the cost of their support, improves 
their capacity as milk producers or as 
stock for the shambles, and, by increasing 
largely the amount of manure, renders 
the land constantly richer and more pro- 
ductive. 

Ensilage derives its name from silo, a 
pit or out-of-door cellar lined with cement 
— the bottom being also of cement — in 
which is packed green fodder — corn cut 
when the ear is in the milk, millet, rice 
corn, sorghum, Hungarian grass, lucerne, 
or alfalfa — each cut before being ripe, and 
reduced by means of a straw-cutter to 
pieces an inch and a half in length, put into 
the silo, and each layer trampled down 
solid, till the silo is filled to near the top, 
when a thick layer of straw is put on, and 
boards cover it, matched so as to fit closely, 
and heavy weights put on, the whole cov- 
ered with a thatch or other roof to shed 
rain or snow. When the ensilage, as the 
mass is called, is to be fed out, access is 
obtained to it on the side where a door- 
way has been previously dug out and 
blocked up. The mass is cut down with a 
hay-knife, and fed either alone or with 
grain, oil-cake, squashes, pumpkins, or 
carrots. It is not necessary to begin with 
this fodder until late in November, or in 
some sections till the. first of December. 
The silo should be large enough to contain 
from 125 to 200 tons of ensilage — and with 
this supply, which, aside from the cost of 
the silo, will not exceed a dollar a ton in 
cost, a farmer on a farm of fifty acres can 
keep from 80 to 100 cows, and his land be 



constantly growing richer from the ma- 
nure. The system is rapidly growing in 
favor in the east, and is beginning to be 
introduced in the south and west. 

In this connection, also, something 
should be said of the cultivation of forage 
grasses, so extensively practiced in the 
west, and becoming more and more prev- 
alent in the east and south. On the Pacific 
slope, and especially in California, Arizona, 
and Nevada, the preservation of anything 
like a sod is impossible ; the long hot sea- 
son burns up the roots of the grasses, and 
only annual grasses can be cultivated, un- 
less they are those having very strong and 
deep roots, and these do not usually make 
a good sod. Partly from this, and partly 
from other causes, the cultivation of for- 
age grasses has become very general, not 
only on the Pacific slope, but in all those 
states and territories occupying what are 
known as "The Plains." On the Pacific 
coast, alfalfa, a species of lucerne clover, 
which has deep and strong roots, grows 
two or three, and sometimes four, crops in 
a year, and is much relished by cattle. 
Next in order come: Hungarian grass, a 
species of German millet — Egyptian rice 
corn, or Dhourra, largely grown in Kansas 
— Pearl millet, Indian corn and sorghum, 
both sown thickly, and in some sections 
barley or oats. These are among the best 
paying crops of the western farms, and 
increase the flow of rich milk in the dairy 
farms. 

Mr. Edward Atkinson, the well-known 
manufacturer and publicist, is very enthu- 
siastic as to the benefits to be derived, es- 
pecially on wornout lands, by the system 
of ensilage. He said, in New York, in 
May, 1881: "Having seen 120 cattle and 
twelve horses that had been fed for nearly 
eight months on the product of thirteen 
and one half acres of land, with only four 
quarts per day of very ordinary middlings, 
I think it becomes rather difficult to limit 
one's conception as to what this new force 
may do in restoring exhausted soils, or de- 
veloping power of production in places 
that have not yet been touched. The need 
of the south is succulent food in the long, 
hot, dry summer that makes the great cot- 
ton crop; the need of the east is succulent 
food during the long winter when pasture 
is not to be had. Both are supplied by 
ensilage." Mr. Atkinson prefers Mills' 
method to that of the French agriculturists. 



AGRICULTURE IN TIIE UNITED STATES. 



:;-, 



THE CULTURE OF FRUIT. 

The first apples raised in this country- 
were probably from trees planted on Gov- 
ernor's Island, in Boston harbor, from 
which, on the 10th of Oct., 1639, ''ten fair 
pippins were brought, there being not 
apple or pear tree planted in any part of 
the country but upon that island." This 
may have been true of the apple trees, but 
we think some of the pear trees planted 
by the Dutch Governors of New Amster- 
dam in their "boweries" or farms in what 
is now the lower part of New York City 
were of somewhat earlier date than this. 
Some of these venerable pear trees have 
existed till our own times. 

Governor Endicott had on his farm in 
Salem (now in Danvers, Mass.), in 1640, 
the first nursery of young fruit trees ever 
planted in this country. It is related that 
he sold 500 apple trees for 250 acres of 
land, or at the rate of two trees for an 
acre. 

Choice fruit was exceedingly rare, in- 
deed hardly to be found at all, in this 
country, for 160 years^after this first nur- 
sery was established. There were apple 
trees grown from seedlings, but unfit for 
eating, and only used for making cider 
(any kind of apples, it was said, were good 
enough to make cider). It has been stated 
on good authority, that at the close of the 
Revolution, or even at the close of the last 
century, there were not, including the 
Dutch pear trees of New York City and 
their descendants, as many and as good 
varieties of choice fruit trees in the whole 
country as could now be found in a single 
good farming town of New England or 
New York. Most of the choice varieties 
of apples and pears have originated here, 
or been brought from Europe during the 
present century. If any very superior 
apple had existed in any country town in 
the last century it could not have become 
known and appreciated, however great its 
merits, since there was little or no commu- 
nication between towns even twenty miles 
apart. 

A young man might set out trees if he 
chose, but for a man of middle age or an 
old man to do so was absurd, and really 
tempting Providence. 

Nevertheless, during the first quarter of 
the present century, there were many large 
orchards planted in various parts of the 
country, though still with special reference 



to the production of dd( 
these orchards, though notgi iged 

by present standards, was much better 
than that which had preceded it. 

The census of 1830 was the first which 
gave any statistics of fruit or oxchar i pro- 
ducts. The amount was not large, bat in 
1840 it had increased to $7,256,904 
which cider and apple brandy and perry 
or pear brandy were the largest items. In 
1850, the amount reported was $7 723, 1 B6, 
an increase of less than half a million dol- 
lars, but the proportion of cider, perry, and 
apple brandy was much small. 
fruit much larger. In 1860, the orchard 
products had risen to $19,991,886 
which should be added about $8,000,000, 
nearly one-half of the market-garden 
ducts, consisting of small fruits. Betv 
1*860 and 1870 the wine from the Califor- 
nia vineyards and from other American 
vineyards began to come in; rket 

in considerable quantities, and the inn i 
railroad facilities brought great quantities 
of fruits into market. In 1870, orchard 
products were stated to be $47,3::.".. 1 - 
which was to be added over five millions 
for American wines, and ten millions for 
the small fruits reported under "Ma 
gardens," making a total of over 62 mil- 
lion dollars for fruit products in 1869—70. 

We have not as yet the census report of 
the fruit crop of 1879-80, which shows an 
immense advance in the product* □ at 
port of fruits, but a very elaborate article 
on fruit culture in the Agricultural Report 
of 1878 gives us most of the figures to the 
close of 1877, together with statistics of 
the dried, kiln-dried, evaporatt ■!. ai 
ned fruits. From this article we find that 
the fruit crop of is: 7. though nol what 
was called a "bearing year," was, in n 
numbers, $138,216,700, to wl icl is 
added 830,000,000 for the wine crop, mak- 
ing $168,216,700. Besides this ; 
the dried, evaporated, and canned fruits 
aggregated in thai year over $17, 
and have since greatly ini 
Eastern markets, within thelasl I 
have been largely supplied with I 
pears, quinces, nectarines, figs, raisins, and 
grapes, of choice varieties, ripe and 6 
at very low prices. The Florid 
groves an ming into fui] 

and the supply of 
verv great, though not equ 
mand. Weexport about $3,000,000 worth 



746 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



of ripe and canned fruits every year, and 
the export demand is increasing. 

The quality of the fruit of all kinds has 
"been greatly improved through the exer- 
tions of horticultural and pomological so- 
cieties. The oldest of these was founded 
in 1829. The American Pomological So- 
ciety was organized in 1848. There are 
now societies having the same objects in 
view in nearly every state, and almost every 
county and town in the Northern and West- 
ern States, and in many of the Southern 
States. They have encouraged in every 
way the production of new and valuable 
varieties of fruit, have thrown much light 
on the best methods of propagating, culti- 
vating, and marketing fruit of all kinds. 
They have introduced many new varieties 
of apples, pears, grapes, plums, and straw- 
berries from abroad, and have by careful 
selection produced native fruits from seed- 
lings and by hybridization, which surpass 
most of the European species and varieties. 
About 150 varieties of apples have been 
largely cultivated, most of them of fair 
promise, and all of them superior to the 
best in the country in 1820. Of these, per- 
haps, 25 are foreign, mostly from the north 
of Europe and Asia, and very hardy. A 
few of these are really very excellent au- 
tumnal and winter apples, such as the 
Red Astrachan, and other Russian and Si- 
berian fruits — as well as some from North- 
ern China and Japan. But the best apples 
we have are indigenous varieties, some of 
them seedlings, others produced by hybrid- 
ization. The Rhode Island Greening, the 
Newtown, and Golden Pippin, Baldwin, 
Northern Spy, King Apple, Vanderveer, 
Baldwin and Prentiss Russet, Seek-no- 
farther, Gilliflower, Ben Davis, and among 
the sweet apples, Golden, and Twenty- 
ounce Sweet, Talman's Sweet, Grimes' 
Golden, etc.; of the summer apples, Har- 
vest, Golden Bough, Sops of Wine, Wine 
Sap, etc. ; and of the newer kinds, Fameuse, 
Rome Beauty, Benoni, St. Lawrence, Maid- 
en's Blush, Mother, Rawle's Janet, Olden- 
burg, W r albridge, Fall Orange, Porter, 
Dyer, Jonathan, Willow, Striped Pippin, 
Wealthy, etc., are not surpassed anywhere. 
The apple crop is the largest of our fruit 
crops, except the grape, but its money value 
probably does not exceed that of the peach. 

In the cultivation of pears very strenu- 
ous efforts were made, at first, to introduce 
and naturalize French varieties. A few of 



these did well and are still prized, such as 
the Duchess D'Angouleme, Louise Bon de 
Jersey, White Doyenne, Flemish Beauty, 
Belle Lucrece, and perhaps one or two 
more, but the greater part proved failures, 
and to-clay a native variety, the Bartlett, 
stands at the head of all the pears in the 
market, both in price and excellence, and 
the Sheldon is perhaps next in rank. Other 
American pears have an excellent reputa- 
tion, and the culture of the pear is becom- 
ing more general. 

The peach crop in this country in a fav- 
orable year is valued at nearly 60 million 
dollars. It cannot be regarded as a certain 
crop above the 43d parallel, and on the 
eastern coast not above the 4 2d. On the 
Pacific slope it may do well in ordinary 
years up to 45°. In the South it can be 
cultivated with great success. It is culti- 
vated to some extent throughout the coun- 
try below the 43d parallel, but the great 
peach orchards which supply the market 
are in the eastern shore of Virginia, in 
Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and East- 
ern Pennsylvania, on the lower Hudson, 
and in southwestern Michigan and Illinois. 
There are many varieties, a few clingstones, 
though generally freestones, but the great 
cultivators devote their attention princi- 
pally to five or six kinds — about equally 
divided between the white and yellow va- 
rieties. The peach is not a long-lived tree, 
usually dying out in eight or ten years. 
The earliest peaches come from Florida and 
Georgia, where they are grown largely, but 
not of the best qualities. 

The next of our large fruits in the ex- 
tent of its culture is the orange. The cul- 
ture of this excellent fruit is confined to 
the extreme South, Florida, Southern Geor- 
gia, Alabama, and Mississippi, Louisiana, 
and the coast region of Texas, Southern 
Arizona, where it is not too dry. and 
Southern California. Some species might 
succeed in New Mexico, but it is not now 
cultivated there to any great extent. The 
culture is somewhat difficult, and there is 
occasionally liability to. killing frosts, and 
a delay of ten years at least before the crop 
is sufficiently large to be profitable, but 
after that time the yield constantly in- 
creases, and produces a large profit. The 
Florida oranges are reputed the best grown 
anywhere, and the demand constantly ex- 
ceeds the supply. The oranges of Califor- 
nia are of different varieties, and possibly 




MAKING READY FOB CI 1.1 l\ \ riOK. 




t i r/riVATIoN OF SMALL rRI I I B 



_■<?>" 



AGRICULTURE IX THE UNITED BTATSS. 






of different species from those of Florida, 
but are of excellent quality. The culture 
of the orange has only attained any consid- 
erable magnitude in the value of the crop 
within the past decade (1870-1380), but is 
rapidly increasing. The orange crop in 
1877 was valued at $16,000,000. It is safe 
to say that it has doubled since that time. 
Of the other larger fruits growing on trees, 
as quinces, nectarines, apricots, plums, 
prunes (the culture of which has only re- 
cently commenced, but is making rapid 
progress), figs, lemons, limes, pomegranates, 
and cherries, the crops, though of consid- 
erable size in some sections of the count rv, 
and most of them increasing, cannot well 
be stated separately, as both in the National 
and State returns they are only presented 
grouped together. Any estimate of their 
aggregate value must be mere guess 
work, but taking the whole country to- 
gether, it can hardly fall below twenty mil- 
lion dollars. 

The cultivation of small fruits is a mat- 
ter moi;e easily tabulated and described be- 
cause the movement of these crops is on a 
large scale, and generally occupies a few 
weeks only. The grape crop is the largest 
of these, including as it does not only the 
green and ripe grapes, but the wine pro- 
duct, and the raisin production, which is 
now attaining considerable magnitude in 
Southern California. None of the foreign 
species or varieties of the grape, and only 
a very few of the native species, and those 
mainly the wild grapes of the Labrusca, or 
Fox grape family, can be grown above the 
parallel of 45° east of the Rocky Mount- 
ains; all, or nearly all, the cultivated varie- 
ties requiring a period of at least three 
months, when the average temperature does 
not fall below 67° F., to fully ripen the 
berries. East of the Mississippi river the 
practical limit of certainty is not higher 
than 43° or 43° 30'. 

Most of the foreign varieties succeed 
well in California, Texas, and Florida, bul 
have failed elsewhere, except under shelter, 
and with some artificial heat. Some of the 
hybrids produced by crossing these with 
our native grapes have proved of excellent 
quality, and some of our native grapes are 
found to be of admirable character, especi- 
ally for wine-making purposes. The Ca- 
tawba, Delaware, Concord, Isabella, Maxa- 
tawney, and Diana, among our northern 
grapes, are of fair quality, and though 



hardly to be classed very high 
grapes, make good wim 
hybrids from these, u 
Roger's Bybrids, Boznei I R 
aer'a Seedlings, the Brighton, . 
Prolific, Cottage, Telegi 
bridge, black Hawk, and La 
newer varieties (all hybrids), 
Niagara, Prentiss, an. I ! 
approved quality for the table. 

Among the Southern native 
which belong to the Summer graj | 
Aestivalis) family, there _reat 

merit. Among these are the Lenoir, Her- 
bemont, Devereaux. Alvey, I vn- 

thiana, Norton's Virginia Seedling, 
Scuppernong, and the I Prom 

these there are many seedlings and hyl 
of rare excellence. Among these mi 
named the Hermann. White Eermani 
Taylor, Elvira, Amber, and Pearl— all of 
them excellent, both for wine making and 
as table grapes. Most oi 
to be proof against the phylloxera, or grape 
pest. 

The foreign varieties have generally done 
well in California, anil them in 

Florida and Texas. California has a native 
grape, or one naturalized so long since that 
it is generally considered native — the 
sion grape — which possesses 
though with some defects I' wasprdbm« 
bly originally a Spanish grape, inl 
by the Jesuit Missionary Pa c -i in 
the strong and rich soil of California has 
taken on a new character. T 
from this grape, though having a 
slight and hardly perceptible earthy fla- 
vor, are yet, when rightly made, and of 
sufficient age, among I I Ameri- 

can wines. But every variety i 
having a good reputation in K 
grown successfully in California, both for 
the table and for wine, and many of tl 
for raisins. All these grapes in the clear. 
dry, hot sun of < make more 

sugar than in Europe, and the v. 
made from them are stronger in ale 
than the European wines, while still n I 
ing a very perceptible amount oftu 
sugar. For table use and for raisins • 
of these grapes but] 
rope. The Tokay, and M 

ga, and many other grape- produced I 
are much liner than can be found in I 
rope. The " Raisin of the Sun," from I 
ifornia vines, will soon surpass the best 



750 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



Smyrna raisins. The value of the grape 
crop, as grapes, wine, and raisins, now ex- 
ceeds GO million dollars, and it is increas- 
ing with great rapidity. California alone 
has over 200 millions of vines, and Mis- 
souri, Ohio, Southern Michigan, Central 
and Eastern New York, New Jersey, Del- 
aware, Maryland, and Virginia, and North 
Carolina, all have extensive districts of 
vineyards, in which the grape is cultivated 
both for the table and for wine. Aside 
from this, south of the 42d parallel almost 
every farm and town residence raise grapes 
enough for the use of the occupants. 

The Strawberry is next in importance 
to the grape among the small fruits. The 
strawberry is essentially an American fruit, 
native to our soil, and, though extensively 
cultivated now in Europe, is nowhere 
brought to the perfection it has attained 
here. Prior to 1830, all the strawberries 
consumed grew wild in the fields, and as 
late as 1840 the attempts at cultivation 
were only the efforts of farmers and gar- 
deners to produce this delicious fruit in 
greater abundance where it would be more 
under their own control. The idea of the 
hybridization of the strawberry for the 
purpose of increasing its size and good 
qualities, and of putting the improved fruit 
upon the market, if it did not originate 
with the late A. J. Downing, was first ex- 
tensively attempted by him, and he had 
soon a host of imitators. The size of the 
berry has been enormously increased, some- 
times with a sacrifice of some of the flavor, 
sometimes with a development of too great 
acidity, and sometimes with a diminution 
of its keeping qualities. A few varieties 
combine several excellences. The Wilson, 
the most popular berry with the market- 
men of large cities, on account of its keep- 
ing well, is a very sour and poor berry for 
eating. The Charles Downing is much 
better, and should be more widely culti- 
vated. The Jucunda, the Tribune, the Lin- 
coln, and a foreign variety, the Triomphe 
de Gand, are also good and large straw- 
berries, and profitable for growers. Boy- 
den's No. 30, the Sharpless, Glossy Cone, 
Great American, Black Giant, Beauty, Pi- 
oneer, and Gypsy, are the most popular of 
the later varieties. Most of them are very 
large. The best strawberry brought into 
the New York market is a small bright 
red berry, half wild, grown on the Hacken- 
sack plains; its flavor is exquisite. The 



strawberry crop in 1877 was estimated at 
$5,000,000; there is reason to believe tms 
was an underestimate. The increase nas 
been very great in the past three years, 
both in the sales in smaller cities and vil 
lages, and for the purpose of drying ci 
evaporating and canning. The sales in tho 
season of 1880 could hardly have been lescs 
than $8,500,000, and with a better berry 
than the Wilson as the leading variety, 
they would very speedily reach 1 millions. 

Of the other small fruits of the summer, 
raspberries, yellow and red, and the black 
caps of several varieties, are most largely 
cultivated, though these also grow wild 
There are a number of varieties, such as 
the Hudson River, Antwerp, and Brinckle c 
Orange of the yellow, Philadelphia, High 
land Hardy, and Cuthbert, of the red, and 
Doolittle and Gregg of the black caps, but 
the sales, though increasing, bear but a 
small proportion to those of the strawberry 

The blackberry, of several varieties, both 
native and cultivated, is becoming a favor- 
ite berry for midsummer. The wild berries 
are the sweetest and best flavored. 

The currant and gooseberry are sold jn 
all our markets, but only in moderate quan- 
tities. 

The cranberry is an autumnal and win- 
ter fruit, and one whose culture is increas- 
ing, and which brings a uniformly high 
price. The crop over the whole country 
in 1877 was estimated at 400,828 bushels, 
and at the average price then prevailing, 
it was worth over a million dollars. The 
crop of 1878 was not quite so large; those 
of 1879 and 1880 were thought to have 
been even larger. The supply is seldom 
equal to the demand. The cultivation of 
the cranberry, though somewhat difficult 
at first, is very easy when once established, 
though the largest part of the crop is grown 
wild in the marshes of New Jersey, Michi- 
gan, and Wisconsin. 

We have already alluded to the different 
methods of preserving these fruits for use 
through the year. Formerly there were 
two of these, both conducted only in the 
household, preserving in sugar syrup, and 
drying in the sun, or in the house in win- 
ter. The preserving process is now very 
little practiced, canning and sealing her- 
metically having taken its place. Canning 
is now conducted on a very large scale in 
immense factories, and has been extended 
to almost all kinds of vegetables, as well as 






AGRICULTURE IX THE UNITED STATES. 



fruits, to meats, fish, oysters, etc. The en- 
tire products of the canning trade are not 
less than 120 million dollars, of which not 
more than one-third are fruits. Consider- 
able quantities of fruit are also put up in 
private families, mostly in glass jars. Ap- 
ples, peaches, plums, and many of the 
small fruits, are also prepared for the 
market dried by three processes — the old 
practice of drying in the sun, kiln-drying, 
and evaporating. The last process is much 
the best, and the fruits prepared by it com 
mand high prices. It can only be con- 
ducted in a house constructed expressly for 
it, a double tower, 80 to 100 feet high, in 
which the open-work trays rise to the top 
of one tower and descend on the other, sub- 
jected all the time to a moist heat, with the 
evaporation of the fruits to dryness in an 
atmosphere charged with their juices. The 
elevating power may be a horse-power, or 
a small steam engine. The fruits thus 
evaporated are very white and clean, and 
retain their special flavors. The dried fruit 
sales amount in favorable years to about 
ten millions of dollars. 

The trade in nuts, etc., is a constantly 
increasing one. The peanut, groundnut, 
or groober, is not, in one sense, a nut at 
all, but rather a member of the bulbous 
family. These are raised mainly in Ten- 
nessee and Virginia, though New Jersey, 
Maryland, North Carolina, and Kansas 
raise a considerable quantity. The whole 
crop is about 2 million bushels, and the 
average price a dollar a bushel. Of the 
other native nuts, hickory nuts, often called 
white walnuts, and pecan nuts, are most 
largely sold, though butternuts, black wal- 
nuts, chestnuts, and hazel nuts, are sold to 
a considerable extent. Filberts (mostly im- 
ported), English walnuts, or Madeira nuts, 
Brazil mits, etc., are imported freely, and 
some English walnuts and Italian chestnuts 
are beginning to come in from California. 
The pecan is the finest and most profitable 
of our native nuts. The sales of native 
nuts amount to about $2,500,000, and we 
export nearly a million dollars' worth. 

The great development of fruit culture 
in the United States within the past 
years has led to the publication of a great 
number of works on the cultivation of 
fruits, and to the establishment of numer- 
ous periodicals devoted to thai - 
4s lately as 1845 there was but one of I 
periodicals; now there are at least one 



hundred, and 

numbered by scores T 

horticultural exhibitions now heid pearly in 

almost every county, am 
of the Northern and Middl< 
given a great impulse to fruil 
orchards and vineyards of choice fruil 
becoming the rule instead of the • 
on northern farms. To a certa 
especially in the higher lands, this is 
ccining true also in the South, and 
more so in the West 

From the progress in the cultivation of 
fruits, which has been styled by 
poetry of farming, let us turn to 

CULTURE OF TOBACCO. 

Whether tobacco is to be regard) 
bane or a blessing, it must beacknowl< 
that it is a native of tl and 

though many efforts have been made to 
naturalize it in Europe, only one oi i'- 
or more species {Nxcotiana rusticaY has 
proved successful t i 
on the "West India [slan 
tinent, had used it for smoking purposes 
many years before the discovi ry by < lolum- 
bus. It has been truly remarked that 
every country or tribe of human b 
had, from time immemorial, itsowi 
narcotic either aboriginal or imported, and 
that the universal in he human 

has led. somehow or other, to the univi 
supply of this want or craving; b 
stance, tobacco in America. I 
the thorn apple, coca, tobac 
in South America; hops and tobacco in 
Europe; hemp in A ium, 

betel-nut, and tobacco in ' ring that 

it is natural for man. after supplying the 
■necessities of life by food, (• mul- 

tiply his enjoyments, intellectual 
mat and. for the time, to exi ll •' and 
we cannot ascribe BO ttl '. in- 

creasing with the growth of populati< i 
mere whim or fancy for - 
It is, perhaps, a necessity in 
ture, and second only to I 
sity, the satisfaction of I 
hunger. 

( iertainly, the extent to 
supying so lav 

wl.i,-' ' ted to v 

■ 
view, and the \ 



752 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



striking feature in the history of the human 
race. 

• Thy quiet spirit lulls the lab'ring brain. 
Lured back to thought the flights of vacant mirth, 
Consoles the mourner, soothes the couch of pain, 
And breathes contentment round the humble hearth; 
While savage warriors, soften'd by thy breath. 
Unbind the captive hate had doomed to death." 

It has steadily pushed its way in the face 
of every opposition which ridicule, preju- 
dice, legislative prohibition, threats of ex- 
communication, and every conceivable per- 
secution could bring against it, simply 
because nature demanded its use in some 
form or other. The celebrated Locke took 
a more rational view, and said, "Bread 
or tobacco may be neglected, but reason at 
first recommends their trial, and custom 
makes them pleasant." But, on the other 
hand, "the most high and mightie prince," 
James L, by the grace of God king of Great 
Britain, "a slave to vices which could not 
fail to make him an object of disgust," 
took a different view of the prevalent prac- 
tice, and wrote a " Counterblaste to Tobac 
co," stigmatizing its use as "A custom 
loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, 
harmful to the brain, dangerous to the 
lungs, and in the black, stinking fume 
thereof, nearest resembling the horrible 
Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottom- 
less." Everything which is really and 
truly founded in nature and reason, how- 
ever mysteriously, will ultimately prevail, 
whoever sets himself up to oppose it; and 
the progress of the culture and use of this 
plant is an instance of it. King James 
wrote in 1616, and in 1624 Pope Urban 
VIII. published a decree of excommunica- 
tion against all in the church who took 
snuff; and in 1634 smoking tobacco was 
prohibited in Russia under penalty of hav. 
ing the nose cut off; and m Transylvania 
the penalty for growing this plant was a 
confiscation of the farmer's whole property ; 
and even so recently as 1719 the Senate of 
Strasburg forbade the cultivation of it, 
from the fear of its diminishing the cul- 
ture of corn. But "they manage things 
better in France," and the far-sighted 
Richelieu imposed upon it a duty, very 
small at first, which continued till 1674, 
when the government of Louis XIV. in- 
creased the duty and made the culture and 
trade in tobacco a monopoly, and granted 
it to an individual for six years, in consid- 
of the payment to the government of the 
large sum of $145,000. In 1720 the con- 



sideration was increased more than 100 
per cent., and in 1771 it amounted to $5,- 
500,000 a year. In 1844 the revenue 
from tobacco alone yielded the French 
government the enormous sum of $20,000- 
000, and it has since increased till it now 
amounts to 300 million francs, 60 million dol- 
lars, annually. So much for Richelieu ; and 
it must be admitted, even by the most preju- 
diced opponents of tobacco, that this policy 
was more sensible than that of his neighbors 
who mutilated, and some of them cut off 
the heads of all smokers. 

The English first saw it cultivated, and 
smoked in clay pipes, by the Indians of 
Virginia, in 1585, and it was probably in- 
troduced into England by Raleigh, as early 
as 1586. In 1615, the gardens, fields, and 
streets of Jamestown, Virginia, were planted 
with tobacco, and it became not only the 
great staple, but, according to Bancroft, 
the chief currency of the colony, and in 
1622 the product was 60,000 pounds. Dur- 
ing the next twenty years it doubled, and 
amounted to 120,000 pounds, and since 
1689 the product of Virginia alone has in- 
creased to twice as many millions of pounds. 

The introduction of tobacco culture into 
the Dutch colony of New York took place 
as early as 1646, and it sold then at forty 
cents a pound. The " Company of the 
West" introduced it into Louisiana in 
1718. Previous to the revolutionary war 
its culture had extended into Maryland, 
the Carolinas, Georgia, and Louisiana, and 
nearly all Europe was, at that time, sup- 
plied from the American colonies. Since 
that time the cultivation has greatly ex- 
tended in this country, not only into new 
states and territories, but in the aggregate 
amount raised. The quantity exported 
has also very largely increased. The 
amount of the tobacco tax or revenue 
in Great Britain in 1880 was about 43 mil- 
lion dollars, the duty averaging about 75 
cents a pound. 

The annual export from the colonies for 
ten years previous to 1709 was 28,868,666 
pounds. From 1744 to 1776 the exports 
of tobacco averaged 40,000,000 pounds a 
year. The tobacco exported from Virginia 
in 1758 is said to have been no less than 
75,000 hogsheads, and from that time till 
the Revolution, the amount averaged 55,- 
000 hogsheads a year. About 30,000 hogs- 
heads were shipped from City Point, in 
Virginia, in 1791, and in 1795 the amount 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



753 






fell to 9,475 hogsheads. There were ex- 
ported from North Carolina 100 hogsheads 
in 1753, while from Georgia, in 1722, 
there were shipped 176,732 hogsheads. 
South Carolina exported 2,680 hogsheads 
in 1783, and 4,294 in 1795. The quantity 
exported from Philadelphia in 1796 was 
3,437 hogsheads. 

According to the census of 1840, the 
amount raised in the United States was 219,- 
163,319 pounds. The census of 1850 re- 
turned but 199,752,655 pounds, showing a 
decrease of 1 9,4 1 0, 664 pounds. The census 
of 1860 returned 434,209,461 pounds. The 
crop of 1869-70 was based on a bad year, 
but was greatly misreported in the census, 
as it actually reached about 390,000,000 
pounds. In 1879, the crop was estimated 
at 391,278,350 pounds, but this was much 
below the truth. That of 1877 was 580,- 
000,000 pounds. The crop is liable to 
many casualties — to damage by insects, 
hail, drought, frosts, or an otherwise bad 
season at harvesting. So great is the de- 
mand for home consumption and for foreign 
exportation, that the profits of tobacco are 
usually very great, operating as a constant 
stimulus to a more extended culture. 

Of the amount returned by the census of 
1860, Virginia raised 123,968,312 pounds, 
and Kentucky 108,126,840 pounds, mak- 
ing, together, more than half of all that was 
raised in the United States. But for fifteen 
years past the use of guano has become 
more extensive than it was previously, and 
the yield of this ravenous crop on lands 
said to have become exhausted from long- 
continued culture, has been greatly en- 
larged in consequence. Its cultivation has, 
also, been extending northward, and the 
produce of Connecticut and Massachusetts, 
in 1870, was 15,640,281 pounds, and in 
1879 was estimated at 14,010,000, of which, 
however, Connecticut was credited with 
9,660,000 pounds. Kentucky, Virginia, 
Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Mis- 
souri, and Ohio, were the only other states 
of large production in 1880. 

Tobacco is usually called an exhausting 
crop. This depends very much upon the 
kind and quantity of manure used. If the 
mineral constituents taken from the soil, 
and represented in the ash of the plant, are 
supplied by judicious cultivation, there is 
little difficulty in cultivating and producing 
large crops, and it is a common remark of 
the best farmers along the Connecticut 
39 



river, that wheat or any other crop will 
follow tobacco, even bettor than mod i 
crops, for the reason that the high mai 
ing for tobacco keeps the land in g 
heart. But the planton in Virginia culti- 
vated it for many years in ■, ,, n 
the same lands, without supplyii 
ciency of manure. The land, of co 
must feel the loss in time, ami tl 
previous to the introduction of guano, 
dwindled down in many localities so as not 
to pay the producer. Every ton ol tobac- 
co, perfectly dried, carries off some | 
or four hundred weight of these moal im- 
portant mineral substances, and it should 
be the aim of the farmer to supply them 
liberally, if he expects a liberal reward in 
an abundant harvest. 

The geographical distribution of the 
tobacco crop of 1860, which was perhaps a 
fair average of the annual crop at present) 
was as follows: The south raised 242,077,* 
957 pounds, valued at $36,31 1,663. 
west raised 1 7.:.t;>s,7s7 pounds, valued at 
$25,952,718. The north raised 18,3G2,098 
pounds, valued at $2,754,314. 

In this connection, it would be a matter 
of no small interest to ascertain, if possible, 
the number of hands employed in the cul- 
tivation, curing, and manufacture of tobacco 
in the U. S. According to the census of 
1870 the number employed in its cultiva- 
tion was 59,224, and possibly half as many 
more in stripping and curing, win 
persons were engaged in the manufacture; 
making about 185,000 in all Thenui: 
has largely increased since that time. In 
the city of Hamburg (Germany) alone, this 
manufacture gives employment to up* 
of 10,000 persons, and it supplies 150,0 
000 cigars a year, with a value oi $2,000,< 
000 — a matter of no small import.: 
Hamburg imports from Ilavanna and Ma- 
nilla about 18,000,000 cigars s yearj 
with its own production, the i 
number is 168,000,000 cigars. 153,000,- 
000 of these are exported, and the remain- 
der, or 15,000,000, are consumed in 
city; giving 40.000 as the daily consump- 
tion, in a population of 45,000 male ad 
The consumption of tobacco in England in 
1821, with a population of 21,282 
no less than 1 5,598, 1 52 pounds... r I 
per head of the entire population. In IE 
with a population of 24,410,489, 
sumption reached 19,533,841 pounda, or 
13 ounces per head, in 1841, with a pop- 



754 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



ulation of 27,019,672, the consumption was 
22,309,360 pounds, or 131 ounces per head. 
And in 1861, population estimated as 34,- 
500,000, the consumption was 75,099,427 
pounds, or 20| ounces per head. About 
one-third of this is snuff. In France the 
consumption amounts to 2S\ ounces per 
head, nearly half of which is in the form 
of snuff. The crop in France amounted, in 
1879, to about 20 million pounds, and the 
importation to more than 60 million pounds, 
of which nearly 45 millions were from the 
United States. The net revenue to the 
French Government in 1879 was about 67 
million dollars. The Regie, or Government 
Agency imports hardly anything except 
leaf tobacco, and about half of the entire 
consumption is from the United States. 
We send to France about one-tenth of our 
crop, and in 1879 realized from our export 
thither $2,572,000. The consumption per 
head in France is about 28-i ounces, in 
Paris about 56 ounces. Our export to 
Great Britain in 1879 was over 65 million 
pounds, and the net value $8,141,113. 
The great bulk of her importation is leaf 
tobacco, but she takes about a million of 
•dollars of the manufactured forms. 

Germany is our largest customer, taking 
in 1879, of leaf tobacco, 112,098,952 pounds 
valued with a small quantity of manufac- 
tured tobacco at $8,191,816. The con- 
sumption of tobacco in Germany is about 
53 ounces per head. We send about 27 
million pounds, valved at $2,150,000. The 
kingdom raises about 10 million pounds, 
but its annual consumption is about 47,000,- 
000 pounds, or about 21 ounces per head. 

The Netherlands took 22, 5 1 6, 8 1 8 pounds 
in 1879 besides some manufactured tobacco. 
They raise a moderate quantity and buy of 
Turkey and Hungary. Their consumption 
averages 71 ounces per head. Belgium 
•takes tobacco from us to the value of a 
million dollars, of which the greater part 
(15,698,139 pounds) was leaf tobacco. Bel- 
gium raises what tobacco she can, and buys 
unmanufactured tobacco from all sources 
though more largely from us than from 
any other nation, but her consumption per 
head — 88 ounces — exceeds that of any na- 
tion in the world. Spain takes 11,500,000 
pounds from us, aside from all she receives 
from Cuba, South America and Mexico — 
but her consumption is moderate, only 171 
ounces per head. About 13,600,000 pounds 
go to the British Colonies. Our exports 



amounted in 1879 to 322,279,540 pounds 
of leaf and manufactured tobacco in all 
forms to the value of $3,057,876, making 
a total value of $28,215,240. This has 
been about the average value of our ex- 
ports for the past seven years, though 
those of 1880 were about ten million dol- 
lars less. The real crop of 1879 must have 
been fully 500 million pounds. The re- 
mainder, after the export, must have been 
worth in its unmanufactured condition not 
less than $10,000,000, for it paid a revenue 
tax when manufactured, of $40,000,000. 
So that this crop and its proceeds for 1879 
exceeded $75,000,000. 

The most profitable farming, in the 
long run, is that which combines various 
kinds of produce, a considerable propor- 
tion of which must of necessity be con- 
sumed on the farm itself, or at least near 
home. Where the population is sparse, 
and there is no demand at home for farm 
produce, the farmer is compelled to raise 
such articles as will bear distant transporta- 
tion, and follow this course year after year. 
He cannot, if he would, grow the articles 
which would be the least exhausting to his 
land. The Virginia tobacco planter of the 
last century and the early part of the 
present, had no means of restoring the fer- 
tility of his soils by supplying the vast 
amount of mineral constituents which the 
constant cropping and removal by transpor- 
tation took away from his farm. He could 
not, or would not keep much stock to sup- 
ply sufficient manure ; and if he kept stock, 
the winters were mild, and they were never 
housed and so managed as to produce much 
manure. Cattle allowed constantly to run 
at large, and browse in the woods summer 
and winter, would do little to prevent the 
deterioration of the soil. It would have 
been better for the land if the planter had 
been obliged to cultivate and cut grasses 
for winter fodder, and then keep up his 
stock to consume it. The Belgian proverb 
is everywhere true: "No grass, no cattle; 
no cattle, no manure; no manure, no crops." 
The worst effect of a system of exchange 
of agricultural products with other nations, 
by which we receive their manufactured 
goods, which possess great value in propor- 
tion to their bulk and the raw material con- 
sumed in them, is that we send off annually 
to them thousands of tons of the highest 
fertilizing elements, which nature requires 
should be again returned to the land iu the 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 






form of manure. But we are sending off 
$288,000,000 worth of breadstuffs, 212 
million dollars worth of cotton, and 35 mil- 
lion dollars worth of tobacco and other ex- 
hausting crops, which take from the soil 
the elements indispensable to its fertility, 
and we make no adequate return of fertil- 
izers to it. 

Other nations, like England, for instance, 
importing 200 millions worth of bread- 
stuffs, have the benefit of their consump- 
tion, in addition to which they are con- 
stantly importing manures of every descrip- 
tion. While we are constantly, and without 
stint, shipping off a continual stream of the 
most valuable manures concentrated in the 
form of our cotton, our tobacco, our wheat, 
and Indian corn, they, with ceaseless care, 
are husbanding the fertility which these 
naturally carry along with them, and add- 
ing vast quantities of guano, bones, phos- 
phates, etc. They reap the harvest in soils 
growing richer and richer. "We may make 
individual profits, which go, for the most 
part into the hands of middle men, and 
leave our farms to reap the shadow. 

The inevitable tendency of exchanging 
the produce of the soil for manufactured 
articles has always been, and always will 
be, to impoverish the nation that does it, 
unless there is care and forethought enough 
to import an amount of fertilizing sub- 
stances equal to what we send away; and 
this cannot be. The farmer himself does 
not want it so. If he sends wheat enough 
to half feed a foreign mechanic or opera- 
tive in the city of Sheffield or Manchester, 
he would infinitely rather sell him enough 
to feed him in full nearer home; and it 
would be better for him and for the nation 
to have it so. 

CULTURE OF HOPS. 

Cf the crops which still remain to be 
mentioned, and which help make up the 
aggregate of the products of American ag- 
riculture, that of the hop forms no unim- 
portant item, since, beside the quantity re- 
quired for export, which, to be sure is not 
very large, it enters more or less into the 
consumption of almost every family in the 
country. 

This plant, like many others, dates its 
introduction to this country almost back to 
its first settlement; for we read in the 
records of the colony of the Massachusetts 
Bay, that "hop rootes" were ordered by 



the governor and company m early ai 
or 1629, and though it was for mi 

cultivated only on a very limited 

family consumption, yel no doubl it has 

continued as one of the cultivated plant 

the country from that day to this. It 
introduced and cultivated by the l 1 
colony of New York as early ai 1 1 
it is known to have been brought into Vir- 
ginia previous to 1648. In cul- 
ture was encouraged by legislat - 
ments. 

At the beginning of the present century, 
the amount cultivated in New England 
was extremely limited. Thirty thousand 
pounds, perhaps, comprised the entire < 
of that section, increasing some year- 
fifty thousand. The mode of picking and 
drying was objectionable and defective. 
The hops were picked in clusters, with the 
stems and leaves often thrown in; while 
the drying was universally done with wood, 
and when taken from the kiln they • 
"brown as a leg of bacon, and about as 
much smoked." 

The first use of charcoal for drying 
ii this country was probably in 1791, when 
it was tried, only on a very limited a 
at the suggestion of a Scotch brewer, 
produced the most beautiful kiln of i 
that had ever been dried in America. It 
was owing to this improvement in the pick- 
ing and drying that the demand for the ar- 
ticle rapidly increased, soon doubled and 
tripled, and slips or cuttings to form new 
plantations soon rose to exorbitant pi 
It had been the universal custom, pre! 
to that time, to pack the hops in round 
bags, without any uniformity in lengt] 
size, and they were trodden down with the 
feet in a rude manner. The consequ 
was that the tops were bruised and bn 
causing great loss in the Btrength and i 
of the hops by evaporation of the essential 
juices of the plant, its most valuable | 
erties, to sav nothing of the impossibility 
of packing closely tor transportation, 
use of square bales was introduced m i 
or the year alter, and the use of - 
packing Was then commenced. I 

riority of this mod.' Boon became 
ent, that it was generally adopted 
after. Previous to this time, also, difl 

ties not un frequent lv an we bet* 
chants, from the fact that old and n 
hops wen- found mixed in with I 
ones, while no proper distinction « 



756 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



between the different grades or qualities. 
Vexatious lawsuits sometimes resulted 
from these circumstances, and the price of 
good hops was naturally lower than it oth- 
erwise would have been. The legislature 
of Massachusetts, to remedy these evils so 
far as they existed in that section of the 
country, created the office of inspector- 
general of hops in the year 1806. It was 
probably the first movement of the kind in 
the world. 

But there were no precedents for classify- 
ing hops, and some system was to be adopt- 
ed. Some hop dealers and many hop grow- 
ers were opposed to a high standard of in- 
spection. Many difficulties of a personal 
nature had to be encountered ; but, owing to 
the conscientious use of the "first-sort" 
brand, the hops raised in that part of the 
country soon became noted as the best by 
far in the United States. By adopting a 
high standard of inspection, the growers 
were soon brought to improve their hops, in 
order to bring them up to the "first sort," 
and this becoming known in Europe, those 
who sent orders from there required hops of 
Massachusetts inspection, which consequent- 
ly brought a cent or two on a pound more 
than those of any other state. There has 
been a remarkable fluctuation in the prices 
of hops. The average prices per pound for 
30 years — 1849-79 — were, in gold, 41 cents, 
32, 28, 34, 20, 7, 8, 7, 13, 15, 19, 25, 20, 17, 
22, 22, 42, 45, 45, 15, 25, 12, 60, 55, 40, 48, 
15, 28, 13, 15, 30 cents. The production of 
this crop and its exports have also been ex- 
ceedingly irregular. The export demand 
is mainly controlled by the success or fail- 
ure of the English crop, though there is an 
increasing demand from Germany and other 
continental countries. In 1840 the entire 
crop was 1,238,502 pounds. In 1850 the 
census report of the production of the pre- 
ceding year was 3,497,029 pounds. The 
exports were 1,275,455 pounds. In the 
following years the crop was small and the 
exports ranged from 110,000 to 260,000 
pounds; in 1855, there was a crop of over 
10,000,000 pounds, and 4,021,816 pounds 
exported; in 1860, 10,991,996 pounds pro- 
duced, but only 273,257 exported. In 
1863 there was a large crop and an export 
of 8,864,081 pounds — the largest quantity 
exported in one year up to that time. In 
1868 the crop was small and the export 
only 532,038 pounds. The crop of 1869 
(census of 1870) was 25,456,669 pounds, 



and the export 16,356,231 pounds. The 
years which followed were disastrous, and 
the exports dwindled from 3,273,653 in 
1871 to 117,358 pounds in 1874. Then 
they began to rise, till in 1877 the crop was 
over 39,000,000 pounds and the export 18,- 
458,782 pounds. The quality of this great 
crop was not equal to the quantity, and the 
value of the export — $2,152,873 — was less 
than that of the previous year, when the 
export was but 9,581,108 pounds, or little 
more than half. The crop of 1879 was 
nearly 32,000,000 pounds, and the exports 
to June 30, 1880, were 9,739,566, but the 
quality was excellent and the value of the 
exports was $2,573,292, which would indi- 
cate the value of the entire crop as some- 
thing more than $9,000,000. The crop is 
very uncertain, but taking the years togeth- 
er it proves moderately profitable, though 
very exhausting to the land. The cost of 
producing a pound of hops in the best 
managed hop yards averages about 101 
cents. In England, the Kentish hop-grow- 
ers compute it at about 22 cents. New 
York takes the lead in this crop, producing 
two-thirds of the whole. "Wisconsin fol- 
lows, contributing about one-fifth. New 
England together yields about a million 
pounds, and Michigan and California nearly 
as much. None of the other states are 
largely engaged in its cultivation. 

CULTURE OF FLAX AND HEMP. 

Like most of the crops already men- 
tioned, both flax and hemp were introduced 
into the colonies very soon after the settle- 
ment of the country. Flax was taken to 
Holland from the Dutch settlement at Man- 
hattan Island, or New York, as early as 
1626. The governor and company of the 
Massachusetts Bay, in New England, also 
ordered both flax and hemp seed in 1628, 
if not, indeed, as was probably the case, at 
an earlier date. Hemp was very soon 
abandoned, as the land was not found 
strong enough for it. 

Hemp and flax was raised in Virginia 
prior to the year 1648, as we read of their 
being woven and spun there ; and bounties 
were offered for the culture of hemp in 
1651, and of flax in 1657; but the culture 
fell off as soon as the bounties were dis- 
continued. 

But flax was pretty generally cultivated 
in small quantities for home consumption, 
in most parts of the country. It was not 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



' 



only raised, but manufactured, at home, 
and formed a most important article in the 
domestic economy of the days of home- 
spun. In 1745, some Irish emigrants ar- 
rived in Massachusetts, and established an 
improved mode of manufacturing linen and 
other "spinning work," and they met with 
some success. Manufactories were estab- 
lished in Salem, Mass., for making sail- 
cloth, as early as 1790. 

In 1751, no less than 14,000 pounds of 
hemp were exported from New Jersey, and 
the next year, 1752, the amount of flax- 
seed exported from Philadelphia was 70,- 
000 bushels. The amount rose, in 17G7, 
to 84,658 bushels; and in 1771 to 110,412 
bushels. New York exported 12,52S hogs- 
heads of this seed in the year 1 755. The 
total amount exported from the American 
colonies in 1770 was 312,612 bushels. 

In 1791 the United States exported 292, 
460 bushels of flax-seed; in 1800 the ex- 
port was 289,684 bushels, and 240,579 
bushels in 1810. The culture of these 
crops grew up more rapidly at the west, 
and extensive factories were established 
for the manufacture of cordage, bagging, 
etc., in Louisville, Lexington, Frankfort, 
and other places in Kentucky, as early as 
1810. 

According to the census of 1840, about 
97,251 tons of flax and hemp were raised. 
In 1850 the two products were returned 
separately as 34,871 tons of hemp, 7,709,- 
676 pounds of flax, and 562,312 bushels of 
flaxseed. In 1860 the production of hemp 
had more than doubled, 73,493 tons being 
reported ; but flax had fallen off nearly one- 
half, only 4,720,145 pounds being pro- 
duced, and flaxseed had remained nearly 
stationary, 566,867 bushels being reported. 
The great obstacle to flax culture was the 
want of some simple and effective machine- 
ry for scutching and breaking it. Early 
in the war the demand for flax-tow, and 
for linseed oil and cakes, and the in- 
vention of several flax-brakes, led to a 
great increase in this crop. This impulse 
had not subsided fully in 1870, for in 
1869-70, 12,746 tons of hemp (about one- 
half of our present importation), was pro- 
duced, and 12,113 tons of flax, about three 
times our importation, was grown, besides 
1,730,444 bushels of flaxseed. The pro- 
duction of flax in this country is now mostly 
for the seed for linseed oil — the land for 
this being sown thinly, not over half a 



bushel to the acre, and the fiber, which is 
of inferior character, being only 

dental product. Some- 
Wisconsin, and Oregon, are turning their 
attention to raising it for the fibre. 
production of seed n<>.. ;, million 

bushels. The amounl of linl is once I 
but may reach 12,000 tons of all i 
Hemp is more largely cultivated than 
merly, but we import annually about 
millions of flax and hemp products. 

THE CULTURE OF SII.K. 

The cultivation of silk has never I 
extensively carried on in this country, 
though introduced at a very early dat" — 
as early, in fact, as the first settlement of 
Virginia. James I. showed a desire to 
favor this branch of industry, equalled only 
by his antipathy to the growth oi tobacco. 
It did not succeed at first, however, 
in 1651 another spasmodic effort v 
to revive it, but it was to little effect, and 
it never prospered there. 

Silk culture was commenced in Louisiana 
by the Company of the West, in 1718. It 
was introduced into Georgia in 1732. A 
special act of Parliament was required to 
keep up the interest in it. in 1749, exempt- 
ing the producer from paying duties, 

Connecticut began the raising of silk in 
1760, and in 1783 the legislature of that 
state passed an act, granting a bounty on 
mulberry trees and the production of silk. 

Even under the encouragement oi 
government, all the raw silk Georgia could 
export in 1750 was 118 pounds; in 17'>."> it 
was only 138 pounds; in 1770, 290 pounds. 
The census of 1840 returned the amount 
of silk cocoons at 61,552 poui 
this quantity had fallen off in 185 
10,843 pounds. In 1860 only 1 ! 
pounds of cocoons were reported; and 
in 1870, only 3,937 pounds wen 
ed by the census. During the six j 
following great efforts were made to en- 
courage the rearing of silk worms and 
production of raw or reeled silk U 
nia, Kansas, and E but 

these efforts proved ineffectual, a 
erable amount of silk 
produced and mostly shipped to France, 
butthe ventures soon ceai 

The large silk manufacture now eel 
in this country would furnish I g 
ket for all the silk which could be prod 
here if it could bo of good quality and 



760 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



reeled; but this requires care, skill and ex- 
perience, as well as cheap labor. An asso- 
ciation has recently been formed in Phila- 
delphia to aid silk-growers in producing a 
good article. 



BEE CULTURE. 

The production of honey and the man- 
agement of bees receives comparatively lit- 
tle attention in this country. So little, 
indeed, as hardly to be worthy of mention 
among the products of our national agricul- 
ture ; and yet they form an important item 
in the domestic economy of many a house- 
hold, and ought to receive all the attention 
they deserve. 

The amount of beeswax and honey re- 
turned by the census of 1850 was 14,853,- 
790pounds. In 1860, 1,322,787 pounds of 
wax and 23,366,357 pounds of honey were 
produced, an increase of 70 per cent. In 
1870 there had been some falling off from 
this amount, or the census report was in- 
complete, which is not unlikely. 631,129 
pounds of wax and 14,702,815 pounds of 
honey was all that was reported. Since 
1870 the production, though fluctuating, 
has materially increased, especially in the 
Western and Pacific States. California, be- 
sides supplying the home demand exports, 
from 31 to 4 million pounds of honey every 
year, and the states on the plains — Kansas, 
Nebraska, &c, produce very largely. The 
export of honey and wax in 1880 was about 
$200,000, a little more than the previous 
year, but considerably less than in 1872. 
The honey product is believed to be over 
30 million pounds. 

POULTRY AND EGGS. 

The value of the poultry kept in thellnited 
States, and the production of eggs, con- 
stitutes a much larger item of our agricul- 
tural economy than is generally supposed. 
The value of poultry, according to the census 
of 1840, was no less than $12, 17 6, 170. This 
sum, great as it appears, has been increased 
to over 108 millions of dollars. The city of 
New York alone, pays about ten millions of 
dollars a year for eggs. And so the other 
large cities require a supply in proportion. 

The keeping of poultry, therefore, is by 
no means an insignificant item in the prod- 
ucts of our agriculture, though for some 
reason or other the censuses of 1850, 1860, 
and 1870 failed to take cognizance of it. 

It is doubtful whether the introduction of 



foreign varieties of fowls effected an im- 
provement in the common stock of the 
country. The number of fowls was increased, 
but the product of eggs, was not, materially! 
Within the decades 1860-18S0, great at- 
tention has been paid to poultry farming on 
a large scale. The fowls, including hens, 
turkeys, geese, ducks, and guinea fowls, are 
kept in large numbers, hatched artificially, 
stimulated to lay by suitable food, and fat- 
tened scientifically for market, to which they 
are sent at the proper season, carefully 
packed. Ohio and New York have many of 
these chicken factories. 




FANTAIL PIGEON. 



The following illustrations were selected from the extensive collection of The Po dtrf 
World, by permission of the publisher, 





WHITE COCHINS. 



LIGHT BRAHMAS. 





BLACK HAMBURGS. 



DARK BR AHMA a . 





BUFF COCHINS. 



PARTRIDGE COCHINS. 




S. P. HAMBURGS. 




WHITE LEGHORNS. 





BROWN LEGHORNS. 



BLACK SPANISH 





BLACK LEGHORNS. 



PLYMOUTH ROCKS. 




BROWN RED GAM 




B. B. REDGAME& 





S. S. HAMBURGS. 




GOLDEN or SILVER S. POLISH. 




HOUDANS. 





BREMEN GEESE. 



PEKLN DUCKS. 





AYLESBURY DUCKS. 



ROUEN DUCKS. 




GUINEA FOWL. 







SAW 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



767 




BRONZE TURKEYS. 



THE LUMBER BUSINESS. 

The growth and preparation of lumber 
does not, perhaps, come strictly within the 
range of what is understood by agricultural 
products. But the primary operations in- 
volved are to a large extent undertaken by 
farmers, as a part of winter's work, and 
lumber forms no unimportant item in the 
clearing up and the preparation of land for 
tillage. It is, therefore, proper enough to 
allude to it in connection with the progress 
of our agriculture. 

Volney represented the surface of this 
country as one vast forest, diversified, oc- 
casionally, by cultivated intervals. Since his 
time the woodman's axe, guided by a ruth- 
less hand, has reversed the picture to some 
extent, but still the number and variety 
of our forest trees abundantly testify the 
bounty of nature. 

Originally, indeed, an almost unbroken 
forest covered a large proportion, not only 
of this country, but of the whole continent. 
The Indian tribes were far less populous 
than is generally supposed; and if we except 
the prairie lands of the valley of the Missis- 
sippi, but a small portion of the surface 
of our present territory was destitute of 
timber trees. 

" Then all this youthful paradise around, 

And all the broad and boundless mainland, lay- 
Cooled by the interminable wood, that frowned 
O'er mount and vale, where never summer ray 
Glanced till the strong tornado broke its way 
Through the gray giants of the sylvan wild ; 

Yet many a sheltered glade, with blossoms gay, 
Beneath the showering sky and sunshine mild, 
Within the shaggy arms of that dark forest 
smiled." 



It was stated by Michaux that there were 
in the United States one hundred and forty 
species of forest trees which attain a greater 
height than thirty feet, while in France 
there were only eighteen of the same de- 
scription. An English traveller, writing of 
this country, says : " I was never tired of 
the forest scenery of America, although I 
passed through it from day to day. The 
endless diversity of foliage always prevents 
it from being monotonous." But the sur- 
passing beauty which the forests add to our 
natural scenery is not to be compared with 
the solid advantages which are derived from 
the immense variety, as well as the quantity 
of their timber. 

The forest scenery of this country be- 
yond the Alleghany mountains, and from 
them to the Mississippi river, has been 
invaded to a less extent than in the older 
settled portions, and there are still vast 
tracts remaining uncleared. Trees of gigan- 
tic height and dimensions, standing in the 
richest mould, which has been accumulating 
for ages, and surrounded with a luxuriance 
of vegetation very rarely seen in the eastern 
states, carry the mind back to a period long 
anterior to the discovery of the country, 
and fill the beholder with awe by their 
grandeur. 

To these forests, as they once stood, over 
a large portion of the country, we have been 
indebted for much of our growth and pros- 
perity as a nation ! How much do we not 
owe to one species of these majestic trees — 
the white pine ? Michaux observed that 
throughout the northern states, except in 
the large capitals, seven-tenths of the houses 
are of wood, of which seven-tenths, three- 
quarters are of white pine. He might have 
said nine-tenths were built of wood, ai.d 
come within the truth, though at the time 
he visited this country, fifty years ago, many 
houses had been constructed, to a great ex- 
tent, of hard wood. 

The new settlers had to enter and fell the 
forests, and burn and clear their lands as a 
preliminary preparation, and thousands of 
acres were thus brought under culture, the 
timber being of too little value to pay for 
saving. It was in vain that statutes were 
passed a hundred years ago and more, to 
prevent the cutting of trees suitable for ship 
timber. Private rights eould not be invaded 
in the colonies, and down the forests carae. 
The value of the forests for timber during 
the time of limited and scattered population 



768 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



was but little, and it could not be transport- 
ed to great distances. 

The lumber business, therefore, did not 
grow up to any great magnitude and im- 
portance till a comparatively recent period 
in any part of the country. Not, in fact, 
till the great centres of population began to 
feel new life from our growing commerce, 
creating a more extensive demand for build- 
ing purposes, and for ship-building. When 
this period arrived, after the war of 1812 
and the conclusion of peace, the lumber 
business began to extend itself into Maine 
and other regions then comparatively un- 
settled, especially in the vicinity of large 
streams giving easy access to the sea-board 
or to lake navigation. The mode of pro- 
ceeding will be more clearly understood 
from the following description of the de- 
tails of operations, prepared by a gentleman 
residing in the lumber regions of Maine. 
The logging camp is very much the same in 
all the more northern sections of the United 
States, from the timber regions of the St. 
Johns to the pineries of Wisconsin, and a 
detail of the winter operations of one will 
apply, with slight modification, to them all. 
I may remark, in passing, that I have my- 
self lived some winters in the immediate 
vicinity of extensive logging operations in 
Maine, and, in fact, been engaged in them 
to some extent, and am familiar with them. 

Wben a lumberer has concluded to log 
on a particular tract, the first step is to go 
with a part of his hands and select suitable 
situations for building his camps. In mak- 
ing this selection, his object is to be near 
as possible to the best clumps of timber he 
intends to haul, and to the streams into 
which he intends to haul it. He then pro- 
ceeds to build his camps and to cut out and 
clear out his principal roads The camps 
are built of logs, being a kind of log-houses. 
They are made about three feet high on one 
side, and eight or nine on the other, with 
a roof slanting one way. The roof is made 
of shingles split out of green wood and laid 
upon rafters. The door is made of such 
boards as can be manufactured out of a log 
with an axe. Against the tallest side of the 
camp is built the chimney — the back being 
formed by the wall of the camp, and the 
sides made of green logs, piled up for jams, 
about eight feet apart. The chimney seldom 
rises above the roof of the camp ; though 
some who are nice in their architectural 



notions sometimes carry it up two or three 
feet higher. It is obvious from the con- 
struction that nothing but the greenness of 
the timber prevents the camp from being 
burned up immediately ; yet the great fires 
that are kept up make but little impression 
in the course of the winter upon the back 
or sides of the chimney. A case, however, 
happened within a year or two, where a 
camp took fire in the night and was con- 
sumed, and the lumberers in it burned to 
death. Probably the shingle roof had be^ 
come dry, in which case a spark would 
kindle it, and the flames would spread over 
it in a moment. Parallel to the lower side 
of the building, and about six feet from it, 
a stick of timber runs on the ground across 
the camp. The space between this and the 
lower wall is appropriated to the bedding, 
the stick of timber serving to confine it in 
its place. The bedding consists of a layer 
of hemlock boughs spread upon the ground, 
and covered with such old quilts and blank- 
ets as the tenants can bring away from 
their homes. The men camp down to- 
gether, with their heads to the wall and 
their feet toward the fire. Before going to 
bed they replenish their fire — some two or 
more of them being employed in putting on 
such logs as with their handspikes they can 
manage to pile into the chimney. As the 
walls of the building are not very tight, the 
cool air plays freely around the head of the 
sleeper, making a difference of temperature 
between the head and the feet not altogether 
agreeable to one unused to sleep in camps. 
A rough bench and table complete the furni- 
ture of the establishment. A camp very 
similar, though not so large in dimensions, 
is built near for the oxen ; on the top of 
this the hay is piled up, giving warmth 
while it is convenient for feeding. 

A large logging concern will require a 
number of camps, which will be distributed 
over the tracts, so as best to accommodate 
the timber. One camp serves generally for 
one or two teams. A team, in ordinary 
logging parlance, expresses, not only the set 
of four or six oxen that draw the logs, but 
likewise a gang of men employed to tend 
them. It takes from three or four to seven 
or eight men to keep one team employed — 
one man being employed in driving the cat- 
tle, and the others in cutting down the trees, 
shaping them into logs, barking them, and 
cutting and clearing the way to each tree. 
The number of hands required is inversely 



Fig. 1. 

UAUL1NC LOUS. 



Fig. 2. 
SAWING OFF LOGS. 



Fig. 3. 
FLOATING LOGS. 





Fig. 4. 

THE JAM. 



Fig. 5. 

LOADING THE SHIP. 



Fig. 6. 
lumberman's cabin. 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



771 



to the distance tlie logs are to be hauled ; I pointed to the office of cook. Salt pork and 
that is, most hands are required when the flour bread constitute the regular routine of 



distance is shortest, because the oxen, re- 
turning more frequently, require their loads 
to be prepared more expeditiously. Having 
built their camps, or while building them, 
the main roads are to be cut out. These run 
from the camps to the landing places, or 
some stream of sufficient size to float down 
the logs on the spring freshet. Other roads 
are cut to other clumps of timber. They are 
made by cutting and clearing away the un- 
derbrush, and such trees and old logs as may 
be in the way, to a sufficient width for the 
team of oxen, with the bob-sled and timber 
on it, to pass conveniently. The bob-sled is 
made to carry one end of the timber only, the 
other drags upon the ground, and the bark 
is chipped ofl", that the log may slip along 
more easily. The teams proceed to the 
woods, when the first snows come, with the 
hands who are not already there, and the 
supplies. The supplies consist principally 
of pork and flour for the men, and Indian 
meal for the oxen ; some beans, tea, and 
molasses are added. Formerly hogsheads 
of rum were considered indispensable, and I 
have before me a bill of supplies for a log- 
ging concern of three teams in 1827-28, in 
which I find one hundred and eighty gallons 
of rum charged ; but of late very few re- 



the meals, varied sometimes with salt fish 
or salt beef. Potatoes are used when they 
can be obtained. Now and then, perhaps, 
when the snow is deep, they catch a deer, 
and live on venison. The men are employed 
through the day in cutting the timber and 
driving the teams. In tbe evening some 
take care of the oxen ; some cut wood for 
the fire ; then they amuse themselves with 
stories and singing, or in other ways, until 
they feel inclined to turn in upon the uni- 
versal bed. On Sundays the employer claims 
no control over their time, beyond the tak- 
ing care of the cattle, the fire, and the cook- 
ing. On this day they do their washing and 
mending ; some employ themselves, besides, 
in seeking timber, and some in hunting 
partridges, while some remain in the camp 
and read the Bible. They remain in the 
woods from the commencement of sledding, 
some time in December, until some time in 
March, in the course of which month their 
labors are usually brought to a close by the 
snow, it becoming too shallow or too deep. 
If there are heavy thaws the snow runs off, 
not leaving enough to make good hauling. 
If, on the other hand, it gets to be four 
or five feet deep, the oxen cannot break 
through it to make the path which it is nec- 



spectable lumberers take any spirits with | essary to form in order to get at each in- 
dividual tree. The men and teams then 
leave the woods. Sometimes one or two 
remain to be at hand when the streams open. 
I know one who last winter staid by himself 
in the woods, fifteen or twenty miles from the 
nearest habitation, for the space of twenty- 
eight days, during which time he earned $203 
by getting in timber with his axe alone, be- 
ing allowed for it at the same rate per thou- 
sand that the lumberers were in getting it in 
with their teams. He found some berths in 
the banks of the stream, wdierc all that was 
necessary was to fell the tree so that it should 
fall directly upon the water, and there cut it 
into logs to be ready for running. When the 
streams are opened, and there is sufficient 
freshet to float the timber, another gang, 
called "river drivers," takes charge of it. 
It is their business to start it from the banks, 
and follow it down the river, clearing off 
what lodges against rocks, pursuing and 
bringing back the sticks that run wild among 
the bushes and trees that cover the low 
lands adjoining the river, and breaking up 
jams that form in narrow or shallow places. 



them, and the logging business is conse- 
quently carried on with much more method, 
economy, and profit. The pork and flour 
must be of the first quality. Lumberers are 
seldom content to take any of an inferior 
sort ; and even now, when flour is twelve 
dollars a barrel, they are not to be satisfied 
with the coarser breadstufls. Hay is pro- 
cured as near to the camps as possible ; but 
as most of the timber lands are remote from 
settlements, it is generally necessary to haul 
it a considerable distance ; and as it must 
be purchased of the nearest settlers, they 
are enabled to obtain very nigh prices. 
From twelve to twenty dollars per ton is 
usually paid. When the expense of haul- 
ing it to the camp is added, the whole cost 
is frequently as high as thirty dollars a ton, 
and sometimes much higher. Owners of 
timber lands at a distance from settlements 
may make a great saving by clearing up a 

Eiece of their land, and raising their own 
ay. Some one of the hands, who has not 
so much efficiency in getting timber as skill 
in kneading bread and frying pork, is ap- 



772 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



A jam is caused by obstacles in tbe river 
catching some of the sticks, which in their 
turn catch others coming down ; and so the 
mass increases until a solid dam is formed, 
which entirely stops up the river, and pre- 
vents the further passage of any logs. These 
jams are most frequently formed at the top 
of some fall ; and it is often a service that 
requires much skill and boldness, and is at- 
tended with much danger, to break them 
up. The persons who undertake it must 
go on the mass of logs, work some out with 
their pick poles, cut some to pieces, attach 
ropes to others to be hauled out by the 
hands on shore, and they must be on the 
alert to watch the moment of the starting of 
the timber, and exercise all their activity to 
get clear of it before they are carried off in 
its tumultuous rush. Some weeks, more or 
less, according to the distance, spent in this 
way, bring the timber to the neighborhood 
of the saw-mills. A short distance from 
Oldtown, on the Penobscot, there is a boom 
established, extending across the river, for 
the purpose of stopping all the logs that 
come down. It is made by a floating chain 
of logs, connected by iron links, and sup- 
ported at suitable distances by solid piers, 
built in the river ; without this it would be 
impossible to stop a large part of the logs, 
and they would be carried on the freshet 
down the river, and out to sea. The boom 
is owned by an individual, who derives a 
large profit from the boomage, which is 
thirty-five cents per thousand on all logs 
coming into it. The boom cost the present 
owner about $40,000. He has offered it 
for sale for $45,000. it is said the net in- 
come from it some years is $15,000. Here 
all the logs that come down the Penobscot 
are collected in one immense mass, covering 
many acres, where is intermingled the prop- 
erty of all the owners of timber lands in all 
the broad region that is watered by the 
Penobscot and its branches, from the east 
line of Canada, above Moosehead Lake, on 
the one side, to the west line of New Bruns- 
wick on the other. Here the timber remains 
till the logs can be sorted out for each owner, 
rafted together, and floated to the mills or 
other places below. 

Rafting is the connecting the logs togeth- 
er by cordage, which is secured by pins 
driven into each log, forming them into 
bands, like the ranks of a regiment. This 
operation is performed by the owner of the 
boom. The ownership of the timber is as- 



certained by the marks which have been 
chopped into each log before it left the 
woods, each owner having a mark, or combi- 
nation of marks, of his own. When the 
boom is full, only the logs lowest down can 
be got at ; and the proprietors of other logs 
must wait weeks, sometimes months, before 
they can get them out, to their great incon- 
venience and damage. After the logs are 
rafted and out of the boom, a great part of 
them are lodged for convenience in a place 
called Pen Cove, which is a large and secure 
basin in the river, about two miles below the 
boom. From this cove they can be taken 
out as they are wanted for the mills below. 
While in the boom and at other places on 
the river, they are liable to great loss from 
plunderers. The owners or drivers of logs 
will frequently smuggle all that come in their 
way, without regard to marks. The owners 
or conductors of some of the mills on the 
river are said to be not above encouraging 
and practising this species of piracy. In- 
deed, timber in all its stages seems to be a 
fair object for plunderers, from the petty 
pilferer who steals into the woods, fells a 
tree, cuts it into shingles, and carries it out 
on his back, to the comparatively rich owner 
of thousands of dollars. 

When the logs have been sawn at the 
mills, there is another rafting of the boards, 
which are floated down the river to Bangor, 
to be embarked on board the coasters for 
Boston. In this process they are subject to 
much injury : first, by the mode of catch- 
ing them as they come from the mill sluices, 
the rafters making use of a picaroon, or pole, 
with a spike in the end of it, which is re- 
peatedly and unmercifully driven into the 
boards, taking out, perhaps, a piece at each 
time ; secondly, by the holes made by the 
pins driven into the boards in rafting ; and, 
thirdly, by the rocks, and rapids, and shal- 
lows in the river, breaking the rafts to pieces 
and splitting up the boards as they de- 
scend. These inconveniences will be partly 
remedied by the railroad now in operation, 
unless other inconveniences in the use of it 
should be found to overbalance them. The 
kinds of timber brought down our rivers are 
pine, spruce, hemlock, ash, birch, maple, 
cedar, and hackmatack. Far the greater 
part of it is pine. The lumberers make 
about six kinds of pine, though they do not 
agree exactly in the classification, or in the 
use of some of the names. The most com- 
mon division is into pumpkin-pine, timber- 



Turpentine, rosin, tnr, and 
pitch, are largely used in va- 
rious trades, us well as for 
many domestic purposes. One 
of our artists lias sent us u 
series of sketches from the 
pine regions, mid a friend, 
familial with the processes 
of manufacturing the pro- 
ducts, has furnished us an 
account of them, The Long- 
teaved Pine grows from the 

north-eastern boundary of 

North Carolina, along the At- 
lantic coast to Florida, across 
that State; to the Gulf, and 
thence to Louisiana, in a helt 
averaging mo miles in width. 
The manufacture was first 

coi 'Ni-od in North Caro- 
lina, and that State still sup- 
plies by far the largest pro- 
portion of the product. The 
first step is to obtain the 
• 'rude Turpentine. This is 
the natural juice of the pine 
tree, and is sometimes called 
White Turpentine, and (linn 
Turpentine. It is a mixture 
of the volatile oil known as 
Spirits of Turpentine, and of 
Rosin. A half-moon-shaped 
box is cut in the tree, as near 
as possible to the surface of 
the ground. The shape of 
this "box" will be seen in 
figs. 2, 3, and 4. The box 
cutting commences about the 
1st of December, and con- 
tinues until March — perhaps 
a few weeks longer, if the 
spring is late. A hand can 
cut from 100 to 150 boxes 
per day, from one quart to 
half a gallon in capacity. 
After cutting, the boxes are 
"cornered " by taking out a 
triangular piece at each end 
of the half-moon. This is 
the commencement of the 
regular season, and the boxes 
are now all tasked oil' A 
''task" is usually 10.000 
boxes, lint I have known 
hands to tend 18,000. These 
must be cornered once, and 
"hacked" about six times, 
from the first of spring until 
into November. The dipping 
(shown in fig. 3) is done by 
taskwork, too, so many bar- 
rels or boxes per day being a 
task. Two dippers generally 
attend one hacker. Hacking 
is the making a groove-shaped 
cut on each side, downward, 
to the centre of the half- 
moon. These grooves can be 
seen in all the cuts. The 
barrels fur filling are placed 
at intervals through the 

w Is: the dipper gathers 

his gum in a rude bucket, 
and empties it into the bar- 
rels, which, when full, are 
hauled nil'. ,\ frequent mode 
of hauling is seen in fig. 1 ; 
the same cut shows a primi- 
tive but cheap mode of " roll- 
nig" tnr to market. Both 
articles are frequently rafted 
to a seaport between sinks 
of lieu u limber. 

The first year's operation 
produces "virgin i|i|,," the 
second "yellow dip," (ho 

third some cuin n yellow 

dip and scrape ; then the fur 
ther product of the trees is 



PRODUCTS OF THE PINR FOfcESTS* 



•Copied from the 
Agriculturist. 





all " scrape." The virgin dip 
is, when carefully gathered, & 
honey-like gum, of whitish 
appearance. l''rom it are 
produced No. 1, pale, extra, 
and window glass rosins. It 
yields about 7 gallons of spir- 
its mikI nol quite three-fourthi 
of a luirrel of rosin to the har- 
rel (280 lbs ) Yellow dip 
yields over three fourths of 
rosin, mid about li gallons of 
spirits to the 'JHO ll>s. of gum. 
Scrape yields about the same. 
"Scrape" is the gum which 
gathers on the face of the tree 
or box when worked up three, 
four, or more feet. It is a 
white, cheesy-like substance 
The operation of chipping 
the box-face and gathering 
the scrape is seen in figs. 3 
and 4. With care a very light 
rosin can be made from it. 

The operation of distilling 
the gum is carried on in cop- 
per stills of a capacity from 
ten barrels up to sixty. They 
are bricked up at the sides, 
and the fire strikes directly 
on the bottom. The top has 
a large hole for the " cap," 
which connects with the 
worm for condensing the 
spirits, and a small hole 
through which the "stiller" 
examines the state of his 
charge, and lets in water as 
it may be needed. The rosin, 
being a residuum, is let otTon 
one side into vats, from which 
it is dipped into barrels to 
cool. The rear of the stills 
and the rosin vats are shown 
in fig. 5. A task of 10,000 
boxes may safely be calcu- 
lated to yield two hundred 
and fifty barrels of virgin or 
yellow dip in a season. In 
trees deadened by fire, stumps 
of trees cut down when the 
sap is up, and old boxed trees 
left standing, a peculiar trans- 
formation of the wood takes 
place ; all its pores become 
filled with pitchy matter, it 
increases greatly in weight, 
and will take fire almost as 
readily as gunpowder. This 
wood is the source of tar. 
The wood is split into billets 
3 or 4 feet long, and about 3 
inches in diameter. To form 
a tar kiln the wood is piled 
concentrically, each layer 
projecting over the lower a 
little until n desired height is 
reached, this encircled with 
logs, and covered with clogs, 
as shown in fig. 6. A kiln 
yields fifty, one hundred, or 
more barrels of tar, according 
to its size. Pitch is tar boiled 
down until all its volatile 
matter is driven off. The 
manufacture of tar is chiefly 
carried on by the poor whites 
and negroes. 

Large quantities of valu- 
able timber are produced 
from the pine forests, known 
at the North us Southern 
pine lumber. 

The engravings accompa- 
nying this article an' from 
sketches drawn from life by 
our special artist, Mr. C. C. 
lSurr, of Wilmington, N. C. 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



775 



f>ine, sapling, bull-sapling, Norway, and yel- 
ow, or pitch-pine. The pumpkin -pine stands 
pre-eminent in the estimation of the lumber- 
ers, because it is the largest tree, and makes 
fine, large, clear boards. They are soft, 
and of a yellowish cast. The timber-pine 
and saplings are the most common. The 
former is generally preferred, as being larger 
and more likely to be sound ; yet the sap- 
lings are said to- make the harder and 
more durable boards. The common sapling 
grows in low lands, generally very thick, but 
much of it is apt to be rotten. The bull- 
sapling is larger and sounder, grows on high 
land, and is mixed with hard wood. The 
Norway pine is a much harder kind of tim- 
ber than the others. It is seldom sawn into 
boards, though it makes excellent floor- 
boards ; but it is generally hewn into square 
timber. 

I will conclude with some remarks upon 
the different modes of operating made use 
of by owners of timber. There are three. 
One is for the owner to hire his men by the 
month, procure teams, and furnish them with 
equipments and supplies. A second is to 
agree with some one or more individuals to 
cut and haul the timber, or cut, haul, and 
run it, at a certain price per thousand feet- 
The third way is to sell the stumpage out 
right .' that is, to sell the timber standing. 
The first mode is seldom adopted, unless the 
owner of the timber is likewise a lumberer, 
and intends to superintend the business him- 
self. The second mode is very common. It 
is considered the most saving to the owners, 
because the lumberer has no inducement to 
select the best timber, and leave all that is 
not of the first quality ; to cut down trees 
and take, and leave others to rot that are 
not quite so good, but may be worth haul- 
ing. Its inconveniences are, that, as the 
object of the lumberer is to get as large 
a quantity as possible, he will take trees 
that are not worth so much as the cost of 
getting them to market, and which, besides 
being of little value themselves, render the 
whole lot less saleable by the bad appearance 
they give it. The owner, too, is subject to 
all the losses that may happen in running 
the logs down the river. Very frequently 
he is obliged to make a contract to have the 
timber cut and hauled to the landing-places, 
and another to have it run down ; for the 
river-drivers are a distinct class from the 
lumberers. Most of them, indeed, are lum- 
berers ; yet it is but a small part of the lum- 



berers that are river-drivers. A great part 
of the lumberers are farmers, who must be 
on their farms at the season of driving, and, 
therefore, cannot undertake any thing but 
the cutting and hauling. They are paid for 
the number of thousand feet they deposit at 
the landing-places ; and the logs being sur- 
veyed, or scaled, as they are hauled, their 
object is to get as many thousand feet as 
possible on the landing-places ; while the 
river-drivers may be very careless about get- 
ting them all down, and the owner may nev- 
er receive the whole quantity he has paid for 
cutting and hauling. In operating in this 
mode, the owner usually furnishes the sup- 
plies, provisions, etc., and the lumberer pro- 
cures the teams and hires the men. The 
owner, commonly, does not bind himself to 
pay before the logs go to market, and he 
frequently makes a contract for his supplies 
on the same condition, in which case he has 
to pay from twenty-five to thirty-three per 
cent, more for his goods than he would deal- 
ing on cash or common credit. Sometimes, 
when there is no freshet, the logs do not go 
down until the second year ; and then the 
trader and lumberer both suffer for want of 
their pay. 

The third mode is by far the simplest 
and easiest for the owner. He avoids all 
trouble of furnishing supplies, of watching 
the timber on the river, and of looking out 
for a market. But he must have a man of 
some capital to deal with, as he furnishes 
his own teams and supplies, and pays the 
men, receiving very heavy advances. The 
purchaser of it has no interest to cut the 
timber savingly, and he sometimes makes 
dreadful havoc among the trees, leaving a 
great deal of valuable stuff on the ground to 
rot. And if he selects only the best trees in 
a berth, much of the timber left standing 
may be lost, because no one will afterward 
want to go into that berth from which all 
the best trees have been culled. It is com- 
mon now to employ a man to pass the win- 
ter in the camps, living alternately at one or 
another, for the purpose of scaling the logs, 
keeping a correct account of them, and see- 
ing that the timber is cut according to the 
contract. 

But, after all, there is almost always found 
to be a considerable difference between tim- 
ber cut by the thousand and that which 
is cut on stumpage. Each mode has its troub- 
les; but I think that owners at a distance 
will manage their concerns with least vexa- 



776 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



tion by selling the stumpage, provided that 
they have honest men to deal with. 

It might be mentioned in connection with 
the above interesting statement, that the pri- 
mary object in the settlement of Maine was 
to engage in the lumber business. Agricul- 
ture was originally secondary to that busi- 
ness, and grew up of necessity, in connection 
with it. The same may be said of somo 
parts of New Hampshire. Mason and Gorges 
procured their grant, embracing a large tract 
above Portsmouth, Dover, etc., for the pur- 
poses of lumbering and the manufacture of 
potash. It was common in Maine for a 
lumberman to work at farming in summer, 
and cut and haul lumber in the winter. 

A brief description of lumbering at Green 
Bay, in the northern part of Wisconsin, will 
be interesting in this connection. 

" A logging camp in the winter," says a 
resident of Green Bay, "is an exhilarating 
scene. The great trees • falling here and 
there, with a thundering sound ; the fine, 
strong teams moving off to the river with 
their loads, and hurrying back with empty 
sleds ; the songs and shouts of the jolly, red- 
shirted lumbermen ; the majestic forest sce- 
nery, standing out so handsomely in the 
clear air of northern winter, make up a pan- 
orama that is worth going a day's journey 
to see. Finally, the snow fades out before 
Jie spring sun. It goes first from the log- 
ging road, because there it has been most 
worn ; and then the lumbermen make ready 
for the 'running,' and wait impatiently for 
the breaking up of the stream and the 
coming of the freshet. If they are a long 
way up the stream, this is a matter of great 
anxiety, for, perhaps, the rise will not be 
sufficient, and their logs will lie over till 
another year. One firm on the Oconto got 
logs as high up as ninety miles from the 
mouth. If the water is high, the logs come 
down by thousands upon thousands, rushing, 
clogging up, breaking away again, piling 
upon each other, and requiring the constant 
efforts of the drivers to keep them on the go. 
Sometimes, when an obstruction occurs, a 
few logs form a 'jam,' and those coming after 
them, with terrific force, are piled up in rude 
masses, till one not familiar with it would 
think the whole enterprise hopelessly ended, 
for there seems no possibility of ever extri- 
cating the mass, perhaps, of a thousand logs. 
But a single man, with an iron-shod hand- 
spike, goes upon the jam carefully, looking 



with a practised eye here and there, until he 
discovers one log which is the key to the 
whole problem. Prying cautiously, he loos- 
ens it, and then makes his way as quick as 
possible to the shore again. The confused 
mass begins to settle, the head logs start ; 
and then, all at once, down stream they go 
once more, with the old speed, like a herd 
of countless buffaloes stamping along the 
prairie. The logs reach- the mill in April or 
May, and the sawing commences on the 
arrival of the ' head of the drive.' ' 

In the absence of accurate statistics, which 
ought to have been furnished by the last 
census, it is not possible to give a detailed 
statement of the full extent of the lumber 
business of the country ; and hence, any 
information on the subject must necessarily 
come far short of giving an adequate idea of 
its vastness, and of the progress which the 
last few years have witnessed in its develop 
ment. But we know that the export of 
lumber from the United States has risen 
from $1,822,077 in 1821 to $16,237,376 in 
1880; we know that during the five years 
from 1873 to 1877 the value of the lumber 
exported was nearly ninety-four millions of 
dollars; we know that the amount of lumber 
received at Chicago alone in one year (1872) 
was no less than 1,183,659,283 feet, besides 
one hundred and thirty-nine millions of 
laths. Chicago, indeed, as a lumber market, 
stands pre-eminent, and its rise and progress 
as such is little less remarkable than its 
growth f s a grain market. The banks of 
the rivers are loaded for several miles with 
vast piles of lumber, shipped to that city 
from the extensive pine forests of Michigan, 
Wisconsin, and Canada; while the capital 
invested in this trade is immense. The 
vessels alone which are engaged in carrying 
the lumber which finds its market there, did 
not cost less than four millions and a half; 
and the number of hands employed in one 
way and another is not less than 60,000. 

Here are some of the receipts of lumber 
in that city : — 

Lumber— Feet. Sh!r>ele». I.aths. 

1847 32,118,225 12,148,500 5,665,700 

1852 147,816,232 77,080,500 19,759,670 

1857 444,396,300 130,463,000 79,650,000 

1861 249,308,000 79,336,000 32,667,000 

1865 658.214.476 197,159,000 64,255,000 

1868 999,229,866 560,877,000 145.337,6t0 

1872* 1,183,659,283 610,824,420 139,000,000 

1874 1,060,088,000 619,279,000 

1875 1,147,193,000 635,708,000 
1878 1,092,530.000 605,941,000 

*One year ater the great tiro. 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



779 



This, it must be borne in mind, is the 
business of only one city. Many other 
cities and larger towns might be named 
which would compare favorably with it. 

In what has Deen said above, reference 
has been had exclusively to the procuring 01 
lumber for the purposes of building. The 
vast amount required for fuel has not been 
considered, but if that could be taken into 
account it would form an item of amazing 
importance, not only as ministering to the 
comfort of millions of people, but in a com- 
mercial and business point of view. 

But while Chicago stands pre-eminent as 
a lumber market, other cities have very 
large interests in the business. The lumber 
production of the state of Michigan in 1875 
was 2,691,965,388 feet of lumber and 1,. 
383,870,000 shingles — more than double 
the Chicago receipts. The amount of lum- 
ber which was received at tide-water (Al- 
bany, Troy, Waterford, and New York), 
in 1878, was 586,907,939 feet. The produc- 
tion of the Pacific slope is enormous, and 
none of it comes east of the Rocky Moun- 
tains. The value of the lumber and tim- 
ber produced annually exceeds 250 million 
dollars. 

There is also an immense consumption of 
timber and lumber in the mining districts 
in timbering the mines, the erection of 
flumes, smelters, reduction works, etc. 
What seem to be manufactures of trifling 
importance consume large quantities. Two 
million cords of pine are used in the man- 
ufacture of matches, and 300,000 in the 
production of spools for cotton and silk. 
Even in districts where there were exten- 
sive forests not long since, wood has becomo 
so costly that coal takes its place for iuel, 
and notwithstanding extensive tree plant- 
ing, the disappearance of our forests is 
inevitable. 

FROGRESS OF AGRICULTURAL LITERATURE. 

The improvement and increase of the 
agricultural literature of the country might 
very properly have been treated of in the 
early part of this chapter, as among the 
means or the causes of the progress which 
has been made in the development of our 
agricultural wealth, to which it has contrib- 
uted nearly as much, perhaps, as the agri- 
cultural societies themselves. I have, how- 
ever, preferred to reserve it for this position, 
for the reason that it may with equal pro- 
priety be said to have grown out of a de- 
40 



mand for information incident to the gen- 
eral spirit of inquiry which the association 
of effort produced in the public mind, and 
especially since it has, for the most part, 
grown up within the last twenty years, or 
long subsequent to the formation of many 
of the agricultural societies. 

If we except the "Essays on Field Hus- 
bandry," by the Rev. Jared Eliot, of Connect- 
icut, prepared as early as the middle of the 
last century, and the valuable papers sub- 
mitted to the Massachusetts, the New York, 
and the Pennsylvania Agricultural Societies, 
and published by them about the beginning 
of the present century, we cannot be said 
to have had any agricultural literature, till. 
within the memory of many men still living. 
None, in fact, till within the last twenty or 
thirty years. The " Essays on Field Husband- 
ry," considering the time when they were 
written, were certainly a remarkable contri- 
bution to the agricultural literature of the 
country, filled with the most judicious ad- 
vice, and worthy of republication, both as a 
part of the history of our agriculture and 
for their own intrinsic merits. But, as al- 
ready remarked on a former page, the book 
was far in advance of the farming commu- 
nity of that time, and it is not probable that 
it had many readers. The papers published 
by the Massachusetts Society for Promoting 
Agriculture, commenced as early as 1796, 
were among the most valuable that have 
ever appeared in this country. They are 
embraced in a series of ten octavo volumes, 
called the " Agricultural Repository," and 
extend over a period of thirty years, dis- 
cussing many questions which agricultural 
chemistry and other kindred sciences have 
since definitively settled and explained, but 
containing much useful information on a. 
great variety of subjects connected with 
practical agriculture. The agricultural li- 
brary connected with my office is one of 
the most valuable and extensive in the 
country, but I regard the " Agricultural 
Repository" as among the most valuable 
series in it. 

The farming community gradually "took 
to reading." The American Farmer was 
commenced in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1819, 
and is believed to have been the first strictly 
agricultural periodical started in the coun- 
try. It was sold in 1829 for twenty thou- 
sand dollars, which, at that time, was a very 
large price for an agricultural paper. It has 
been regularly published up to this time, 



780 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



and is still in a flourishing condition, with a 
good circulation. 

The Agricultural Intelligencer was estab- 
lished in Boston in 1820, but for some rea- 
son or other, probably for want of sufficient 
support, was discontinued, and the New 
England Farmer was begun in 1822 by 
Thomas G. Fessenden. This journal, an 
eight page quarto, was continued with a 
varying fortune till 1846, when it died, but 
another of the same name, an octavo monthly 
and folio weekly, sprang up, and is still in the 
full tide of success. The New York Farmer 
was established soon after the New England 
Farmer, and war. continued for several years 
by Mr. Samuel Fleet, then sold to Mr. D. K. 
Miner, who engaged the services of Mr. 
Henry Colman as editor, till the journal 
died, and is no more. In 1831, Mr. Luther 
Tucker, one of the oldest agricultural editors 
of the country, established the Genesee Far- 
mer, at Rochester, N. Y. At the end of the 
first year it had but six hundred subscribers. 
But Mr. Tucker persevered, until, in 1839, 
the subscription reached 19,000. 

In the meantime, Judge Buel had estab- 
lished the Cultivator, at Albany, in 1833, and 
at his death, in 1839, Mr. Tucker purchased 
that journal of his heirs, and removed to 
Albany, uniting the Genesee Farmer and 
the Cultivator which is still in a very 
flourishing condition, having exerted a long- 
continued and wide-spread influence. The 
place made vacant by the removal of the 
Genesee Farmer from Rochester was soon 
filled by the New Genesee Farmer, soon 
after which the first word of the title was 
dropped, and as the Genesee Farmer, was pub- 
lished till 1867 when it was united with the 
Agriculturist. The American Agriculturist, 
established about the year 1842, was con 
tinued with some success for some years, till 
its subscription list became reduced to a few 
hundreds, when it passed into new bands, felt 
the infusion of younger blood, and in less 
than fifteen years the subscription has risen 
'to 180,000. " The Farmers' Cabinet was pub- 
lished some years in New York city, under 
the editorship of J. S. Skinner, who first 
established the American Farmer, at Balti- 
more. Mr. Skinner, in 1848, started the 
Plough. Loom, and Anvil, which was con- 
tinued till about 1858. The Maine Farmer 
was established about the year 1832, and 
has exerted a good influence. 

Many other agricultural papers have been 
•Started within twenty-five or thirty years 



past, and have received a generous patron- 
age from the farming community, among 
which ought to be mentioned the Rural 
New Yorker, with a very wide circulation ; 
the Country Gentleman, published in con- 
nection with the Cultivator, at Albany; the 
Ohio Farmer, of very wide influence and 
large circulation ; the Michigan Farmer, at 
Detroit; the Valley Farmer, at St. Louis ^ 
the Wisconsin Farmer, at Madison ; the 
North- Western Farmer, at Dubuque ; the 
Southern Planter, at Richmond ; the Cali- 
fornia Farmer, at Sacramento ; the Home- 
stead, at Hartford, Connecticut — all exceed- 
ingly valuable and well conducted papers ; 
the Working Farmer, in New York city, 
and many others with which I am less famil- 
iar. There are in the northern and western 
states more than ninety journals, weekly, 
semi-monthly, and monthly, devoted almost 
exclusively to agriculture, and horticulture, 
and the aggregate circulation of these is not 
less than 800,000 copies. There are, also, 
in the southern states, about twenty similar 
publications devoted to agriculture, whose 
aggregate circulation is not less than eighty- 
five thousand copies. These facts are ex- 
ceedingly important with reference to the 
present condition of our agriculture, since 
they indicate a wide-spread spirit of inquiry 
and intelligence among farmers, which must 
necessarily have an important influence on 
the future development of this great in- 
terest. 

Besides the large number and wide circu- 
lation of the journals devoted to agriculture, 
there is a good demand for agricultural 
books, and many of the standard works 
published in Europe have been republished 
in this country, including Stephens' " Book 
of the Farm," Thaer's " Principles of Agri- 
culture," Johnston's " Agricultural Chemis- 
try," and many other European works of 
established reputation. These foreign w r orks 
were soon followed by American treatises 
on landscape gardening, fruits, animals, 
draining, dairy farming, and, in fact, on sub- 
jects covering the whole ground of farm 
economy, more or less perfectly. Many of 
these treatises and republications have had a 
wide circulation. The " Modern Horse 
Doctor" has sold to the extent of more 
than fifty thousand copies, " Youatt and 
Martin on Cattle," over twenty thousand, 
"Youatt on the Horse" over sixty thou- 
sand, and many others in a similar pro- 
portion. 




The Thomas Farmer's Almanac, from which the above engravings were taken, was about the only ag- 
ricultural literature the farmers had in the early days of the Republic. The cuts also represent the ;-tyle 
of engravings of those days. The Almanac informed the readers in what changes of the moon to pant 
various vegetable?, such a« squashes, cucumbers, beans, etc. The illustrations also showed people in which 
month certain work should be done, such as plowing, threshing, making cider, mending fences, etc. the 
time to take comfort by sitting around the fire rolling the hoop, and the like. It may surprise ycung 
people to learn that said Almanac issued weather probabilities for the whole yeir in advance. Along 
down the column of figures giving the day of the month would be inserted, "About thi& time look out 
for rain." "High winds and rain, "We may expect snow-storms about this time,'' etc. Of course it 
was a very fine thing to know what the weather would be all the year round, but the trouble was the 
probabilities often proved to be very improbable. 



•782 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES,. 



In addition to these facilities for informa- 
tion, many of the states have established 
township and district libraries, by means of 
which the choicest works on all subjects are 
brought within the reach of all, the poor as 
well as the rich. In these libraries are gen- 
erally included a fair proportion of agricul- 
tural works. 

This system was initiated by New York 
in 1837, by making an appropriation of two 
hundred thousand dollars a year for three 
years, and subsequent annual grants of over 
fifty thousand dollars. Massachusetts fol- 
lowed the example of New York in 1839, 
and more recently Michigan passed a law 
giving each township the sum of fifty dol- 
lars annually for this purpose. Indiana 
adopted the same policy in 1854, and Ohio 
in 1857, the former appropriating $300,000 
for two years, and the latter 880,000 an- 
nually. Illinois and other western states 
have also adopted a similar course. 

These measures are properly regarded as 
well calculated to diffuse information, and 
promote not only agricultural improvement, 
but the general welfare of the community. 
To this should be added the fact that most 
states publish annually an abstract of the 
proceedings of the county agricultural so- 
cieties for general gratuitous distribution. 
Many of the states produce volumes of great 
value. Ohio distributes from twenty to 
thirty thousand copies. Massachusetts pub- 
lishes ten thousand copies, and Maine as 
many more. These various instrumentalities 
are now in constant activity, and are exerting 
an immense influence. 

Allusion should also be made to the 
establishment, in some of the states, of agri- 
cultural colleges, where special attention is 
to be given to the various sciences which 
bear directly or indirectly upon practical 
agriculture. Michigan was the first to lead 
off in this direction ; a liberal endowment 
was granted by the state. New York, Mary- 
land, and other states soon followed; but the 
results of these institutions are not yet at- 
tained, nor can they at present be fully 
appreciated, since time only can prove their 
value and their efficiency. 

This brief survey of the growth of the 
facilities for information upon agricultural 
subjects and the appliances brought to bear 
upon the instruction of the young farmer, 
will sufficiently indicate the rapidity of the 
progress which has been made in this par- 
ticular direction within the last ten or 



twenty years, and justify the hope and ex- 
pectation of the most splendid results in the 
future. 

It ought not to be overlooked, in this 
connection, that there has been a most de- 
cided progress within the last twenty years 
in agricultural chemistry and kindred sci- 
ences. This progress has been made not 
wholly and strictly by scientific men in our 
own country, but scientific discoveries in 
agriculture are the property of the intelli- 
gent farmer everywhere, and those made 
abroad have had a material and important 
influence in promoting the advancement of 
practical agriculture among us. 

The labors of Arthur Young and Sir 
Humphry Davy were exceedingly valuable, 
but they bear the same relation to more re- 
cent investigations that the labors of the 
pioneer in the western forest do to those of 
the sons who till the soil and reap the har- 
vests for which the father had prepared the 
way. The former did more than any other 
man to stir up the agricultural mind of his 
country. The latter was the first to give 
principles to practice, and he announced the 
new philosophy in tJiese words : " Vegetables 
derive their component principles — which 
are, for the most part, hydrogen, carbon, 
oxygen, and nitrogen — either from the at- 
mosphere by which they are surrounded, or 
from the soil in which they grow. The proc- 
ess of vegetation appears to depend upon 
the perpetual assimilation of various; substan- 
ces to the organs of the plant, in conse- 
quence of the exertion of their living and 
of their chemical affinities." 

The conversion of inorganic bodies into 
gases, and the assimilation of gases by or- 
ganic structures, formed the basis for a new 
starting point, and had never before been an- 
nounced. Carbonic acid had been discov- 
ered by Black in 1752. Dr. Rutherford 
called attention to nitrogen in 1772, and 
Priestley discovered oxygen in 1774, and ob- 
tained it from the leaves of plants ; and 
when Davy appeared with a series of inves- 
tigations more intimately connected with 
agriculture, the properties of air and water 
had not long been known. But little prog- 
ress had been made in vegetable anatomy. 
Most of all that is known with regard to the 
organs of plants — their mode of growth by 
food taken from the air, from water, from 
manure, and from the soil by transmuting 
processes of wonderful delicacy — has been 
discovered within the last fifty years. Since 



AGRICULTURE IN TUB UNITED STATES. 



783 



Davy's time, the processes of chemical anal- 
ysis have been vastly improved, and abstract 
chemistry itself has grown up to a science 
of inestimable importance, which it had not 
in his day. The accumulation of scientific 
facts is the work of time, and it was not till 
1840 that Liebig prepared his report on the 
progress of agriculture for the British Asso- 
ciation for the Advancement of Science, and 
opened a new world of thought and study, 
awakened the attention of practical farmers 
to the importance of applying the results of 
chemical investigations, and, in some re- 
spects, essentially modified the practice of 
all civilized countries. 

Liebig said, in his '"Organic Chemistry," that 
" to manure an acre of land with forty pounds 
of bone dust, is sufficient to supply three 
crops of wheat, clover, potatoes, turnips, etc., 
with phosphates, but the form in which they 
are restored to the soil does not appear to be 
a matter of indifference. For the more finely 
the bones are reduced to powder, and the 
more intimately they are mixed with the soil, 
the more easily they are assimilated. The 
most easy and practical mode of effecting 
their division is to pour over the bones, in 
the state of fine powder, half of their weight 
of sulphuric acid, diluted with three or four 
parts of water." The leading idea in this 
and other propositions of Liebig opened the 
way for the whole system of artificial manur- 
ing, which has extended so far in modern 
times. Previous to that time, the farmer 
had confined himself to the use either of a 
compost of animal and vegetable materials, 
or of other simple substitutes, as ashes, salt, 
soot, or something of the kind ; but not in 
accordance with any fixed principles derived 
from reasoning or the results of observation, 
but simply because experience had shown 
them to be beneficial. Liebig's idea was 
that sulphuric acid, the vitriol of commerce, 
would make the neutral phosphate of lime 
soluble, and give it a powerful action in the 
soil. For the subsequent discovery and use 
of mineral phosphates we are indebted to 
the same source, the development and appli- 
cation of the views first advanced by Liebig. 

Immediately after the announcement of 
his propositions, experiments were instituted 
with such satisfactory results that manufac- 
tories were established in England, and the 
importation of bones from Germany, the 
United States, and South America, became of 
great importance to commerce as well as to 
agriculture ; while the earnest researches of 



scientific men soon discovered the most ap- 
proved formulas for the manufacture of su- 
perphosphate of lime, ami other concentra- 
ted artificial manures. The best methods 
of preparing these substances were thus made 
known both by scientific ami practical men. 

The advantage of these discoveries cannot 
be disputed, for though the farmer mav be 
liable to be deceived in the purchase of a 
particular kind of superphosphate, yet there 
is no longer any doubt of its great value as 
a fertilizer, when properly made ; while its 
introduction rendered substances previously 
of little worth, easily and quickly available 
for the nourishment of plants, and hence 
very valuable. 

It was these investigations that made 
known the value of guano as a fertilizer. 
This substance has come into use since the 
year 1840, when twenty casks were landed 
in England, where it was soon found to be a 
most valuable manure. So great was the 
confidence immediately inspired in its value 
as a means of increasing the products ami 
renovating the soil of the country, that the 
very next year, 1841, seven vessels were em- 
ployed to convey 1,7:33 tons from the Chin- 
cha Islands to England, and the number in- 
creased in 1842 to forty-one British and 
three foreign vessels, and the amount im- 
ported to 13,094 tons. Before the close of 
1844, no less than 29,000 tons were import- 
ed into that country from the coast of Peru, 
to say nothing of the many thousand tons 
which came from the Ichaboe and other 
guano islands at that time discovered. In 
1855, no less than 210,000 tons were sold in 
England, being an increase of twenty per 
cent, on the consumption of 1854, which 
was at least twenty per cent, over that of 
1853. From 1841, the date of the extraction 
of guano, to any extent, from the Chincha 
Islands, to the end of 1856, the quantity 
removed from those islands alone reached 
the enormous figure of two millions of tons, 
and the aggregate amount of sales in that 
time was §100,263,519. From the com- 
mencement of 1851 to June 30, 1880, there 
were imported into the United States for 
use as manures about 1,175,000 tons of Pe- 
ruvian guano. The supply of this article 
is now nearly exhausted. In 1878, the sur 
veying engineers estimated that only about 
2,400,000 tons remained, and that the an- 
nual consumption in all countries was 345,- 
000 tons — less than a seven years' supply. 
The war between Chili and Peru has since 



784 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



interfered with the export of guano. The 
consumption of Peruvian guano has de- 
creased materially since 1872, that from 
the border islands near our own coast, and 
owned by our own people having very 
largely taken its place. Of this guano 
about 42,000 tons were brought into mar- 
ket in the 4 years, 1876-80. Nitrate of 
Soda (Cubic Niter) has been largely im- 
ported from Peru, Bolivia, and Chili, into 
European and American markets since 
1866 — for manures and for the production 
of commercial nitric acid. The entire ex- 
port from these countries has averaged 
about 275,000 tons annually, of which the 
United States have averaged about 27,000 
tons. The supply of this will hereafter be 
controlled by Chili. What proportion is 
used for manures, it is difficult to say. 
"Fish guano," or the residuum or scrap 
left after the expression of oil from the 
menhaden at the oil factories on the coast, 
is also largely used. The manures pro- 
duced from the rendering companies, and 
the night soil companies, the superphos- 
phates, ground and crushed bones, &c.,.&c, 
are also largely used. 

In 1867 immense deposits of coprolites 
(the dung of fossil animals,) as well as fos- 
sil bones were discovered near Charleston, 
S. C, as well as on St. Helena Island, 
somewhat later, and these have now become 
important articles of commerce, under the 
name of rock phosphates. But there is 
gradually returning, a decided preference 
for stable and barnyard manures, if prop- 
erly composted, and this preference will 
be gi-eatly increased by the general intro- 
duction of the system of ensilage, followed 
as it must be by a great increase in the 
amount of live stock, and especially of milch 
cows, oxen, and fat cattle. It seems impos- 
sible to increase the supply of pure milk, 
butter, and cheese as rapidly as the great 
cities demand these articles, either for their 
own consumption or for export. By this 
system, as we have shown elsewhere, an 
acre of land will furnish the support for 8 
months of ten cows — and the production of 
manure, if properly husbanded, will be 
enormous, restoring to our lands more than 
we have taken from them. It would be 
well if the farmers who cultivate the wheat 
and corn lands of the west would adopt 
this plan and give back to the soil what 
they take from it, but for the most part in 
the newer states and territories, they use 



no manures and rotation of crops is almost 
unknown. 

THE PROSPECTS OF AGRICULTURE IN THIS 
COUNTRY. 

Having given some of the features of 
agricultural progress in the preceding 
pages, it is proper to say, in conclusion, 
that the present is but the dawn of a new 
era — an era of improvements of which we 
cannot yet form an adequate conception. 
The scientific discoveries, the mechanical 
inventions, the general spirit of inquiry, 
and the wide-spread intelligence which 
have been alluded to, indicate that a greater 
application of the mind to the labors of the 
hand distinguishes the present generation 
over all preceding times i:i a manner which 
those only can appreciate who will look 
back and consider the past — the slow 
growth of new ideas and new practices, 
the struggles with prejudice, ignorance, the 
want of markets, and the want of means, 
all of which contributed to depress Ameri- 
can agriculture fifty years ago, and to keep 
it at a point wretchedly low, compared 
even with what it is at the present time. 
We have seen not only the calling, but the 
men who live by it gradually rising in dig- 
nity, in self-respect, and the respect of 
mankind. It is an imperative law of so- 
ciety that educated mind and educated la- 
bor will take its position above uneducated ; 
in proportion as the farmer of to-day is 
better educated and more intelligent than 
the farmer of half a century ago, the for- 
mer would naturally stand above the latter 
in the general estimation of the community. 
But in many other respects the farmer of 
the present day is far in advance of his 
forefathers. His labor is easier, and his 
mental activity is consequently greater. 
The same amount of manual labor produces 
more, and the farmer has time for the cul- 
ture of the mind and the social virtues, as 
well as the farm, and agriculture holds a 
position of pre-eminence unknown at any 
former period. 

These changes we have seen in our own 
day, and we know that a higher develop- 
ment of our agricultural wealth must go 
hand in hand with an increase of popula- 
tion, if there were no other stimulus to its 
growth. Now, if we consider the immense 
area of the United States, and the facilities 
for the expansion of our population, the 
mind itself is incapable of fixing limits to 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



785 



the increase of this grand interest, already- 
involving a greater amount of the wealth 
of the country than any other, producing 
annually to the value of more than twenty- 
five hundred millions of dollars, and capa- 
ble of a hundred fold greater development 
tlian that which it has already attained. 

The original area of the country was only 
815,615 square miles, but by successive 
purchases, treaties and conquests it has been 
more than quadrupled. The additions thus 
made were: the purchase of Louisiana in 
1803, comprising, with the subsequent 
treaties with Spain, and our discoveries and 
explorations, the region west of the Missis- 
sippi extending to the mouth of the Sabine 
on the Gulf, and taking in the sources of 
all the affluents of the Mississippi on the 
west, to the highest crest or great divide of 
the Rocky Mountains, and north of the 
42d parallel, extending to the Pacific on the 
west, and the line of British America on 
the north ; the final settlement of title to the 
Mississippi territory east of that river, from 
1804 to 1812; the purchase of Florida and 
the Gulf coast to the Mississippi from Spain 
in 1819; the annexation of Texas in 1845; 
the Mexican session of the treaty of Guada- 
loupe Hidalgo, in Feb. 1848, and the Gads- 
den purchase in 1853 ; the settlement of the 
N. E. and N. "W. boundary by treaties and 
arbitrations with Great Britain, from 1846 
to 1880; and the purchase of Alaska from 
Russia in 1807. By these cessions, annex- 
ations, purchases and treaties, our area has 
been enlarged to its present dimensions, 
3,580,242 square miles. The growth of 
population over this area since 1790 has 
been as follows, the population of cities and 
its ratio to the entire population, together 
with the number of persons to the square 
mile of the area of settlement: 





ml 




r ■« 


"0 


•,? 


Kic'lof oioin'hSeltlni' . 


►< 


|g 




JO 3 


0°. 


•3 £* 


a! 


3 


to 


1 •* 


©' 


[ O 

— c 




3- * 


m 






















~*mw 




IK 4 










1790 


8,929,214 


131,472 


3.4 


31.-45" 


t>7°-«3° 


1810 


407.94S 


7,239,881 


17.7 


350.92(1 


4.9 


9"3U/-45°1.V 


l>7°-8>-"30' 


18.10 


6S2.717 


l'2.8ti«,0^U 


20.X 


804.50 


6.7 


29°l;7-4ti°15' 


o;°-95 


Ifv.ll 


979 24!l 


23,891,876 


'.'3.7 


2.897.580 


12.5 


•.'8°..l>/-40>30' 


67°-99* 


1ST, 


1,272,231 


38,558.371 


30 a 


8.071,875 


20.9 


27"li'-47«30/ 


67°-99 45' 


1880 


2,5«4.37l 


50,162,886 


19.4 


12.408,188 


V-l 93 


J'.l -47 '30/ 


67°-l23- 



•The area of lettlement Inrlndeannly thn»e recion» whore the population 
•yxreadi two to the iijuare mile. Tlioae reiri.m below thin dennlty contain 
in nil lam than one-hull of wis per rent, of the papulation. At the rural 
population, i. e., ihotu not Inhabiting cltien— ii etill a little more than 75 
per i.-'itc.f Ihll whole, ii f.ll. .ivi that »nrri -u Iture liyet the pru.lominant 
pursuit In the n.i i' n— nnd tile annual production* of the Bald, the forett 
and tie herdi and florin »how that our uaiioual wealth it very largely 
derived fr. in the** goiiree*. 

The product! of 11 of the principal crop« In IRROwai . . $2,184,412,232 
The value of the I've f to< k that year was e-tl nnled at . 1,594,407.556 
The orchnrd an I vineyard prouueti were about .... 450.000,000 

The ilniiv product* 676.700,000 

The Ion-it products 478 000.000 



HaUng a grand total of, (5,289,519,; 



This is exclusive of the value of farms, 
farm improvements and machinery, and 
slaughtered animals, as well as of all minor 
crops. We are yet only on the threshold 
of our agricultural advancement. "With 
scores of millions of rich and fertile lands 
awaiting the plough; with agricultural ma- 
chinery which reduces farm labor to a min- 
imum, and enables the farmer to cultivate 
a thousand acres with greater ease than he 
could have cultivated fifty thirty years ago; 
with a variety of climate which permits the 
cultivation of every kind of crop, whether 
of grains or fruits; and sufficient rainfall 
or opportunity of irrigation to insure a 
certainty of perfecting the crops; with rail- 
ways traversing nearly every county in 
most of the states, and the best agricultural 
sections, even in the territories, and bring- 
ing all that they can raise to good markets 
at prices which are not extravagant; with 
an enterprise and competition which awakes 
the ambition of even the most sluggish, and 
a demand for all that they can produce, the 
farmers of the United States have a mag- 
nificent future before them. Monopoly, 
and the concentration of a vast capital upon 
any pursuit, so as to command the market 
and crush out the small manufacturer or 
dealer, is the rule now in almost every kind 
of business, but the small farmer who is 
out of debt and willing to work can be in- 
dependent of the monopolists, can sell his 
crops for cash, and make his profits, with- 
out asking the leave of the Dalrymples or 
Grandins, and indeed may be benefited 
rather than injured by their vast expendi- 
ture. 

There is no unalloyed prosperity in this 
world, and he may find that in some years 
floods, or extraordinary falls of snow, Rocky 
Mountain locusts or Colorado beetles, in- 
tense drought or constant and drenching 
rains may cut short his crops, or that over- 
production may glut for a while the Euro- 
pean markets; but if he understands his 
business and attends to it industriously, 
not putting all his land into one crop and 
contending manfully against misfortunes, 
he will find that taking the years together, 
he is amassing a competency more surely 
than he can do in almost any other avoca- 
tion. 

Three things have contributed greatly to 
this rapid progress in agriculture during 
the past tenor fifteen years: 1. Associated 
action on the part of the farmers. The 



'86 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



Grange movement has very possibly been 
perverted in some cases into a political 
engine, but its effect in many of the west- 
ern and central states, in producing united 
action among the farmers and lifting them 
out of the slough of debt, was good. They 
are using much more and better agricul- 
tural machinery also, than they would have 
done had not the Grangers given their in- 
fluence in favor of them. The organiza- 
tion of Farmers' Clubs, Agricultural socie- 
ties, &c, has also been beneficial. 

2. The greatly increased diffusion of ag- 
ricultural knowledge by books, periodicals 
and the reports of the Agricultural De- 
partment. The development of the sor- 
ghum as a sugar-producing plant, is very 
largely due to the energetic efforts of the 
head of that department. 

3. The immigration of great numbers of 
the most intelligent European farmers into 
our western states has given a wonderful 
impulse to farming. The Mennonites, and 
large bodies of German and Scandinavian 
agriculturists have been of great advan- 
tage to the West, and, indeed, to the whole 
country. 

There are several measures of great im- 
portance yet to be adopted for the advance 
of agriculture in the near future. One of 
these is the general adoption of the ensil- 
age system, and the rearing of a greater 
number of cows, stock cattle, and sheep. 
Another is deeper ploughing, more thorough 
cultivation, and a great increase in the use 
of manures, which ensilage will render pos- 
sible. The elements taken from the soil 
must be returned to it; and while guano, 



the superphosphates and nitrates are very 
good in their way, there is nothing better 
than properly composted stable manure. 
In the rearing of cattle, sheep, and swine, 
and in all the dairy processes there should 
be greater attention paid to perfect cleanli- 
ness and the avoidance of all food which 
will impair the health of the animals. Pleu- 
ro-pneumonia, hog cholera, sheep rot, and 
chicken cholera, destroy annually domestic 
animals enough to feed almost our entire 
population — and they can be prevented by 
proper care and watchfulness. 

What is sent to market, should be the 
very best the farmer can raise or produce-, 
and he should try to make his products 
better and better ever year. This is the 
only way to make farming pay. 

There should be more effort to diversify 
crops. Where the cereals have been cul- 
tivated exclusively, change to root crops, 
sorghum, flax, hemp, or ramie. Let him 
devote a few acres to peanuts, castor beans, 
strawberries, raspberries, or blackberries. 
He will do well to start an orchard and 
take good care of it. If the situation is 
favorable let him commence a vineyard, 
planting the best grapes, and when they 
are in bearing, market his surplus; it will 
pay better than wine-making. Let him 
keep bees; they are profitable; or rear silk- 
worms if the climate is right. The women 
and children can feed and care for them, 
and ere long there will be a demand for 
American reeled silk. By thus diversify- 
ing his industry the farmer runs less risk 
and can make his farm very profitable. 



DATE OF ADMISSION OF STATES POPULATION AND VALUATION. 



787 



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788 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



CENSUS OF 1660, 1870, AND 1880. 

Population op tub United States.— General Nativity and Foreign Parentage. 

[From the Reports of the Superintendent of the Census.] 



States and 
Territories. 



18(50. 



Total pop- Native l Foreign 
illation. born. born. 



1870. 



1880. 



Total pop- Native 
ulation. born. 



Foreign Total pop-! Native 
boru ulation. ! born. 



Foreign 
born. 



Total United States, 



31,443,321 ' 27,304,624 4,138,(5!)' 



38,558,371 



32,991,142 5,567,229 50,152,866 43,475,506 



Total States,.. 



Alabama 

Arkansas, 

California, 

Colorad< 

Connecticut 

Delaware, 

Florida 

Georgia, 

Illinois, 

Indiana, 

Iowa, 

Kansas. 

Kentucky, 

Louisiana, 

Maine 

Maryland 

Massachusetts, .. 

Michigan, 

Minnesota, 

Mississippi, 

Missouri, 

Nebraska, 

Nevada, 

New Hampshire, 
New Jersey, . ... 

New i'ork, 

North Carolina,. 

Ohio, 

Oregon 

Pennsylvania,. .. 
Rhode Island,. .. 
South Carolina, . 

Tennessee, 

Texas, 

Vermont, 

Virginia 

West Virginia,.. 
Wisconsin, 



Total Territories 



31,183,744 27,084,692 4,099,152 



38,115,641 



32,642,612 5,473,029 49,368.595 42,874,232 



6,677,360 
6.495,3(53 



964,201 
435,450 
379,994! 



951,849 
431,850 
233,466 



12,352 

3,600 
146,528 



460,147 
112,216 
140,424 

1,057,286 

1,711,951 

1,350,428 
674,913 
107,206 

1.155,684 
708.002 
628,279, 
687,019 

1,231,066 
749,113; 
172,023 
791,305, 

1,182,012 

28,841 

6,857 

326,073 

672,0:35 

3,880,735 
992,622 

2,339,511 
52,465 

2,906,215 
174,620 
703,708 

1,109,801 
604,215 
315,098 

1,219,630 
376,688 
775.881 



259,757 



379,451 
103,051 
137,115 

1,045,615 

1,387,308 

1,232,144 

568,836' 

94,515 

1,095,885 
627,027, 
590,826 
609,52i)l 
970,960 
600,020 
113,295' 
782,747 

1,021,471 

22.490 

4,793 

305,135 

549,215 

2,879,455 
988.324 

2,011,262 
47.342 

2,475,710 
137.226 
693,722 

1,088,575 
560,743 
282,355 

1,201.117 
360.143 
498,954 



220,032 



Arizona, 

Dakota, 

District of Columbia, 

Idaho, 

Montana 

New Mexico, , 

Utah, 

Washington, 

Wvoming 



4.837 
75,080 



93,516 
40,273 
11,594 



3,063 
62,596 



86,793 
27,519 
8,450 



80,696 

9,165 

3,309 

11,671 

324,643 

118,284 

106,077 

12,691 

59,799 

80,975 

37,453 

77,529 

260,106 

149,093 

58,728 

8,558 

160.541 

(5,351 

2,061 

20,938 

122,790 

1,001.28 

3,298 

328,249 

5.123 

430,505 

37,391 

9,980 

21,22(5 

43,422 

32,743 

18.513 

16545 

276,92' 



99(5,992 

484,471 
660,24' 

39,864 

537,454 

125,015 

187,748 

1,184,109 

2,539 891 

1,680,637 

1,194,020 

364,399 

1,321.011 

726.915 

626,915 

780,894 

1,457,351 

1,181,059 

439,706 

827,922 

1,721,29 

122,993 

42.491 

318,300 

906,096 

4,3»2,759 

1.071,361 

2,665,260 

90,923 

3,521,951 

217,353 

705,606 

1,258,520 

818,579 

330,551 

1,225,163 

442,014 

1,054,670 



987,030 

479,445 

350,416 

33,265 

423,315 

115,879 

182,781 

1,172,982 

2,024,693 

1,539,163 

989,328 

316,007 

1,257,613 

655,088 

578,0:34 

697,482 

1.104,032 

916,049 

279,009 

816,731 

1,499,028 

92,245 

23,690 

288,689 

717,153 

3,244,406 

1,068,332 

2,392, r ~ 

79.323 

2,976,642 

161,957 

697,532 

1,239,204 

756,168 

283,396 

1,211,409 

424,92=3 

690,171 



39,545 



442,730 



348,530 



1,774 
12,481 



6,723 
12,754 
3,144 



9,658 
14,181 
131,700 
14,999 
20,595 
91.874 
86,786 
23,955 

9,118 



3,849 

9,366 
115,446 

7,114 
12,616 
86,254 
56,084 
18,931 

5,(505 



9,992 

5,026 

209,831 

6,599 

113,6:39 

9,136 

4,967 

11,127 

515,198 

141.474 

204,692 

48,392 

63,398 

61,827 

48,881 

83,412 

353.319 

268,010 

160,697 

11,191 

222,267 

30 748 

18.801 

29,611 

188.943 

1,138,353 

3,029 

375,493 

11,600 

545,309 

55,396 

8,074 

19,316 

62,411 

47,155 

13,754 

17,091 

364,499 



1,262,794 

802,564; 

864.686 

194,649 

622,683 

146,(554 

267,351 ! 

1,539,048 

3,078,769 

1,978,362 

1,624,620 

995,966 

1,648,708 

940,103 

648,945 

934,632 

1,783,012 

1,636,331 

780,80(5 

1,131.592 

2,168.804 

452.4:33 

62,265 

346.984 

1,130,983 

6,083,810 

1.400,047 

3,198,239 

174,767 

4,282,786 

276,528 

995,622 

1,542.463, 

1,592.5741 

332,286 

1,512,806; 

618,443 

1,315,480 



1,253,121 

792,269 

572,006 

154,869 

492,879 

137,182 

257,631 

1,528,7:35 

2,495,177 

1,834,597 

3,363,132 

886,361 

1,589,237 

885,964 

590,076 

851,984 

1,339,916 

1,247.985 

513,107 

1,122,424 

1,657,564 

355.043 

36,623 

300,961 

909,398 

3.872,372 

1 ,399,368 

2,803,496 

144,327 

3,695.253 

202,598 

987,981 

1,525,881 

1,498,139 

291.340 

1.448,139 

600,214 

910,063 



9,t,73 

10,295 

292,680 

39,780 

129,804 

9,472 

9,720 

10,315 

583,592 

143,765 

261.488 

109,705 

59,471 

54,139 

58,869 

82,648 

443,093 

383,346 

267.699 

9,168 

211.240 

97,390 

25,642 

46,023 

221,585 

1,211,438 

3,679 

394,743 

30,440 

587.333 

73.930 

7,641 

16.582 

114.516 

40,946 

14.667 

18,229 

405,417 



94,200 



783,271 601,284 



181.997 



6,809 
4,815 

16254; 
7,885| 
7,979 
5.620 

30.702 
5,024 
3.513 



40,441! 

1*5,180; 

177,638 

32.611 
39,157 
118,430 
143,906 
75,120 
20,7&8 



24.419 
83.387 

160.523 
22, 629 
27.642 

108,498 
99.974 
59.259 
14,943 



16.022 

51,793 
17.115 

9 982 
11.515 

9,932 
43.932 
15,861 

5,845 



CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES HAVING MORE THAN 10,000 INHABITANTS IN 1880. 



Cities. 



New York 

Philadelphia.. 

Brooklyn 

Chicago 

Boston 

Saint Louis. . . 
Baltimore 

Cincinnati 

San Francisco 
New Orleans. 

Cleveland 

Pittsburgh.... 

Buffalo 

Washington .. 

Newark 

Louisville 

Jersey City. . 

Detroit 

Milwaukee 

Providence 

Albany 

Rochester 

Allegheny 



County. 



New York . . . 
Philadelphia. 

Kings 

Cook 

Suffolk 



Hamilton 

S. Francisco 

Orleans 

Cuyahoga 

Allegheny .. , 
Erie 



Essex 

Jefferson. . . 
Hudson 

Wayne 

Milwaukee.. 
Providence . 

Albany 

Monroe 

Allegheny. . 



State. 



N.Y.. 
Pa. . . . 
N. Y. 
111.... 
Mass . 
Mo. . . 
Md. . . 
Ohio.. 
Cal ... 
La. .. 
Ohio.. 
Pa.... 
N.Y.. 
D. C. 
X. J.. 
Ky... 
N. J.. 
Mich. 
Wis. . 
R. I.. 
NY.. 
N.Y.. 
Pa.... 



Total Population. 


Cities. 


County. 


State. 


Total Populat'n. 








. 


1880. 


1870. 








1880. 


1870. 


1,266,299 


912,2.12 


Indianapolis.. 


Marlon 


Ind.... 


75.056 


48,244 


847,170 


674,022 


Richmond. . .. 






63,600 


51,038 


666,663 


396,0.(9 


.Sew Haven.. . 


New Haven.. 


Conn. . 


62,882 


50.840 


503,185 


293,977 


Lowell 


.Middlesex . .. 


Mass.. 


59,475 


40,928 


862,839 


250.5.6 


Worcester.. .. 


Worcester.. . 


Mass . . 


58,291 


41.105 


350.518 
332.313 


310,811 

267.3.1 




Rensselaer*. 

.Jackson 


N. Y... 
Mo.. .. 


66,747 

55,785 


46 ,65 


Kansas City.. 


Si -.(.ii 


265,139 


216.219 


Cambridge 


Middlesex. .. 


Mass .. 


52,669 


.7.1,6:34 


233.959 


119.4 73 


Syracuse 


Onondaga . . 


N. Y... 


51.792 


43.051 


216,090 


191.418 


Oolumbus ... 


Franklin 


Ohio... 


51.647 


31,274 


160.146 


92.829 


Paterson 


Passaic 


N.J... 


51.031 


33.579 


15(5.389 


86 076 


Toledo 


Lucas 


Ohio... 


50.137 


31.584 


155,134 


117.714 


Charleston .... 


Charleston . . 


S. C... 


49,984 


48.956 


147.293 


109.199 


Fall River..,, 


Bristol 


Mass . . 


48.0111 


26.766 


136.508 


105,0 ,9 


Minneapolis .. 


Hennepin, . . 


Minn. . 


46,887 


18,(416 


123.758 


100,7 ">3 


Scran ton 


Lackawanna. 


Pa 


45.859 


86.( 92 


120.722 


82.54(5 


Nashville 


Davidson 


Tenn . . 


48,850 


2.V65 


116,340 


79,577 




Berks 


Pa 


43.278 


33.9:30 


116,587 


71.440 


Wilmington .. 


New Castle.. 


Del.... 


42,478 


30,841 


104.a57 


68,904 


Hartford 


Conn.. 


42,015 


37,180 


90,758 


69.122 






N. J... 


41,659 


20,045 


89,866 


62.&X6 


Saint Paul. ... 




Minn.. 


41,473 


20,030 


78.682 


53,180 


Lawrence. ... 




Mass. . 


39,151 


28,921 



7 9 



CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES-Continued. 



Cities. 



Dayton 

Lynn 

Atlanta 

Denver 

Oakland 

Utica 

Portlim.1 

Memphis 

Springfield 

Manchester . . 
Saint Joseph.. 
Grand Rapids. 

Hoboken 

Barrisburg ... 
Wheeling. .... 

Savannah 

Omaha 

Trenton 

Covington ... 

Evans ville 

Peoria 

Mobile 

Elizabeth. ... 

Erie 

Bridgeport 

Salem 

Quincy 

Fort Way ne.. 
New Bedford. 
Terre Haute.. 
Lancaster. ... 
Somerville . . . 
Wilkes barre . . 
Des Moines.. . 

Dubuque 

Galveston . . . 

Norfolk. 

Auburn 

Holyoke 

Augusta 

Davenport 

Chelsea 

Petersburg. .. 
Sacramento .. 

Taunton 

Oswego 

Salt Lake City 
Springfield . . . 

Bay City 

San Antonio . 

Elmira 

Newport. . . 
Poughkeepsie 
Springfield .. . 

Watervliet 

Norwich 

Waterbury... . 

Portland 

Cohoes 

Lcwiston 

Pawtucket 

Gloucester.. . . 
East Saginaw. 

Burlington 

Williamsport.. 

Yonkers 

Houston 

Haverhill 

Lake Towns'p 
Kingston. . 
Meriden.. . . 
Zanesville . 
Newburir. . 
AUentown 

Council Bluffs 
Wilmington . . 
Bingham ton... 
Blooniington. 
L'ng Isl'dcitv 
N. Brunswick. 
Newton 



County. 



Montgomery 

Essex 

Fulton 

Arapahoe. ... 
Aiameda .... 

Oneida 

Cumberland . 

Shelby 

Hampden. .. . 
Hillsborough 

Buchanan 

Kent 

Hudson 

Dauphin 

Ohio 

Chatham 

Douglas. . . . 

Mercer 

Kenton 

Vanderburgh 

Peoria 

Mobile 

Union 

Eiie 

Fairlleld 

Essex 

Adams 

Allen 

Bristol 

Vigo 

Lancaster . . 
Middlesex. . 

Luzerne 

Polk 

Dubuque . . 
Galveston . 
Norlolk. ... 

Cayuga 

Hampden. . 
Richmond. . . 

Scoit 

Suffolk 

Dinwiddle 
Sacramento. . 

Bristol 

Oswego 

Salt Lake.... 

Clarke 

Bay 

Bexar 

Chemung 

Campbell. . . 
Dutchess. . . 
Sangamon . . 

Albany 

New Londo 
New Haven 
Multnomah. 
Albany. . . . 
Andi'oscog'n 
Providence. 

Essex 

Saginaw. . . 
Des Moines. 
Lycomiug. . . 
Westchester 

Harris 

Essex 

Lake 

Ulster 

New Haven. . 
Mu-kingum.. 

Orange 

Lehigh 

Pot'wa'omie 
New Hanover 

Broome. 

McLean .... 

Queens 

Middlesex. . 
Middlesex. . 



State. 



Ohio.. 
.Mass. . 

Ga 

Colo.. . 
Cal ... 
N. Y... 
Me.... 
Tenu . . 
Mass.. 
N. 11.. . 
Mo .... 
Mich . . 
N.J... 

Fa 

W. Va. 
Ga.... 
.\ebr . . 
N. J... 
Ky. ... 
hid.... 

Ill 

Ala 

N. J... 
.'a 

onn.. 

.ass . 



Total Population 



1880. 



e..a.i. 
. a. . . . 
. Y.. 
■ lass . 
(ii.... 
Iowa . 
Mass . 
Va.... 
Cal . . . 
Mass. 
N. Y.. 
Utah. 
Ohio . 
Mich. 
Texas 
N. Y . 
Ky.... 
N Y.. 
111... . 
N. Y.. 

'onn. 

onn. 
Ore... 
N. Y.. 
Me.... 
Mass. 
Mich. 
K I. . . 
Iowa. 
Fen n. 
N.Y.. 
Texas 
Mass. 
111. ... 
N. Y.. 
( 'onn . 
Ohio. 
NY.. 
Pa... 
Iowa. 
N. C. 
N. Y.. 
III.... 
N. Y. 
N J... 
Mass. 



38.078 
3y,y74 
87,409 
35,629 
84,555 
33,914 
83,810 
83,592 
38,340 
32.030 
Si. 431 
33,016 
30,91)9 
30,762 
80.737 
30.709 
80,518 
29.910 
29,7:20 
29,280 
29,259 
29.1:. 2 
2S229 
27,737 
27.648 
27,563 
27,268 
26,880 
20,845 
26,042 
25,769 
24,933 
23,339 
22,408 
22,254 
22,248 
21,906 
21,924 
21,915 
21,891 
21.831 
21,782 
21,656 
21,420 
21.213 
21,116 
20,768 
20.730 
20,693 
20,550 
20,541 
211.433 
20,207 
19,743 
22.220 
21.141 
20.269 
20,149 
19.417 
19,983 
19,030 
19.329 
19,016 
19,450 
18.934 
18,892 
18.646 
18.475 
18,396 
18,842 
18.340 
18,120 
18,050 
18,068 

1S.II59 
17.361 
17.315 
17.184 
17,117 
17.167 
16,996 



1870. 



30,473 
88,238 
81,789 
4 759 
10.50J 
28,804 
31,413 
40.226 
26,703 
23,586 

10.565 
16,607 
20.297 
23.101 
19,2M) 
28,235 
16,088 
22,874 
24,5 5 
21,830 
22,849 
32.034 
20,832 
19.646 
18,9611 
24,117 
24.052 
17,718 
21,320 
16,103 
20,233 
14.685 
10,174 
12,035 
18,434 
13.813 
19,229 
17,225 
10,733 
15,389 
20,1 '38 
18.547 
18,950 
16.253 
18629 
20.910 
12.854 
12,652 
7,004 
12.256 
15,863 
15.087 
20.080 
17,364 

16,653 

10,826 
8.293 
15,457 
13.600 
6,600 
15.387 
11.350 
14,930 
16,030 

' 9,382 



Cities. 



10.495 
10.011 
17 014 
18,884 

10.020 
13.446 
12.692 
14,690 

i5,05S 



Bangor 

{Montgomery.. 

Lexington 

Johnstown . .. 
Leavenworth . 

Akien 

New Albany, . 

Jackson 

Woonsoeket. . 

Racine 

Lynchburg. .. 

Sandusky 

Newport 

Hyde I'ark... 

Topeka 

Or-hkosh.. . 
j Atchison 

Chester 

[Lafayette 

Leadville 

iLa Crosse 

I Nor walk 

Knoxville .... 

Concord 

Virginia City. 

New Lots 

iSchenectady. . 
Alexandria .. 

Lockport 

INcwburyport. 

Nashua 

lOrange 

Little Rock . 

Rockford 

Fond duLac. 

Lincoln 

Chattanooga. . 

I Macon 

Richmond 

Btddefbrd 

{Georgetown .. 

Isau Jose 

Fitchburg 

Canton 

Ruth nd 

Hamilton 

Keokuk 

Koine 

Maiden 

Easton 

Aurora 

Yicksburg. . . . 
[Mlddletown . . 

VV all ham 

Dover 

Galesburg 

Burlington. . . 
Portsmouth. . 

idiicopi e 

Portsmouth... 
Los Angeles. . 
{Attleboro. . . . 

Hannibal 

Shreveport... . 

Austin 

Chillicoth".. . 
Jacksonville . 
Saratoga Sp'gs 
Watntown. . 
Weymouth . 
New London. 

Dallas 

Ogdensborg.. 
Madison .... 

Stockton 

Winona 

North Adams 
Ean Claire. . . 
Cedar Rapid* 

Columhia 

Columbus. . . 



County. 



State. 



Penobscot. . . 
Montgonn ry. 

Fayette 

Fulton 

Leavenworth 

Summit 

Floyd 

Jackson 

Providence. . 

Kacine 

Campbell 

Erie 

Newport 

Cook 

Shawnee 

Winnebago. . 
Atchison .... 

Delaware 

Tippecanoe. . 

Lake 

La Crosse. . . 

Fairfield 

Knox 

Merrimac 

Storey 

Kings 

Schenectady. 
Alexandria .. 

Niagara 

Essex 

Hillsborough 

Essex 

Pulaski 

Winnebago. . 
Fond du Lac. 
Lancaster... . 

Hamilton 

Bibb 

Wayne 

York 

Washington . 
Santa Clara.. 
Worcester. . . 

Stark 

Rutland 

Butler 

Lee 

Oneida 

Middlesex. . . 
Northern 1 ton 

Kane 

Warren 

Middlesex. . . 
Middlesex.. . 

Strafford 

Knox 

Chittenden .. 

Norfolk 

Hampden 

Scioto 

Los Angeles. 

Bristol 

Marion 

Cnddo 

Travis 

Ross 

Morgan 

Saratoga. . .. 

Jefferson 

Norfolk 

New London. 

Dallas 

St Law rem e. 

Dane 

San Joaquin 

Winona 

Rerkshire. . 
Fan Claire... 

Linn 

Richland ... 
Muscogee 



Me... 
Ala... 

Ky... 

N. Y. 

Kan . 

Ohio. 

lnd .. 

Mich. 

R. I.. 

Wis. . 

Ya. . . 

Ohio. 

R. I.. 

III.... 

Kan.. 

Wis.. 

Kan.. 

Penn. 

Ind .. 

Col.. 

Wis.. 

Conn. 

Tc mi 

N. II. 

New. 

N. Y. 

N. Y. 

Ya. . . 

N. Y. 

Mass. 

N. II. 

N.J.. 

Ark.. 

111.... 

Wis.. 

Neb . . 

Tenn. 

Oa... 

Ind . . 

Me... 

D.C.. 

Cal .. 

Mass. 

Ohio. 

VI. .. 

Ol.lo. 

Iowa. 

N Y. 

Masr. 

Pa. . . 

111.... 

Miss. 

( 'onn 

Mass. 

N. H. 

III.... 

\'t. .. 

Ya. .. 

Mass. 

Ohio. 

Cal... 

Mass. 

Mo... 

la. 

Texas 

Ohio. 

III.... 

N. Y. 

N. Y 

Mass. 

Conn. 

T. x. 

N. Y. 

Wis.. 

Cal. . 

Minn. 
vt aPe 

Wis.. 

Iowa. 
S. C. . 
Oa. .. 



Total Poiti.at'n. 



1870. 



16,857 

16,71 1 
16,656 
16,626 
16,550 
16,512 
16,422 
16,105 
16,058 
16.031 
15 9.7.) 
15,838 
15 693 
15,716 
15.451 
15,249 
15.H6 
14,996 
1 1,860 
14,820 
14.605 
13,960 
1 3.92S 
13,888 
13.705 
13 681 
13 675 
13.0SN 
13.522 
13.537 
13.397 
13.206 
13,185 
13,135 
13.(91 
13.004 
12,892 
12.718 
12.743 
12,«62 
12.57S 
12,567 
12.105 

12.149 

12.122 
12,117 
12.0 15 
12.017 
11.924 
1 1 ,825 
11,814 
11.781 
11,711 
11,687 

11.146 

11,864 
11,890 
1 1 .: 26 
11 314 
11.811 
11.111 
11,074 
11,017 
10 960 
10,938 
10,927 
10,tfi2 
10,ti97 
10.671 
10,629 
10,868 
10,840 
10.326 
10,281 
10,208 
10,192 
10,118 
10,104 
10.010 
10,123 



10,6*8 
14,801 

17.873 
10,008 
16,806 

11.117 
11,527 
10.000 
6.828 
13.0(10 
12,621 

' 5, 790 

12,663 
7,054 
9.485 

13,506 

7,785 

12.119 
8,682 

12.241 
7.000 

11.026 
13.570 

21 '.595 
10.543 

9.848 
12.3fc0 
11.049 
12.764 

2.4 11 

6.093 
10 810 

9.145 
10.289 
11.384 

9,000 

s.060 
9,884 
11.081 
12,766 
11,000 



11,162 
12,448 

6.923 
9,294 

10,168 
14,887 

10,492 

10,592 
5,7 27 

10,126 
1.600 

4,428 
s 920 
9,203 

6,000 
10.076 

9.176 
10.966 
7.192 



5.940 
9,298 

7,401 



COTTON CULTURE. 



Cotton has been for many years one of 
our great staples of production and export. 
Before the civil war it was often declared 
to be the crop of greatest money value in 
the country. This declaration was disput- 
ed, and probably correctly, on behalf of the 
Indian corn and the hay crops. Since the 
war, the wheat crop has also exceeded it in 
value, although the cotton crops of the last 
four years have exceeded in quantity the 
largest ever produced in our previous his- 
tory. 

There is no question, however, that its 
exports reached a greater value, before the 
war, than those of any other crop, or class 
of crops raised in this country. They did 
not retain this superiority during the war, 
but regained it soon after, and continued 
to hold it until the fiscal year 1877-78, 
when breadstuffs took the lead, which they 
have since continued to hold. In 1879, 
1880, and 1881 the export of wheat and 
wheat flour alone exceeded that of cotton. 
While this is true, it is also true that the 
actual production of cotton has been greater 
during the past four years than at any pe- 
riod in our national history, and though 
prices have ruled low, there is a fair pros- 
pect of an increasing demand both at home 
and abroad, which will absorb, at remuner- 
ative prices, a still larger production. For 
the present, however, the object to be de- 
sired is not so much an increase in the ag- 
gregate production of cotton, as the pro- 
duction of a crop of, say, 6,500,000 bales 
from one-half the land which is now plant- 
ed in cotton. In 1879, a year of more than 
average production, the average yield per 
acre of all the cotton states was but 174 
pounds, a little more than a third of a bale 
to the acre. Now there is no land planted 
in cotton, which ought not, with reasonably 
fair manuring and cultivation, to produce, 
in an average year, at least one bale — 480 
pounds — of good cotton to the acre and 
there are many scores of thousands of acres 
which can easily yield two bales to the 



acre. The crop of 1879 was gathered from 
12,595,500 acres. It ought to have been 
grown on five million acres at the utmost, 
and would then have left 7,595,500 acres 
for other profitable crops, and thus have 
added more than a hundred million dollars 
to the productive wealth of those states for 
that year, without tilling a single acre more 
than was tilled for cotton. 

But that we may fully understand what 
is comprehended in the successful cultiva- 
tion of cotton, let us sketch briefly its his- 
tory and the processes of its production. 

The first mention of cotton is made by 
Hei'odotus about 450 B. C. He refers to 
its cultivation in the east, but seems to have 
had no very definite knowledge of it. Four 
hundred years later Strabo, writing of 
India and its productions, said: "There 
grows in that land a tree, called the cotton 
tree, which bears a kind of wool, from 
which fine linen is made." His ideas were 
a little mixed, but there could be no possi- 
bility of mistaking that the "tree cotton,'' 
which still grows in some parts of the east 
as well as in South America, is the tree or 
shrub to which he referred. It is a native 
of the East Indies, and possibly also of 
Af rica, and of America ; it has been grown 
in Africa from time immemorial, and was 
found, growing and utilized by the natives 
of Hispaniola, by Columbus in 1492. Man- 
ufactures of cotton were not probably at- 
tempted in Europe earlier than the tenth 
century, but in India and China cotton 
goods were undoubtedly made before the 
Christian Era and perhaps in Africa also. 

Cotton was found growing in the lower 
Mississippi Valley, in California, arid in 
what is now Texas, in 1536, but its culti 
vation by white people is said not to have 
been attempted before 1621. Three species 
of the plant were noted at this time, the 
tree cotton, which lasts 20 years or more, 
the shrub, which has a life of three or four 
years, and the annual gossypium album and 
nigrum, now cultivated in the U. S. In 




chapman's cotton press. 

Cotton, after reach,,,* the sh.ppin B port, is re-bailed, being compressed into wamaU. com 

the best advantage in the hold ol the ship. 



pass as possible, in order to stow away to 









COTTON CULTURE. 



793 



1736 the cotton plant was known on the 
eastern shore of Maryland, in Delaware and 
elsewhere in the Middle States, but it was 
grown mainly as an ornamental plant, and 
its culture was confined to gardens. In 
1739 a bale of cotton was exported from 
Savannah, Georgia, to England, and it was 
cultivated with a view to its utilization in 
South Carolina about the same time. There 
was, however, but little grown, and cer- 
tainly very little exported, until after the 
Revolution. In 1784 an American ship 
from Charleston landed eight bales of cot- 
ton from that port at Liverpool, and was 
immediately seized charged with having 
false bills of lading, on the ground that so 
much cotton could not have been produced 
in the United States. In 1785, the culti- 
vation of the green seed or short staple 
cotton (yossypium album) was commenced 
in the United States on a considerable 
scale, having been introduced into Georgia, 
it is said, from the West Indies; ten years 
later, a million pounds were exported from 
Charleston to England. Previous to 1785, 
most of the cotton raised in what was then 
the extreme south, was the black seed, long- 
staple, or sea-island cotton, which could 
only be grown in low and moist lands, with 
a very equable climate. This kind of cot- 
ton, which is very valuable for many pur- 
poses and commands a very high price, is 
still grown on the coast of South Carolina, 
Georgia, Florida, and Texas, and about five 
million pounds are annually exported. The 
upland green-seed or short-staple cotton was 
slow in becoming a general crop in the 
southern states. In 1791 only 2,000,000 
pounds were raised and 189,500 pounds 
exported. There was great difficulty in 
freeing this variety from its seeds which 
were then considered useless. In 1793, 
Eli Whitney, then a teacher near Savannah, 
Georgia, invented the saw cotton-gin, which 
though a source of little profit and of con- 
stant litigation to him, immensely increased 
the cotton production. Previous to this 
only a roller-gin had been made, which 
though sufficient to free the long-staple cot- 
ton from its seeds, was worthless on the 
short-staple cotton, to which the seeds ad- 
hered very closely.* The impulse which 

♦Various modifications htive been made in the Whitney 
COtton-gin, in the almost ninety yean* since it* invention, 
but all ol'tticm have retained his fundamental principle of 
the necw«ity of caw teeth to detach the seeds; and their 
construction witnesses to the cruel injustice which was 
done to him in pirating his invention, aud denying him 
any compensation for it. 



was imparted to cotton production by this 
invention is seen in the fact that in 1803, 
only ten years after the first gin was made, 
the export of cotton was 41,000,000 pounds 
and nearly 3,000,000 pounds were retained 
for home consumption. In 1810 the ex- 
ports had increased to 94 million pounds, 
and the home consumption to about six 
million pounds. In 1820, the production 
was about 171 million pounds and the ex- 
port 128 million pounds. The production 
and export increased steadily and rapidly; 
in 1830 the production was about 350 mil- 
lion pounds and the export, 271 million; 
in 1840, production 744,000,000 pounds, 
export 621,000,000 pounds; in 1850, the 
production was 800 million pounds the 
home consumption 240 millions, and the 
export 560 million pounds. In 1860, the 
crop was the largest which had ever been 
grown up to that time, aggregating 2,275,- 
372,309 pounds, of which 509,547,229 
pounds were retained for home consump- 
tion and 1,765,825,080 pounds were ex- 
ported. Then came the war, during which 
production was much diminished, and ex- 
ports were reduced to a minimum. The 
whole export of the five years, 1861-5, 
was but 350 million pounds and 307,634,- 
242 of this was in 1861 before the war was 
fairly inaugurated. For four years after 
the close of the war the production did not 
rise above 1,173,000,000 pounds, about 
one-half that of the crop of 1860, and the 
exports ranged from 645 million to 785 
million pounds; but the increase began with 
1870, when the production rose to 1,451,- 
401,357 pounds and the exports to 958,- 
785,304 pounds, and the advance has con- 
tinued till in 1876, it had nearly equaled 
the great crop of 1860, being 2,157, 958. 142, 
about two-thirds of which was exported; 
and in 1880 reached 2,771,797,156 pounds, 
five hundred million pounds more than 
1860, and the export was 1,822,295,843 
pounds, while the amount retained for 
home consumption was 953,049, 105 pounds. 
Meanwhile, however, the price had de- 
creased till if valued at the price at which 
the exported cotton was estimated in New 
York and New Orleans, 11.5 cents, it 
would have been worth only $306,283.- 
585.73, which after deducting the cost of 
putting the crop on the market, is possibly 
less than the actual cost to the producers. 
We say, possibly, because the cost of rais- 
ing a pound of cotton varies in different 



794 



COTTON CULTURE. 



states. In Georgia for several years past 
it has averaged even among the most suc- 
ceessful cotton planters, and counting the 
most favorable seasons. 12.5 to 13 cents. 
The cost in Alabama, Mississippi, and Ten- 
nessee does not probably exceed 12 cents. 
In South Carolina it averages 13.1. In 
Texas and Arkansas it is claimed that it 
does not exceed 11.2 cents. When we 
consider that the price named (11.5 cents) 
was that received at the shipping ports, and 
that it included interest on advances made 
to the planters, the transportation and 
freight to the ports of shipment, the cotton 
buyers and the bankers' commissions we 
can easily understand that eleven and a 
half cents at the shipping port means not 
over eight or eight and a half to the planter. 
There is, then, taking one year with an- 
other, a dead loss to the planter of from 25 
to 40 per cent, on his cotton crop, though 
this may be somewhat diminished by the 
now recognized value of the cotton seed for 
its oil, its oil cake, and for manure. But 
a continuous loss of even 10 per cent, on 
the principal crop of the planter, will in ten 
years' time sweep away his entire plantation. 
What are the remedies for this condi- 
tion of affairs? There are two, and only 
two, of any importance; viz.: to increase 
the yield of the land, by manuring it thor- 
oughly and cultivating it carefully and 
skilfully, till the lowest yield shall be two 
bales to the acre instead of a third or fourth 
of a bale as now. It will require fewer 
hands to raise and pick two bales to the 
acre than it will to raise the same quantity 
from six acres. 2. The other remedy is to 
abandon cotton planting wholly or in part, 
and turn the principal attention to the cub 
tivation of other crops which will pay bet- 
ter, and with less labor. What these crops 
shall be depends much upon the location 
of the planter. In South Carolina and 
Georgia, they may be corn, sorghum, wheat, 
potatoes, and in the lowlands rice and sweet 
potatoes. In Florida, rice, oranges, lemons, 
and perhaps some sugar; in Mississippi and 
Alabama, corn, Irish and sweet potatoes; 
in Tennessee and Arkansas, fruits, corn, 
wheat, potatoes, and oats; in Texas sugar, 
sorghum, corn, oats and wheat and fruits ; 
in Louisiana, sugar, rice, corn, fruits, and 
sweet potatoes. In all the States, in the 
vicinity of cities and large towns, market 
vegetables and small fruits. Forage and 
the forage grasses should be cultivated far 



more extensively than they are, and if the 
system of ensilage were adopted, ten times 
the present number of domestic animals 
might be kept with but little labor, and the 
quantity of manure thus obtained would 
permanently enrich the land and save the 
very large outlay for guano, superphos- 
phates and other artificial manures, while it 
produced much more beneficial results. 
The substitution of stable and barnyard 
manures well composted, for the costly 
artificial manures, would reduce the cost 
of cotton more than two cents a pound, 
and give every year a better crop. The 
English plan of folding sheep upon turnip 
fields, is to be commended both for the sake 
of the sheep, and for the enrichment of the 
land. Much of the land in the southern 
states, though a light sandy loam, is capable 
of yielding great crops, by the aid of good 
and permanent manures, and will retain 
such manures so as to be constantly growing 
richer. 

Let us look at the present method of 
growing cotton in the south and find out, 
if we can, in what way it can be improved 
so as to make the agricultural crops, and 
especially cotton, which will probably al- 
ways be a large crop, profitable. 

In the old days of slave labor, the meth- 
ods of cultivation of cotton, were very 
slovenly and ruinous. The cotton lands, 
generally a light loamy soil, like that of 
most of the arable lands of the south, were 
scratched over with a light plow, not pene- 
trating to a depth of more than two inches, 
and the furrows turned over each way so 
as to make ridges on the unplowed portion ; 
these ridges were generally from five to 
nine feet apart to allow of ploughing be- 
tween, and were pretty well pulverized by 
the hoe, though to no great depth, and the 
cotton seed either dropped by hand or by 
drill pretty freely, often to the extent of 
ten bushels or more to the acre, in a slight 
furrow opened at the top of the ridge. 
No manure was used, though cotton is an 
exhausting crop; nor was there rotation of 
crops, but the same plots of ground were 
sown to cotton as long as there was suffi- 
cient nutriment in the soil to enable the 
cotton plant to rise above the weeds, and 
make what was technically called "a stand f 
and when the land was too much exhausted 
for this, and would not yield even 30 oi 
40 pounds of ginned cotton to the acre, 
it was abandoned and if the planter had 



COTTON CULTURE. 



-95 



other lands, they were put through the 
same process, while the abandoned lands 
were left to be overrun with scrub oak, 
juniper and sumac bushes, if it could sus- 
tain them, and if not, to be a barren waste 
for years to come. These exhausted lands 
are not easily restored to fertility, and their 
prevalence in all the older states of the 
south is a reproach to southern agriculture. 
"When the planter had exhausted his plan- 
tation, he sold it, if he could, for a trifle, or 
if he could not sell it abandoned it and 
sought in Mississippi, Texas, or Arkansas 
for new lands to be subjected to the same 
wasteful processes. 

But we are leaving our newly sown cot- 
ton to its enemies, let us return to it. The 
soil of the ridges needed very thorough pul- 
verization, and generally received it, 
though by the hoe only. The planting 
season was usually from the first to the 
fifteenth of April, the more careful planters 
having commenced plowing and pulveriz- 
ing the soil as early as the 20th of Febru- 
ary. The cotton plants did not generally 
appear above the surface under nine days 
after planting. The plants usually came 
up very thickly and were thinned out by 
the hoe, or sometimes by hand, leaving at 
first clumps or bunches twenty inches or 
two feet apart. A little later these were 
again thinned out, the weaker plants being 
chopped out with the hoe, till the bunches 
were reduced to two, and finally to one 
plant; and meantime, the space between 
the rows was scraped by a light plow to 
kill the grass and weeds and keep the 
ground soft around the plants. Cotton is 
at first a very tender plant, and requires 
great care, but if the soil is good and easily 
penetrated, it soon thrusts down a long tap 
root, and becomes a vigorous shrub. The 
necessity of keeping out the grass from 
between the rows and around the plants, 
kept the working force of the planter well 
employed for two or three months. As 
the plants attained their height and the 
buds and blossoms began to appear, the 
enemies of the cotton plant became visible, 
though they mustered their strongest force 
when the boll was fully formed. The most 
formidable of these were, and still are, the 
cotton worm and the boll-worm. Like all 
the caterpillar tribe these appear first as the 
moths, laying their thousands of eggs, next 
as a minute worm, hatched from these eggs. 
and growing into a large and voracious 



caterpillar, which devours the leaves, the 
blossoms, and the bolls of the cotton plant, 
and having done its mischief, rolls itself in 
a fragment of the leaf and spins its silken 
cocoon, from which, after a few days, it 
emerges as a moth or butterfly to go through 
the same changes again. In the portion of 
the southern states lying on or near the 
Gulf there are three broods of these pests 
in a single season, the third being altogether 
the most numerous and destructive. The 
loss from these insects is estimated by care- 
ful observers at from 600,000 to 800,000 
bales of cotton annually, or from one-eighth 
to one-sixth of the whole crop. Almost 
every known means has been resorted to 
for ridding the cotton fields of these pests, 
the use of poisons wet and dry; the light- 
ing of fires, the use of traps of poisonous 
sweets, the encouragement of parasitic and 
other insect enemies, and of insectivorous 
birds, and in the early stages picking them 
off by hand, but the destruction from their 
ravages continues, though much less prev- 
alent in some years than others. 

If, however, the cotton plant escapes 
these numerous foes, and the boll attains 
its growth, and gradually bursts its integ- 
uments and opens its wealth of cotton, it is 
a beautiful sight, in its fleecy purity. But 
at this point there came to the planter in 
the old days, his hurrying time. Cotton 
picking was fortunately extended over a 
considerable period; there was the first 
picking, when the earliest ripened bolls 
had burst, a second picking, when the 
greater part of the crop was opened, and 
when the greatest activity was necessary to 
prevent the cotton from being wasted or 
injured or stained by rains or heavy dews, 
or soiled by being trampled in the dirt. A 
third picking took place later, and gathered 
the cotton from the late bolls, some of 
which only open after frost has killed tho 
plant. If the plantation was large, the gin- 
house and cotton press were near the cot- 
ton fields, and the baskets of seed cotton 
were carried there at once, dried, ginned 
and pressed ready for shipment to the great 
shipping ports, where it was repacked, 
and strapped with iron for exportation. 
Four pounds of seed cotton were required 
to make one pound of ginned cotton, and 
the average yield per acre did not exceed 
150 pounds of ginned cotton. 

Since the war, and especially since 1ST"), 
there has been a marked change for the 



796 



COTTON CULTURE. 



better in cotton culture. It is doubtful 
whether cotton can be raised quite as 
cheaply now as twenty-five years ago, but 
this is the case with some other crops also. 
The labor of the freedmen is now probably 
about as efficient as the slave labor ever was, 
though the labor of the women and chil- 
dren may not be utilized to the same ex- 
tent; but cotton picking is quite as well 
and more intelligently done than formerly, 
and this is also true of most agricultural 
operations. The slave could not be taught 
to use agricultural machinery with any 
skill; the freedman can; and the cultiva- 
tion of the soil, from the greater agricul- 
tural knowledge of the planters and the 
increased intelligence of the employees is far 
in advance of the slovenly farming before 
the war. The ploughing is not yet so deep 
as it should be, and barren lands are not 
restored to their ancient fertility to a very 
large extent; but the use of manures has 
increased a hundred-fold, and though they 
are yet mostly of the costly kind, such as 
guano, the rock phosphates, superphos- 
phates, nitrates and other artificial manures, 
and will not produce so permanent effects 
as those produced and composted on the 
farm, at a much lower cost, yet they do in 
a considerable degree restore to the soil the 
elements which are drawn from it in the 
culture of cotton. The use of the cotton- 
seed in compost, as a manure, was a very 
judicious measure as it contained the very 
elements which the land needed, but the 
great and constantly increasing demand for 
cotton-seed for grinding for oil and oil 
cake, renders it much more expensive than 
formerly. Still that large portion of it, 
which is not fit for the mills, may be util- 
ized as manure to good advantage. The 
rotation of crops is practiced to a much 
greater extent than formerly, and with 
good results. If the southern agricultur- 
ists could be persuaded to keep more live 
stock, and raise forage grasses and plants 
to feed it, they would find their farming 
altogether more profitable. A greater di- 
versity of crops would be an advantage in 
many ways. They would not lose every- 
thing by a failure of one crop, for if they 
raised corn and sorghum, wheat, barley, 
potatoes, and fruits, as well as cotton, and 
had large numbers of horses, cattle, milch 
cows, sheep, and swine, the failure of the 
cotton crop or the corn crop would not re- 
duce them to bankruptcy. By rotating the 



crops and constantly enriching their lands 
they would soon be able to make two bales 
of cotton to the acre (some of them even now 
are making five bales to the acre), in an 
average season, and by doing this they can 
send as much cotton to market from fifty 
acres as they now do from 200 or 250. It 
is certainly worth an effort. There seems 
to be no good reason why, raising as we do 
the best cotton in the world, we should not 
supply the world with it, and this without 
interfering with the other crops which we 
are producing in so large quantities. The 
consumption of cotton throughout the 
world — at least so much of it as comes into 
the markets of the world, does not quite 
reach 13 million' of bales. In 1879 and 
1880 we produced about one half of the 
whole — on about 17,000,000 acres. In 
1890 we ought to be able to produce 13, 
000,000 bales on less than half that quan- 
tity of land. Let us work with that result 
in view. "With one or two items respecting 
the picking of the cotton, we close these 
suggestions to the cotton grower. It has 
always been a subject of complaint among 
manufacturers, that the teeth of the gins 
broke, tore ; and slivered the delicate fibres 
of the cotton and that in consequence the 
cotton was not in as good condition for 
manufacturing, and did not yield as ele- 
gant and silky fabrics, nor those which 
were as durable as they would be if the cot- 
ton could be separated from its seeds by a 
less violent method. The adhesion of the 
seeds of the green-seed or short-staple cot- 
ton to the fibers is so strong, however, that 
the accomplishment of so desirable a result 
seemed impracticable. "Within the past 
decade a machine has been invented which 
to some extent obviated this difficulty. It 
was a spinning machine which took the 
cotton directly from the field or from the 
gin-house, with the seeds unseparated 
from it and spun it with its bright silky 
fibres, pushing out the seeds and drawing 
the cotton away from them till they fell 
upon the floor, or into a hopper underneath 
the machine. The negroes described it 
very graphically when they said: "it 
chewed up the cotton and spat out the 
seeds." Whether this machine has gone 
into very extensive use in the south or not, 
we are not informed; the chances are 
against it, for it was intended mainly for 
use near the cotton plantations; and the 
southerner, as a rule, is averse to manu- 




PICKING COTTON. 



Tho season of cotton picking commences in the latter part of July, and continues without intermis- 
sion to the Christmas holidays. The work is not heavy, but becomes tedious from its sameness. The 
field hands are each supplied with a basket and bag. Tho basket is lefl a1 the head of the "cotton- 
rows;" tho bag is suspended from the " picker's'' neck by a strap, and is used to hold the cotton as it is 
taken from tho boll. "When tho bag is filled it is emptied into the basket, and this routine is continued 
through tho day. Each hand picks from two hundred and fifty to three hundred pounds of "seed cot- 
ton" each day, though some negroes of extraordinary ability go beyond tins amount 

If tho weather lie very line, the cotton is carried from the held direct to the packing-house; hut 
generally it is first spread out on scaffolds, where it is left to dry, and picked clean of any "trash thai 
may be perceived mixed up with the cotton. Among the most characteristic scenes of plantation hie i 
the returning of the hands at nightfall from the field, with their well-filled baskets of cotton upon thci 
heads. Falling unconsciously "into line," the stoutest leading the way. they move along in the dim i w . 
light of a winter day, with the quietness of spirits rather than human beings, — Harper's ifaga 





GATHERING THE CANE. 



^ 



And now may be seen the field-hands, armed with huge knives, entering the harvest field. The cane 
la in the perfection of its beauty, and snaps and rattles its wiry-textured leaves as if they were ribbons, 
and towers over the head of the overseer as he rides between the rows on his good-sized horse. Sud- 
denly, you perceive an unusual motion among the foliage — a crackling noise, a blow — and the loug rows 
of growing vegetation are broken, and every moment it disappears under the operation of the knife. The 
cane is stripped by the negroes of its leaves, decapitated of its unripe joints, and cut off from the root 
with a rapidity of execution that is almost marvellous. The stalks lie scattered along on the ground, 
soon to be gathered up and placed in the cane-wagons, which with their four gigantic mule-teams have 
just come rattling on to the scene of action with a noise and manner that would do honor to a park of 
flying artillery. 

We have already alluded to the fact that the sugar crop has to be gathered in Louisiana within 
ninety days, or else it will be destroyed by the cold; as a consequence, from the moment the firs! blow is 
struck, every thing is inspired with energy. The teams, flio neg oes, the vegetation, the very air, in fact. 
that has been for months dragging out a quiescent existence, as if the only object of life was to consume 
time, now start as if touched by lire. The negro becomes supple, the mules throw up their heads and 
paw the earth with impatience, the sluggish air frolics in swift currents and threatening Storms, while the 
once silent sugar house is open, windows and doors. The carrier shed is full of children and women, the 
tall chimneys are belching out smoke, and the huge engine, as if waking from a benumbing nap, has 
stretched out its long arms, given one long-drawn respiration, and is alive. — Harper's Magazine. 



COTTON CULTURE. 



799 



facturing, and has very little capital which 
La is disposed to spare from his plantation 
to put into manufacturing operations. We 
do not despair, however, of hearing as the 
outcome of this machine some modification 
of the gin which shall pull the cotton from 
the seeds instead of tearing it to slivers in 
removing them. The seeds are so heavy 
that only one pound of ginned cotton is 
produced from four pounds of seed cotton. 
The demand for the seeds for the produc- 
tion of the cotton-seed oil and oil cake is 
very great, and as yet far beyond the sup- 
ply; much of this goes to Europe and 
especially to England and France; in the 
latter country it is said to be used largely 
in the production of pure olive oil! and it is 
averred that it is less liable to become rancid 
41 



than the genuine oil. The oil cake is pre- 
ferred to that produced from linseed in 
Europe. It is not impossible in these days 
of wondrous inventions that an efficient and 
economical cotton picker (perhaps one of 
Jules Verne's steam men or steam ele- 
phants), may be devised which shall effect- 
ually and rapidly remove the cotton from the 
plants and perhaps separate it from the 
seeds, as it moves along. Such an invention 
would be invaluable to a cotton planter, if it 
could accomplish its work well ; but it would 
doubtless receive strong opposition from the 
laboring classes, white and black, in the 
south, to whom cotton picking, though very 
hard work, is looked forward to as a season 
of great enjoyment and jollity. 



SUGAR-CULTIVATION AND CONSUMPTION. 



I. Cane Sugar. 



The cultivation of cane sugar in the 
United States has become of considerable 
importance only in the last ten years. While 
it has in that time occupied an increasing 
proportion of the attention of the planters 
of Texas and Louisiana, it has rather de- 
clined in other portions of the Southern 
states. The cane itself is more nearly asso- 
ciated with Indian corn in the general char- 
acter of its climatic requirements than any 
other staple. It differs from corn in this re- 
spect only in degree, each condition, or the 
principal condition of temperature, at least, 
being required in similar, but greater tropi- 
cal excess for the period of its growth. In 
the southern parts of the United States the 
great heat of summer gives this plant a range 
it attains in no other country of the same 
mean annual temperature ; and it is restrained 
only by the limit of its safe endurance of the 
winter. The cane may be cultivated east of 
the high plains and deserts of Texas, and 
south of 34° north latitude. The area now 
occupied by the cane is quite limited, a 
part of Texas, the lower parishes of Louisi- 
ana, a portion of Florida, in the latitude of 
Tallahassee to Cedar Keys, and the Atlantic 
coast of Georgia, comprising its extent. The 
considerable capital required to conduct the 
culture makes it a larger interest than might 
be inferred from this limited extent of area. 

The cane was first introduced into Louis- 
iana in 1751, and the first plantation was 
established by Mr. Dubreul in 1758, a little 
more than a century since. The progress 
was not rapid, however, until 1794, when 
the revolution of St. Domingo drove some 
few Frenchmen to fly for refuge from their 
burning houses and their frantic pursuers 
on board American vessels, with such of 
their faithful slaves as would follow them. 
When there, they naturally tnrned their 
hopes to Louisiana, where they might find 
a home for themselves and their servants 
among kindred French. To these unhap- 
py mon Louisiana owes the introduction of 



the Creole cane, a small yellow kind, which 
only was then grown in the French islands. 
About the same period the cane culture was 
introduced into Georgia. There had been 
there growing and flourishing from the time 
of the first settlement of the country by 
General Oglethorpe, luxurious orange trees. 
As similar trees in Louisiana had been de- 
stroyed by the frost, while those in Georgia 
flourished uninjured, the idea was suggested 
to an enterprising planter that if under such 
circumstances cane would grow in Louisiana 
it would also grow in Georgia. In 1805 he 
procured 100 plants of the Otaheite cane 
that had been sent by Lieutenant Bligh from 
Otaheite. These 100 canes multiplied to 
2000, and from these most of the plantations 
in Georgia and Florida were propagated. 
The question of labor in the English West 
Indies was then sufficiently discussed to in- 
duce many planters to leave Jamaica for 
new settlements, and many were attracted 
to Georgia by the luxuriant growth of the 
cane. The price of sugar was then, under 
the embargo, about ten cents per pound, and 
many plantations were established. The 
canes spread up the Altamaha, the Oconee, 
and the Ocmulgee, and luxuriated in the 
fine lands of Florida and Georgia to a dis- 
tance of 150 miles from sea. Nevertheless, 
the manufacture was not many years after 
mostly abandoned in that region on a large 
scale or for export, but it is still conducted 
to a considerable extent for plantation and 
home use. It did not there pay so well 
as rice or cotton, since the product per acre 
was less than half what it had risen to be in 
Louisiana. In the rich lands of that state 
and Texas the product per acre is 2400 
pounds against 1000 pounds even in the 
richest river lands of Georgia. 

There arc five kinds of cane in use by the 
planters of Louisiana, viz., the Bourbon, which 
has large eyes, a dark purple color, and is 
very hardy ; the green ribbon is of a bright 
yellow color, with delicate green stripes ; the 



SUGAR — CULTIVATION AND CONSUMPTION'. 



801 



eye is small, elongated, and delicate in its 
structure ; the red ribbon has purple stripes 
of an inch or less in width, and can resist 
light frost ; the Otaheite has large joints, 
does not grow high, and has a comparative- 
ly thin skin, and is easily affected hy the 
frost, yet its juice is rich and abundant ; 
the Creole cane yields a superior kind of 
sugar, but it has been less used than the 
Bourbon on account of its less hardy na- 
ture. It is now getting more into favor 
again. These are the varieties mostly used 
in Louisiana. The mode of culture is simple 
and allied to that of Indian corn. The canes 
are propagated by cuttings, and these are 
planted in the fall, seldom as early as Octo- 
ber, since the planters have no time until 
the grinding season is over. The riper por- 
tion of the stalk is generally used for cane 
seed ; others cut the cane in the middle and 
use the green tops for planting. The land 
is well ploughed, harrowed, and marked off 
in rows three to five and even eight feet 
apart. As the cane must reach its full 
growth in nine months, a good distance 
apart is thought necessary to promote ac- 
cess of the sun and the circulation of air. A 
double-mould-board plough follows the mark- 
er, opening a clear furrow for planting. In the 
furrow the canes are laid straight in such a 
manner that the eyes may freely throw out 
their shoots. They are covered from four 
to six inches. The young plants are culti- 
vated much as Indian corn, in rows. The 
planting is done in some parts of Louisiana 
once in three years. The first year it is call- 
ed "plant cane," and the subsequent growths 
are called rattoons. But sometimes, as on 
the prairies of Attakapas and Opelousas and 
the higher northern range of its cultiva- 
tion, it requires to be replanted every year. 
Within the tropics, as in the West Indies 
and elsewhere, the rattoons frequently con- 
tinue to yield abundantly for twelve, fifteen, 
and even twenty-four years from the same 
roots. In Louisiana in the fourth year the 
land is put in corn and peas. After the corn 
is gathered the stalks and peas are ploughed 
in, and the land is ready for cane again. 

In Louisiana the cane never ripens, and 
therefore is allowed to grow as long as it 
can be done with safety from frost. In the 
latter part of October, they commence by 
saving their seed, that is, by cutting the 
cane they need for planting, and securing it 
by placing it in mats, so called, on the 
ground, say twenty feet by forty, resting it 



on an embankment, with the buts on the 
ground at an angle of about twenty degrees, 
and leaving a mass of tops on the surface, ;i 
foot deep and forming a perfect protection 
from frost. 

Next they commence taking off the crops. 
Every negro has at all times in Lis posses- 
sion a cane knife, like a butcher's cleaver, 
and kept very sharp. With the back of the 
knife he knocks off the dry leaves, and cuts 
off the stalk as of no value where the leaves 
are green. Should a frost come whilst thev 
arc making sugar, the work is stopped, and 
all hands are employed winnowing the cane 
in the fields, as a fermentation commences 
immediately, if it is allowed to stand. 

The cane is as certain as any large crop 
we have. When the cane is gathered it is 
prepared for the mill. These are some 
twelve feet from the ground, in order that 
the juice may flow from the rollers into the 
juice boxes, and from them into the kettles. 
The mills are composed of three iron rollers 
from twenty-five to twenty-eight inches in 
diameter, and from four to five and a half 
feet long. There are a great number of in- 
ventions that have been patented within a 
few years. The cane carrier is an endless 
belt, fifty to ninety feet long, formed of 
chains, with slats inserted and placed at an 
angle of thirty to thirty-five degrees to 
the ground. The lower end is about two 
feet from the ground. On this the canes 
are spread evenly, and by its revolution 
they are carried up to the rollers which ex- 
press their juice as they pass through. The 
juice thus obtained is collected in large res- 
ervoirs, to go through a process of boiling 
which has been greatly varied by improve- 
ments upon the old Creole plan. The juice, 
by boiling and evaporation, is reduced to the 
state of muscovado, which is placed in hogs- 
heads with holes bored in the bottom. to 
permit the molasses to pass off. In the 
course of the boiling, lime is added in pre- 
pared portions to " defecate" the sugar, and 
the juice is bleached bypassing through a 
filter of bone-black. Very many inventions 
have been patented for kettles, vacuum pans, 
etc., to facilitate the boiling process, and 
others to promote the discharge of the mo- 
lasses. One of these is by centrifugal force. 
The sugar is placed in a cylinder of iron net- 
work, which, revolving with great rapidity, 
imparts to the molasses a centrifugal motion 
that drains it from the sugar through the 
net, when it is collected in proper vessels. 



802 



SUGAR CULTIVATION AND CONSUMPTION. 



The introduction of bisulphate of lime of 
late years has added greatly to the quantity 
of sugar that may be obtained from a given 
quahtity of cane, and also to its quality. 

The quantity of sugar produced on an 
acre varies from 500 lbs. to 3,000 lbs ; the 
average may be 1,000 lbs. A well-culti- 
vated plantation in Louisiana produces 
2,400 lbs. sugar and 2,000 lbs. or 160 gal- 
lons molasses per acre. Some mills will 
turn out 1,000 gallons juice per hour, 
twenty hours in a day, giving ten hogs- 
heads of sugar, or 12,000 lbs. and 20 bbls. 
molasses, or 800 gallons, 12 lbs. to the gal- 
lon. The expenses and products of a plan 
tation in Louisiana have been given as fol- 
lows in official documents: — 

Household Expenses, $1,000 

Overseer's salary, 400 

Food and clothing— 15 working hands at $30 450 

" •' " 15 old hands and children, $15. 225 
Repairs, V& per cent, on capital ($40,000), 600 

$2,675 

50 hhds. sugar at 4 cents per lb. $2,500 

25 " "' "3 " " 862 

25 " " "2 " " 575 

4,000 gals, molasses, 10 cents, 400— 4,137 

Balance, $1,462 

There were many other products raised 
by the hands besides sugar. Thus there 
were in Louisiana 200,000 hands, and 
these produced, in 1859, 362,296 hhds. of 
sugar, worth with the molasses $31,399,- 
241; and in addition they raised 6,327,882 
bushels of corn, or 31 bushels per head; 
and 4,911,680 lbs. of rice, or 24| lbs. per 
head. There were at that time in Louisi- 
ana 1,298 sugar houses, 987 worked by 
steam and 3 1 1 by horse power. The hogs- 
head of sugar is a very variable measure, 
but the average weight, by the best author- 
ities, is 1,150 lbs. As the population and 
business of the country increased, higher 
hopes were entertained of obtaining the 
national supply of sugar and molasses 
from Louisiana and the adjacent states in 
which the sugar cane could be cultivated 
by the layering process. These hopes were 
destined to be disappointed. Between 1826 
and 1862 there were 19 years in which the 
domestic production equaled or exceeded 
the imports, and in a few of these years 
was largely in excess of them — but in all 
the remaining years it was far below them, 
and since 1862 it has been only from one- 
fifth to one-eighth. The following table 
shows what was the entire domestic produc- 
tion of cane sugar and molasses according 
to the censuses of 1860 and 1870: 



STATES. 



Alabama, 

Arkansas, 

Florida, 

Georgia, 

Louisiana, 

Miss., 

Missouri, 

N. Carolina, 

S. Carolina, 

Tennessee, 

Texas, 



Totals, 



1800. 



Sugar, 
lbs. 



201,250 



Molasses, 
gallons. 



85,115 



1,010,350 

1,342,050 

254,984,900 

581,000 

402,300, 

43.700 

227,700 

•-',300 

5,973,850 



13 



265,739,300 



486,357 

540,749 

,430,772 

10.010 

22.305 

12,494 

51,041 

2,830 

408,358 



14,963,906 



1870. 



Sugar, 
lbs. 



Molasses, 
gallons. 



35,650 

105,800 

1,094,800 

740.000 

92.812.900, 

56,8501 

56.&50 

40,250; 

1,213.250 

1,621,5001 

2,323,000! 



166,009 
72,(108 
344,339 
553,192 
4,585,150 
152,164 

33,888 
436,883 

3,629 
240,062 



100,100,450 6,593,323 



The following table shows the quantity of 
cane sugar and molasses imported, and the 
production in the United States as well 
as the special production of Louisiana, the 
number of pounds consumed per head, the 
price per pound, and the total estimated 
value of the amount consumed' for differ- 
ent years from 1790 to 1880: 



•©J 


Dollars. 

* . . . . 

16,112,000 
17,009,348 
20,267 180 
24,160.521 
26,835,930 
36,122,322 
51,237,034 
71,633,335 
57,118,800 
59,006,118 
94,987,613 
104,321,817 
121,781,809 
118,169.271 
127.581,369 
124,783,647 
130.286.154 
136,107,318 
143,2X7,113 


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# No data for a report. 

t The vears of largest production were 1854, when the crop waj S«,- 
911,784 ponnds, and 1862. when it wad 651.843.292 pounds, and of molawei, 
in 1854, 37,432,270 pallonn, and in 1862, 39.417,318 B alloii«. 

t The production of »uear and molaMee In Louislann was greater in 
two years, 1854 and 1862, than In any of the years recordrd in this ab 1. , 
in the former vear it was, sugar, 495,156,000 pounds ; molasses. «,4^2..70 
gallons ; and In the latter, sugar, 528,321,500 pounds, and molaases, 39,37i,- 
369 gallons. 



SUGAR CULTIVATION AND CONSUMPTION. 



803 



The preceding tables deserve careful 
study. They demonstrate several things. 
One of the deductions we make from them 
is that our people have a great appetite for 
sweets. Our consumption of cane sugar 
per head (to say nothing of the molasses), 
is 39.41 pounds, more than 12 ounces for 
each man, woman, and child per week. If 
we add to this the consumption of maple, 
sorghum, and cane sugar, and molasses, 
and syrups, it would make the whole 
amount about 20 ounces (14^ pounds), per 
week per head. Other nations do not con- 
sume nearly as much per head, although 
in general the price is less. In France, 
the consumption, annually, is not more 
than 1 1 pounds per head ; in Great Britain, 
about 30.5 pounds. Another deduction is 
that we can never do much toward supply- 
ing our home demand for sugar and mo- 
lasses if we rely upon our own production 
of sugar from the sugar cane. In the year 
of largest production of cane sugar since 
the war — 1879 — our entire domestic pro- 
duction was only 263,426,628 pounds, while 
our imports the same year were 1,783,477,- 
715 pounds, beside nearly 5 1 million pounds 
of molasses or syrup, so that our largest 
crop of cane sugar was only one-eighth of 
our consumption. 

II. Sugar from Other Sources. 

Cane sugar is so uncertain a crop in our 
country, being propagated only by layers, 
never ripening here, and requiring a re- 
newal of the cuttings from tropical cli- 
mates every few years, that it cannot fur- 
nish anything like a certain supply, even if 
it were possible to increase its cultivation 
tenfold. During the past twelve years the 
ratio of production to importation has 
ranged from 1 : 27 to 1 : 65. It is obvious, 
therefore, that if we would not be depend- 
ent upon other nations for our sweetening 
to the extent of $100,000,000 or more, we 
must find some other plant, root, or fruit, 
which will yield us a supply sufficient for 
the vast demand. "What shall it be? Su- 
gar is produced in two ways: 1. By ex- 
pression and evaporation from the sap or 
juices of plants. 2. By chemical action or 
changes, from starch, Indian corn, pota- 
toes, etc. The first kind is a true sugar, 
and its sweetness comes from the amount 
of sucrose it contains; the second is what 
is known as grape sugar or glucose, con- 
tains only about three-fifths of the sweeten- 



ing property of the true sugar, and while 
cheaper than the first, almost always con- 
tains acid or mineral impurities, and is gen- 
erally prejudicial to health. 

Sugar of the first kind has been made 
from the cane, from the stalks of the com- 
mon Indian corn, from broom corn, from 
all the varieties of sorghum, from the 
Egyptian rice corn, the several varieties of 
millet, from the pumpkin, and the Hubbard 
and Boston Marrow squash ; from the sap 
of the sugar maple, the sugar pine, the but- 
ternut, and some other trees, from the 
juice of the sugar and other beets, and the 
watery fluid of the watermelon. 

The glucose, or grape sugar, has been 
made from potato starch, and from the 
starch of the horse-chestnut, acorn, etc., 
but the principal source of supply has been 
from Indian corn, which at the "West is 
sold so low as to make this manufacture 
largely profitable. The farina, or starch of 
the corn, is treated with sulphuric acid till 
it is changed into glucose. 

It is necessary for the profitable produc- 
tion of sugar on a large scale that the ma- 
terial from which it is produced should be 
constantly accessible, in ample and not 
variable supply, and at low cost, and it is 
desirable that it should contain pure su- 
crose, and a large percentage of it. 

1. Maple Sugar. 

The maple sap, and we presume the sap 
of some of the other trees mentioned, con- 
tains very pure sucrose, and an excellent 
sugar and syrup can be produced from it, 
but it is found only in limited districts of 
country, can only be procured for a brief 
season in the year, its production varies 
according to the season and weather, and 
there is not enough of it to exert any 
appreciable effect on the general supply. 
In 1860, nearly 39,000,000 pounds were 
made, and, it is said, in 1863, 1864, and 
1865, a larger quantity, estimated as high as 
60,000,000. In 1870, it had fallen off to 
28,500,000 pounds; in 1876, it had reached 
its highest point, 43,288,080 pounds of su- 
gar, and 2,100.000 gallons of molasses; 
since that time it has seriously declined. 
It will always command a fair price as a 
luxury, and, to some extent, for home 
but its production cannot materially in- 
crease, with our diminishing forests. 

Of the other sugar-producing pi 
roots, and fruits mentioned, several are 



804 



SUGAR — CULTIVATION AND CONSUMPTION. 



not produced in sufficient quantity for man- 
ufacture on a large scale, and others would 
be found too expensive for use. Three of 
them, however, are more promising, viz., 
the sugar and other beets, the stalks of the 
Indian corn, and the sorghum of many va- 
rieties. 

2. Beet Sugar. 

That sugar can be made successfully 
from beet juice has been known in Europe 
for seventy years. The greater part of the 
sugar consumed in Germany, all of that in 
Holland and Belgium, and probably one- 
half of that in France, is made from the 
silesia or sugar beet. This manufacture is 
hedged round by such heavy tariffs, and 
encouraged by so many bounties for ex- 
port, that its manufacture is profitable in 
those countries. In the United States, 
some beet sugar has been made of good 
quality, and, in several instances, extensive 
manufactories have been erected, and beets 
sown over an extensive area, but from a 
variety of causes the enterprises have not 
proved successful. In one instance, the 
ground was found to be too alkaline, and 
the beets so thoroughly charged with alkali 
that good sugar could not be made from 
them. In another, there was a difficulty 
in disposing of the refuse, or bagasse, to 
advantage, and in all, the operations proved 
too costly to compete successfully with cane 
sugar. 

3. Sugar from the Canes or Stalks of 
Corn and Sorghum. 

The production of molasses or syrup 
from cornstalks has been tried at various 
times since the revolutionary war, but gen- 
erally with very rude apparatus, and im- 
perfect purification, and it was used only 
because at the time and place nothing bet- 
ter could be obtained. Its production had 
nearly ceased, when, in 1856, the Chi- 
nese sorghum was extensively introduced 
throughout the country by Orange Judd, 
of the American Agriculturist, and the next 
year the African Imphee, another plant of 
the Sorghum family, was distributed by 
Leonard Wray, an English agriculturist. 
Both were recommended as sugar-produc- 
ing plants, but the Imphee did not at first 
prove satisfactory, and has not been very 
largely cultivated. It was found in prac- 
tice that though sugar could be produced 
from these sources, there was great diffi- 



culty in inducing granulation, and the 
juice must be boiled down at once, or it 
would sour and ferment. The greater part 
of the product of the sorghum was manu- 
factured into molasses or syrup, much of it 
in a domestic way, and really an inferior 
article of unpleasant, weedy taste, and 
greenish color. "When properly manufac- 
tured, however, this syrup or molasses was 
of good color, and in taste and quality su- 
perior to the best cane molasses or syrup. 
During the war, and immediately after, the 
molasses product was large, but there was 
very little sugar made. The largest yield 
of sugar and molasses was in 1866, when 
511,565 pounds of sugar, and 21,500,000 
gallons of molasses were made; 280,000 
pounds of sugar, and 20,000,000 gallons 
of molasses were the highest amounts pro- 
duced in any other year, and in 1877 the 
production had fallen off to 80,000 pounds 
of sugar, and 13,000,000 gallons of mo- 
lasses. It had been supposed that the seed 
of the sorghum could not be ripened above 
41° N. Lat., but in 1875 or 1876, a new 
variety, known as the Minnesota Early Am- 
ber Cane, had been found to ripen earlier, 
and to endure the climate of Minnesota. 

Mr. Stewart's Experiments with 
Corn and Sorghum. 

In 1877, Mr..F. L. Stewart, of Marys- 
ville,'Penn., who had been, since ] 862, con- 
ducting a series of careful experiments for 
the production of sugar on an extended 
scale, published the conclusions to which 
his experiments had led him. He had ex- 
perimented on the different varieties of In- 
dian corn, as well as upon all the varieties 
of Sorgho and Imphee, and upon the sugar 
beet. We cannot here go into detail in 
regard to his processes, which were full of 
interest, but he had considered the whole 
subject of sugar production in its economic, 
as well as its other bearings, and was 
able to demonstrate that it was practicable 
to make from the corn and sorghum all 
the sugar which was needed in this vast 
and growing country, and an abundance 
for export; that our importation of sugar 
and molasses, now costing not less than 
120 millions of dollars, could be replaced, 
and more than replaced, at about half the 
cost, by a crop grown by ourselves, and 
that this crop yielded as large, or nearly as 
large, a percentage of sugar of the purest 
and best quality as the cane, by processes 



SUGAR CULTIVATION AND CONSUMPTION. 



805 



much simpler and much less expensive, and 
with far less delay and greatly diminished 
outlay of capital. His discoveries related 
to the following points: The best time and 
mode of cutting the canes or stalks for su- 
gar; the importance of immediate grinding 
or pressing the cane thoroughly, and boil- 
ing, concentrating, and granulating the su- 
gar; the possibility of doing this with sim- 
ple and inexpensive machinery, and by 
chemical processes, which the most ignor- 
ant could readily acquire; and the ability 
to utilize at a fair profit all secondary pro- 
ducts. On all these points Mr. Stewart's 
published pamphlet was full and satisfac- 
tory. The crop to be realized in an aver- 
age season he estimated as, for corn, 120 
to 270 gallons of very dense syrup to the 
acre, or its equivalent of 1,500 to 3,000 
pounds of sugar, and from 45 to G6 gallons 
of molasses; and of sorghum, from 100 to 
350 gallons of dense syrup, or its equiva- 
lent of 1,200 to 4,200 pounds of sugar, and 
from 45 to 75 gallons of molasses. The 
yield of sugar and molasses from sorghum 
is about one-seventh more than from corn, 
and the sugar and molasses, if properly 
made, are somewhat whiter. 

Mr. Stewart discovered that the corn 
and the sorghum both contained the great- 
est amount of sucrose, or crystallizable su- 
gar, just as the corn and seed were about 
ripening; that the best variety of corn in 
Pennsylvania was Stowell's Evergreen, 
though some other of the larger and earlier 
varieties of sweet corn would answer near- 
ly as well ; of the varieties of sorghum the 
Chinese imphee contained the largest 
amount of crystallizable sugar (between 1 5 
and 16 per cent.), and bore some delay in 
grinding better than any others, the Chi- 
nese regular sorghum coming next in these 
respects, while the red, black, and white 
imphee yielded smaller quantities of sugar. 

The corn, Mr. Stewart says, should be 
cut when the silk of the upper ear has be- 
come dead, and the second ear is in the 
early " roasting-ear state," or, as they say 
at the West, in its full milk. Cut at this 
time, the ears can be utilized for making 
dried sweet corn, by cutting the corn from 
the cob by a machine in use for that pur- 
pose, and drying rapidly, either by sun or 
by an evaporator. This corn is worth $20 
for a barrel of 300 pounds, and the sale of 
it more than makes up, he thinks, for the 
difference between the amount of sugar in 



the corn and that in the sorghum. The 
blades and tops can also be used for fod- 
der, and where ensilage is desirable, both 
the ears, and the blades, and tops can be 
utilized for that purpose. The sorghum 
leaves, tops, and seed, can be used in the 
same way, or the dried seeds make excel- 
lent fattening food for cattle and swine. 
The bagasse, or residuum of the stalks, 
after pressing, may be used as litter, or for 
manures, or, when dried, furnish excellent 
fuel for the furnace which evaporates the 
juice into syrup, and the ashes of this 
material form an admirable fertilizer. 

All the corn stalks, and most of the- 
sorghum stalks, deteriorate very rapidly if 
suffered to lie after being cut, even for 
twenty-four hours. It is absolutely neces- 
sary, therefore, that they should be ground 
or pressed the same day they are cut, and 
that the pressure should be sufficiently 
strong to extract as nearly as possible the 
85 per cent, of juice which is contained 
in them. The Chinese imphees, if the- 
weather is not too hot, may bear storing 
for one or two weeks, but none of the oth- 
ers will. "When the juice flows from the 
crushing mill it should be at once conducted 
(passing through wire gauze strainers in 
its way), to the heating tanks, which should 
be of a capacity of 100 gallons or more 
each, and which are of a variety of patterns 
an/1 prices; from these it is conducted to- 
broad and shallow evaporating pans, and 
thence to a finishing pan, from whence it 
goes to the cooler and the crystallizing ves- 
sels. Cream lime, or saccharate of lime, is 
used as a purifier in the first stage, the 
scum taken off, and the sediment drawn 
off from the bottom of the tanks; in the 
second stage, sulphurous acid is used to 
neutralize the lime. Evaporation in very 
shallow pans is recommended. No filter- 
ing through bone-black, or purifying by 
means of clay, is necessary. The product 
is a clean, light-colored sugar, equal to the 
very best cane sugars imported for sale as 
brown sugars, or for refining purposes. 
They contain little or no glucose, and are 
very pure. The gross value of the crop 
per acre at 4 cents per pound for the sugar, 
and 20 cents per gallon for the molasses, 
is from $70 to $135 per acre, besides the 
residuary matters, which will pay more 
than half the actual cost of the crop. 

Subsequent experiments both on a small 
and a large scale, under the general direc- 



806 



SUGAR CULTIVATION AND CONSUMPTION. 



tion of the late Commissioner of Agricul- 
ture, Gen. "William G. Le Due, who has 

taken a great interest in the development 
of this industry, have fully verified Mr. 
Stewart's observations. It seems to be 
well settled that on an average soil, fairly 
manured and well cultivated, such a soil as 
will yield 75 bushels of corn to the acre, a 
ton of sugar and 60 gallons of good mo- 
lasses is the minimum crop, and good farm- 
ers expect from 1£ to 2 tons. At this rate 
it is the most profitable crop which can be 
grown, but the business should be con- 
ducted prudently, and without waste, as it 
can be very easily. The greatest trouble 
seems to be in the grinding, evaporating, 
and crystallizing the sugar; there is so 
much to be done in so short a time that 
some things are in danger of being neg- 
lected. This difficulty has been remedied 
in many of the Western towns in one of 
two ways: either the farmers have united 
and put up a grinding mill, heating tanks, 
evaporators, finishing pans, etc., of suffi- 
cient capacity to do all their work prompt- 
ly, and hiring a manager, have taken their 
turns in making their sugar, or some indi- 
vidual has done the same thing, and charged 
a given rate per ton for making the sugar. 
Except on a large sugar- farm, one or other 
of these plans is better than the erection 
of a mill for each farm, and will produce 
better sugar. Very many farmers have 
rushed into the business during the past 
three years, and many more will attempt it 
the present year. Of course, some fail of 
success; some men are successful only in 
failing in whatever they undertake, and 
some have failed from causes beyond their 
control; but, on the whole, the prospect 
for the production of our own sugar on our 
own soil within the next five or ten years 
is very good, and a little farther on we may 
be able to export considerable quantities of 
refined sugar, if the cultivators of cane su- 
gar do not glut the market. 



Glucose and Glucose Sugar. 
This article would not be complete with- 
out some notice of the manufacture of glu- 
cose or inverted sugars and syrups, which 
is now carried on so extensively. As we 
have already stated, the bulk of these are 
made from corn, which is treated with di- 
lute sulphuric acid, and the starch in the 
corn changed into glucose, or as it was for- 
merly called, grape sugar. For a long 
time it was not supposed to be possible to 
crystallize glucose, and it was manufactured 
only in the form of syrup, which was used 
largely to dilute and adulterate sugar-house 
syrups, molasses, and honey. The glucose 
contains only about 50 to 60 per cent, as 
much sweetening power as cane or sor 
ghum sugar. Of late it has been found 
possible to crystallize, or at least to granu- 
late it, and it is used not only to adulterate 
true sugars, being considerably cheaper, 
but is sold as sugar, and in some forms is 
only detected by the purchasers from its 
lack of the sweetening property. It is also 
largely used in the manufacture of malt 
liquors, cheapening the production, but, it 
is believed, impairing its quality. It is used 
in the adulteration and doctoring of wines, 
adding to the sparkling character, and, it 
is said, also to the alcoholic strength. Many 
of our best physiologists believe that the 
frightful prevalence of Bright's disease of 
the kidneys, diabetes, and other kidney 
affections, is largely induced by the exces- 
sive consumption of glucose in one or other 
of these forms. The manufacture of this and 
other articles used for the adulteration of 
articles of food and beverage is a fraud on 
the community, and should be prohibited 
or checked by law. There may be legiti- 
mate uses for glucose; if so, let it be con- 
fined to those uses; but when it is applied 
to the adulteration of articles of food or 
drink such use should be punished with 
fine and imprisonment. 



COIMEECE OF TIE UNITED STATES. 



CHAPTER I. 

COLONIAL TRADE— IMPERIAL RESTRICTIONS 
—EMANCIPATION OF INHABITANTS. 

The history of the commerce and trade of 
a people is a record of their industry and 
productive powers, since all trade is but an 
interchange of the products of labor, and 
wealth but an accumulation of those products 
beyond the necessary annual consumption, 
and wear and tear from use. In the United 
States, since the date of their settlement, 
the development of trade and the accumula- 
tion of property have been more rapid than 
in any other country. This has been the 
case, chiefly, for five leading reasons: 1. The 
ample supply of fertile land free to the culti- 
vator. 2. The persevering and intelligent 
industry of the people, combined with an 
inventive genius that has constantly smooth- 
ed the way of labor by devising the means 
of producing greater results with the same 
man vial force. 3. The rapid increase of 
population, both from the great excess of 
births over deaths, owing to the excellent 
climate and general morality of the people, 
and from an unprecedented immigration 
(over ten millions,) of the best classes of 
Europeans to this country, to enjoy the 
benefit of our free institutions. This influx 
from Europe is greater now than ever be- 
fore. 4. The accumulation of capital ap- 
plicable to reproductive industries, as well 
through the frugal habits of the people, who 
have consumed far less than they have pro- 
duced, as by the influx of capital from 
abroad, not only in the hands of immigrants, 
but for investments, that will yield larger 
revenue to European holders than they can 
there obtain. And, 5th, and perhaps more 
important than all, was the control that the 
people have kept of their own funds. They 
have had no absolute rulers or dynasties to 
involve them in devastating wars. Until 
the civil war (13G1-G5) very little had been 



wasted in military expenses. And when 
the nation emerged, after a four years' 
struggle, from its great war, with a debt 
amounting in August, 1865, to 82,845,907,- 
62 G, so great were its remaining resources, 
and so strong its vitality that its own citizens 
carried the greater part of the debt, and in 
16 years had reduced it by more than a 
third, and its credit was so good that it 
could refund the whole in six months time, 
at 3 J per cent. 

The following table shows the general 
condition of the country in 1700, eighty 
years after its first settlement; in 1790, at 
its birth as a nation; in 1860, just before its 
great war, and in 18S0, fifteen years after 
the termination of that war: 



£ 


Population. 


Annual 

Agricultural 

Products. 


Manufacture*. 


Valuation of 

Real anil Pergonal 

Property. 




262,000 
3,»2!).214 
31,443,321 
50,152,80ti 










$150,000,000 
2.000.000.(1(10 
2,703,103,800 




1476,808,368 


18(10 
1880 


$1,8SO,000.000 
8,232,160,312 


Hi.l.V.i.OlO.OOS 
58,060,725,903 



In the 170 years preceding 1790, the pop- 
ulation had only increased to 3,929,872, in- 
cluding the negroes; and the taxable valua- 
tion to $479,293,263, including the land. 
In the next 70 years the population in- 
creased eight-fold, and the taxable property 
forty-fold. Of the population the whole in- 
crease was 27,514,107. Of these, 4,138,691 
were immigrants of foreign birth and 4,441,- 
830 were colored, leaving 18,933,586 whites 
of native birth. About 15 per cent, of the 
increase of the 70 years was from immigra- 
tion. The increase in agricultural products 
was eight-fold and of manufactures probabl y 
600 fold, for the British Government had 
prohibited colonial manufactures. The in- 
crease in taxable property was enormous. 

The advance of the next twenty years 
(of which four were years of desolating ami 
destructive war) was still more remarkable. 
In these twenty years the population had 



808 COLONIAL TRADE IMPERIAL RESTRICTIONS EMANCIPATION OF INHABITANTS. 



increased 59.5 percent, or 18,709,545, the 
agricultural productions 38.5 per cent. 
The manufactures had increased 450 per 
cent, and the valuation 360 per cent. As 
this valuation is for purposes of taxation it 
represented only about 60 per cent, of the 
real value of property, and the vast amount 
of property, real and personal, owned by 
the U. S. Government is never estimated. 
The early settlers in all the colonies had 
to depend mostly upon agricultural products, 
first for their own maintenance, and then as 
a means of procuring, by a sale of the sur- 
plus, those manufactured articles which, under 
the rigorous rule of the mother country, they 
were not allowed to produce themselves. 
The early policy of the imperial government 
was to make the colonies a source of profit 
to the mother country, and this was sought 
by restraining the colonists from any pur- 
suit that came in conflict with the industry 
of the mother country, and to confine them 
to the production of such articles as she 
stood most in need of. Those articles they 
were allowed to sell only to the mother 
country, and were to buy what they stood 
in need of only of her. Under those gen- 
eral restrictions the colonists, with little 
capital, and a barren soil at the north, were 
to prosper as they could. Their genius and 
restless energy, however, stood them in stead. 
But they were compelled to encounter new 
restrictions at every turn. The provinces 
were in some cases grants to individuals, and 
in others to companies. This involved, of 
course, their own government. But soon 
the Crown claimed the right of confirming the 
governor. They were forbidden to coin 
money, to sell lands to any but British subjects, 
to cut down pine-trees on any pretence, to 
send wool to any place out of the king's 
dominions, to export any produce except in 
English vessels, of which the master and 
three-fourths of the crew were English. Thus 
every new progress of the colonies, even in 
settling and working the land, was followed 
by a new restraint. But when they began 
to manufacture, new anxieties seized the 
home government. Early in the eighteenth 
century an act of parliament forbade the 
manufacture of hats; and Massachusetts Bay 
gave offence by undertaking the manufacture 
of paper. New York incurred displeasure 
by taxing slaves imported from Africa, five 
ounces of silver each ; and the ire of the 
government was further aroused by the re- 
bellious disposition that prompted the New 



England people to work up their own wool 
and flax into home-spun goods. They also 
attempted to start banks, which parliament 
prohibited; and they forbade the manufac- 
ture of iron beyond the state of pig, and in- 
terdicted foreign-built vessels from the colo- 
nial trade. In spite of all these continually 
multiplying vexations, the colonists contrived 
to find something to do, and the fact that 
they did so kept the home government con- 
tinually upon the "anxious seat." A par- 
liamentary committee was finally appointed 
to look into the manner in which those 
colonists employed their time, and the com- 
mittee of parliament reported as follows: — ' 

" The governor of Massachusetts Bay in- 
formed us that in some parts of this province 
the inhabitants worked up their wool and 
flax into an ordinary coarse cloth for their 
own use, but did not export any. That the 
greatest part of the woollen and linen cloth- 
ing worn in this province was imported from 
Great Britain, and sometimes from Ireland; 
but, considering the excessive price of labor 
in New England, the merchants could afford 
what was imported cheaper than what was 
made in that country. That there were also 
a few hat-makers in the maritime towns; 
and that the greater part of the leather used 
in that country was manufactured among 
themselves. That there had been for many 
years some iron works in that province, which 
had afforded the people iron for some of their 
necessary occasions; but that the iron im- 
ported from Great Britain was esteemed 
much the best, and wholly used by the ship- 
ping. And that the iron works of that 
province were not able to supply the twen- 
tieth part of what was necessary for the use 
of the country. They had no manufactures 
in the province of New York that deserved 
mentioning; their trade consisted chiefly in 
furs, whalebone, oil, pitch, tar, and provi- 
sions. No manufactures in New Jersey that 
deserve mentioning, their trade being chiefly 
in provisions shipped from New York and 
Pennsylvania. The chief trade of Pennsyl- 
vania lay in the exportation of provisions 
and lumber, no manufactures being estab- 
lished, and their clothing and utensils for 
their houses being all imported from Great 
Britain. By further advices from New 
Hampshire, the woollen manufacture appears 
to have decreased, the common lands, on 
which the sheep used to feed, being now 
appropriated, and the people almost wholly 
clothed with woollen from Great Britain. 



COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES. 



809 



The manufacture of flax into linen, some 
coarser, some finer, daily increased by the 
great resort of people from Ireland thither, 
who are well skilled in that business; and 
the chief trade of this province continued, 
as for many years past, in the exportation of 
naval stores, lumber, and fish. By later ac- 
counts from Massachusetts Bay, in New Eng- 
land, the assembly have voted a bounty of 
30s. for every piece of duck or canvas made 
in the province. Some other manufactures 
are carried on there, as brown Hollands for 
women's wear, which lessens the importation 
of calicos, and some other sorts of East India 
goods. They also make some small quan- 
tities of cloth made of linen and cotton, for 
ordinary shirting and sheeting. By a paper- 
mill set up three years ago, they make to 
the value of £200 sterling yearly. There 
are also several forges for making bar-iron, 
and some furnaces for cast-iron or hollow 
ware, and one sitting-mill, and a manufactory 
of nails. The governor writes concerning 
the woollen manufacture, that the country 
people, who used formerly to make most of 
their clothing out of their own wool, do not 
now make a third part of what they wear, 
but are mostly clothed with British manu- 
factures. The same governor (Belcher), by 
some of his letters of an older date, in an- 
swer to our annual queries, writes, that there 
are some few copper mines in this province, 
but so far distant from water-carriage, and 
the ore so poor, that it is not worth the 
digging. The surveyor-general of his Maj- 
esty's woods writes, that they have in New 
England six furnaces and nineteen forges for 
making iron, and that in this province many 
ships are built for the French and Spaniards 
in return for rum, molasses, wines, and silks, 
which they truck there by connivance. Great 
quantities of hats are made in New England, 
of which the company of hatters of London 
have likewise lately complained to us, that 
great quantities of those hats are exported 
to Spain, Portugal, and our West India 
islands. They also make all sorts of iron 
work for shipping. There are several still- 
houses and sugar-bakers established in New 
England. By later advices from New York, 
there are no manufactures there that can 
affect those of Great Britain. There is yearly 
imported into New York a very large quan- 
tity of the woollen manufactures of this king- 
dom for their clothing, which they would be 
rendered incapable to pay for, and would be 
reduced to the necessity of making for them- 



selves, if they were prohibited from receiv- 
ing from the foreign sugar colonies the 
money, rum, sugar, molasses, cocoa, indigo, 
cotton, wool, etc, which they at present 
take in return for provisions, horses, and 
lumber, the produce of thai province and of 
New Jersey, of which he affirms, the British 
sugar colonies do not take off above one-half. 
But the company of hatters of London have 
since informed us, that hats are manufac- 
tured in great quantities in this province. 
By the last letters from the deputy-governor 
of Pennsylvania, he does not know of any 
trade carried on in that province that can be 
injurious to this kingdom. They do not ex- 
port any woollen or linen manufactures, all 
that they make, which are of a Coarser sort, 
being for their own use. We are further 
informed that in this province are built many 
brigantines and small sloops, which they sell 
to the West Indies. The governor of Rhode 
Island informs us, in answer to our queries, 
that there are iron mines there, but not a 
fourth part iron enough to serve their own 
use ; but he takes no notice of any sort of 
manufacture set up there. No return from 
the governor of Connecticut ; but we find, by 
some accounts, that the produce of this col- 
ony is timber, boards, all sorts of English 
grain, hemp, flax, sheep, black cattle, swine, 
horses, goats, and tobacco; that they export 
horses and lumber to the West Indies, and 
receive in return sugar, salt, molasses, and 
rum. We likewise find that their manufac- 
tures are very inconsiderable, the people 
there being generally employed in tillage, 
some few in tanning, shoemaking. and other 
handicrafts; others in the building, and 
joiners', tailors', and smiths' work, without 
which they could not subsist." 

The old northern colonics in America had, 
it is well known, very few articles fit for the 
British market, and yet they every year took 
off large quantities of merchandise from Great 
Britain, for which they made payments with 
tolerable regularity. Although they could 
not, like the Spanish colonists, dig the money 
out of their own soil, yet they found means 
to make a great part of their remittances in 
gold and silver dug out of the Spanish mines. 
This they effected by being general carriers, 
and by a circuitous eommerce carried on in 
small vessels, chiefly with the foreign West 
India settlements, to which they carried lum- 
ber of all sorts, fish of an inferior quality, 
beef, pork, butter, horses, poultry and other 
live stock, an inferior kind of tobacco, corn, 



810 COLONIAL TRADE IMPERIAL RESTRICTIONS EMANCIPATION OF INHABITANTS. 



flour, bread, cider, and even apples, cab- 
bages, onions, etc., and also vessels built at 
a small expense, the materials being almost 
all within themselves ; for which they re- 
ceived in return silver and gold, some of 
which remained as current coin among them- 
selves, but the greatest part was remitted 
home to Britain, and, together with bills of 
exchange, generally remitted to London, for 
the proceeds of their best fish, sold in the 
Roman Catholic countries of Europe, served 
to pay for the goods they received from the 
mother country. This trade united all the 
advantages which the wisest and most phil- 
anthropic philosopher, or the most enlight- 
ened legislator, could wish to derive from 
commerce." It gave bread to the industrious 
in North America by carrying off their lum- 
ber, which must otherwise rot on their hands, 
and their fish, great part of which without it 
would be absolutely unsaleable, together with 
their spare produce, and stock of every kind. 
It furnished the West India planters with 
those articles without which the operations 
of their plantations must be at a stand, and 
it produced a fund for employing a great 
number of industrious manufacturers in Great 
Britain : thus taking off the superfluities, 
providing for the necessities, and promoting 
the happiness of all concerned. This trade, 
however, was almost entirely ruined by the 
rigorous execution of the orders against 
smuggling and the collection of the duties 
in hard silver, which soon drained the country 
of any little real money circulating in at. 
And, as if government had intended to pre- 
vent the colonists from having even the 
shadow of money, another act was passed in 
a few days after that for the new duties, de- 
claring that no paper bills to be henceforth 
issued should be made a legal tender in pay- 
ment, and enjoining those in circulation to 
be sunk (that is, paid off in hard money) at 
the limited time. That vast quantities of 
goods were imported, in direct violation of 
the letter and spirit of the law and of the 
commercial system of the mother country, 
there is no doubt. But it could not well be 
otherwise in a country so remote from the 
government to which it professed allegiance, 
and possessing an extent of coast which no 
chain of revenue cruisers that could be sup- 
ported by government would be sufficient to 
guard with any kind of effect. The soil of 
the New England provinces scarcely furnish- 
ed provisions sufficient to support the in- 
habitants. Their industry had therefore been 



chiefly directed to the sea — to fishing, nav- 
igation, and the various branches of business 
subservient to them. The cod, salmon, mack- 
erel, sturgeon, and other species offish which 
frequented the coasts and rivers in prodig- 
ious shoals, afforded employment to great 
numbers in taking, curing, and packing them. 
The New Englandcrs also frequented the 
banks and coasts of Newfoundland, and the 
fishing grounds in the Gulf of St. Lawrence 
as far as the coasts of Labrador. Besides 
their own fishing, they procured from the 
Newfoundland fishermen a part of the fish 
taken by them in exchange for rum of their 
own manufacture, and other articles of Amer- 
ican and West India produce. The follow- 
ing record of rum exported from the colonies 
now forming the United States (chiefly from 
New England) to the provinces of Nova 
Scotia, Quebec, and Newfoundland, affords 
a specimen of the extent of that trade during 
a few years preceding the revolution : — 

1770. 1771. 1772. 1773. 
West India mm, gallons 52,712 36,873 47,736 50.716 
American rum, " 590,748 55n,514 520,525 608,0^5 



643,460 587,387 568,261 658,741 

The fish, after being sorted in the harbors, 
were shipped off to the countries for which 
each quality was best adapted. The best 
were carried to the southern parts of Europe, 
and the proceeds were generally remitted to 
Great Britain in bills of exchange to pay for the 
goods they had occasion for. A small quan- 
tity of the best fish was also sent to Britain, 
and the inferior sorts were destined to give 
a relish to the plantains and yams which 
constituted the principal part of the food of 
the negro slaves in the West Indies. After 
the peace of 1763, the whale fishery increas- 
ed in the seas between the New England 
coasts and Labrador, in consequence of the 
encouragement given to it by the great re- 
duction of the duties on the oil and whale 
fins, so much, that instead of eighty or ninety 
sloops, which had gone upon the whale 
fishery, they employed 160 in that business 
before the year 1775, and the other branches 
of their fishery increased in the same pro- 
portion. In addition to the commerce sup- 
ported by the produce of their fisheries, they 
drove a very profitable circuitous carrying 
trade, which greatly enriched them, and 
supplied most of the money in circulation. 
Besides building vessels for the service of 
their own commerce, they built great num- 
bers, but of no very good quality of wood 
or workmanship, for sale; and from the 



COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES. 



811 



molasses, winch they brought in great quan- 
tities from the West Indies (chiefly from the 
French islands), they distilled rum, which, 
though much inferior to that of the West 
Indies, was very acceptable to the Indians, 
who readily received it in exchange for their 
furs and peltry. They also found a great 
sale lor it among the fishermen ; consider- 
able quantities of it were shipped to Africa, 
and exchanged for slaves, or sold to the 
resident European slave merchants fur gold 
dust, ivory, woods, wax, and gums. The 
candles made of spermaceti, furnished by the 
whale fishery, formed also an article of ex- 
port to the amount of three or four hundred 
thousand pounds weight in a year, besides 
what were consumed upon the continent. 
Their exports to Great Britain consisted 
chiefly of fish-oil, whalebone (or fins), masts 
and other spars, to which were added several 
raw materials for manufactures collected in 
their circuitous trading voyages, and a bal- 
ance paid in foreign gold and silver coins. 
In- short, their earnest application to fisheries 
and the carrying trade, together with their 
unremitting attention to the most minute 
article which could be made to yield a profit, 
obtained them the appellation of the Dutch- 
men of America. New York, New Jersey, 
Pennsylvania, and Delaware have a much 
better soil than that of the New England 
provinces, and they then, as now, produced 
corn and cattle of all kinds in great abun- 
dance, and also hemp, flax, and lumber; to 
which may be added iron, potashes, and pearl- 
ashes. Their exports were corn of all kinds, 
flour and bread in great quantities, salted 
provisions of all sorts, live stock, including 
horses, horned cattle, hogs and sheep, and 



all kinds of poultry in great numbers, flax 
and hemp, hoards, scantling, staves, Bhingles, 
and wooden houses framed ami ready to tit 
up, iron in pigs and bars, and vessels, supe- 
rior in workmanship to those of New Eng- 
land. Their chief markets for these com- 
modities were the British and foreign West 
Indies, Spain, Portugal, the Western islands, 
Madeira and the Canary islands, whence they 
carried home the produce of each country 
and bullion. Great Britain and Ireland re- 
ceived from them iron, hemp, flax, feed, 
some lumber, and skins and furs, the prod- 
uce of their trade with the Indians, together 
with some articles of their imports from other 
provinces and from foreign countries, which 
were raw materials for British manufactures 
and bullion. Maryland and Virginia almost 
from their first settlement made tobacco the 
principal object of their culture, and it long 
continued to constitute the most valuable 
export of British America; but the quantity 
of tobacco was diminishing in these provinces 
for many years before the revolution, owing 
to the soil being exhausted by it, and the 
planters had turned much of their tobacco 
land to the cultivation of wheat and other 
grain. Their tobacco could by law be ex- 
ported only to Great Britain ; but their corn, 
Hour, lumber, etc., were carried to the West 
Indies and elsewhere. North Carolina pro- 
duced also some tobacco, and it furnished 
pitch, tar, and turpentine, of which about 
130,000 barrels were annually exported, 
whereof the greatest part came to Britain. 
The following accounts, copied from those 
of the custom-house, for the year nearly 
preceding the revolution, show the exports 
of the then colonies of America: — 



AN ACCOUNT OF THE VALUE, IN STERLING MONET, OF THE EXPORTS OF THE SEVERAL PROVINCES UNDERMENTIONED, 



IN THE YEAR 1770. 

To Great Britain. To South of Europe. To West Indies. To Africa. 



Total. 



142,775 12 9 






New Hampshire 
Massachusetts 
Rhode Island 
Connecticut 

New York 

New Jersey. . . . 
Pennsylvania.. . 

^ ar >: land i 759,961 5 

v lrginia ) 

North Carolina ) 

South Carolina ) 

Georgia , 



113,382 8 
28,112 6 



405,014 13 
82,270 2 



£. s. 

' 464 

76,702 

1,440 11 

2,567 4 

"50,885 13 



s. d. 



203,952 11 11 
( 66,555 11 11 
j 73,635 3 4 
I 3,238 3 7 
| 72,881 9 3 
614 2 



£. s. d. £. s. d. 

40,431 8 4 96 11 3' 

123,394 6 9,801 9 10 

65,206 13 2 7,814 19 8 

79,395 7 6 

66.324 17 5 1,313 2 6 831,906 1 7 

2,531 16 5 2,531 16 5 

178,331 7 8 560 9 9 410,756 16 1 

22,303 9 2 

68,946 9 1 

27,944 7 9 11 15 4 { Be9 fi84 ,, ■> 

59,814 11 6 619 10 9 J B68 ' 584 " 3 

13,285 15 1 96,169 19 4 



550,089 19 2 



£ 991,401 18 6 



Total £1,531,516 8 6 £552,937 11 2 £747,910 3 7 £20,277 19 1 £2,852,441 8 4 

The exports of North Carolina to the West I corn, peas, etc. But its foreign trade was 
Indies consisted mostly of salt pork, Indian | very trifling in proportion to its great extent, 



812 COLONIAL TRADE IMPERIAL RESTRICTIONS EMANCIPATION OF INHABITANTS. 



and even to the quantity of its productions, 
and was mostly in the hands of the merchants 
of the adjacent provinces of Virginia and 
South Carolina, and of the New Englanders. 
In South Carolina and Georgia rice and in- 
digo Avcre the staple articles. The former 
grows on the marshy grounds near the coast, 
and the latter on the dry soil of the inland 
country. The planters had for some time 
applied themselves to the culture of tobacco ; 
it was not until later that the cultivation of 
cotton was introduced. They made then 
considerable quantities of lumber. Their 
exports consisted of these articles ; and the 
merchants of Charleston also shipped some 
skins obtained by trade with the neighboring 
Indians, and part of the produce of North 
Carolina. 

The chief dependence of the colonies for 
the means of turning their industry to ac- 
count, was thus apparently the West India 
trade. Every interest in England had been 
protected at the expense of the colonies, and 
the united restrictions had resulted in a larger 
West India trade. The government now 
came in to protect itself, and, to raise a rev- 
enue, laid a heavy tax upon the West India 
trade in 17 64. 

The burdens of the colonists were getting 
rather too many and heavy, and the people 
more and more disposed to question the 
utility of a connection which was enforced 
avowedly that the colonists might be hewers 
of wood and drawers of water for the service 
of the mother country. The first movement 
in view of the fact that the cutting off of 
their trade would prevent them from buying 
of the mother country, was to enter into an 
association to abstain from British goods, 
and to manufacture for themselves. Then 
commenced an active struggle. Surveyors- 
general were sent to America, stamp duties 
levied, and all the stamped paper sent out 
from England was burnt up by the colonists 
as soon as it arrived. The merchants enter- 
ed into an agreement to import- no more 
goods from Great Britain, aud a manufac- 
turing society was established. Woollen 
factoring became the rage, and so far was it 
carried, that resolutions were passed not to 
eat lamb, and not to patronise any butcher 
who killed lambs. They resolved to send 
no more tobacco to England. These reso- 
lutions caused a great revulsion in England 
among those who could get no remittance 
and those who had made goods for the Amer- 
ican market. The government felt the force 



of this pressure, and the stamp act was re- 
pealed; but, at the same time, the moral 
effect of the repeal was destroyed by the 
declaration that the acts of parliament bound 
the colonies. Then followed more duties, 
more regulations, more resistance, increasing 
anger on both sides, until, in the year 1775, 
parliament prohibited all trade with Amer- 
ica, and the united colonies opened their 
ports to all nations. During the war which 
ensued, the business of the country of course 
suffered ; but a very extensive illegal trade 
was carried on by some of the high officers 
of the English government, who, under li- 
censes granted to carry stores and provisions 
for the army, cleared vessels for Boston, 
Halifax, or Quebec, with liberty to go to any 
other port, and sent cargoes of general mer- 
chandise for sale at great profits. 

These events closed colonial trade. The • 
high profits to be derived from the sale of 
goods and produce during the war were 
too tempting to permit trade altogether to 
cease, notwithstanding the acts of Congress. 
Lord Sheffield states that one ship in par- 
ticular cleared from London for New York, 
but went directly to Boston, where her cargo 
sold at 270 per cent, profit. Many cargoes 
were paid for in cash before they left Eng- 
land, on account of the risk. The cities in 
the United States in the power of the British 
were crowded with the faithful; at the same 
time the surrounding back country did not 
sympathise with them, and, as a consequence, 
provisions were very scarce and high. This 
gave rise to a clandestine trade, by which a 
vessel would be loaded with produce and 
sent to a particular spot, where, through con- 
nivance, she would be " captured," and her 
cargo sold as a prize, at very high prices, to 
the profit of both captors and owners. Amer- 
ican produce also found its way to Europe. 

With the year 1783 came peace, and with 
it a new era opened in the world's commerce. 
Britain had always treated the colonies as 
having no rights, and she was now required 
to treat with them as equals, not only in a 
political and commercial sense, but as rivals 
on the ocean, which she had hitherto affected 
to rule. The United States were then in by 
no means a prosperous condition. Their com- 
merce had been ruined by the war ; the few 
manufactures which had been forced into 
being during the difficulties had to encoun- 
ter ruinous competition from imports with 
the return of peace ; the country was Hooded 
with depreciated paper money, of which over 



V 



COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES. 



813 



$360,000,000 had been issued. The states 
were in debt $20,000,000, and the federal 
government $42,000,375 ; specie had mostly 
disappeared from circulation, and the country 
was without a mint, or a regular system of 
finance. Private credit was greatly impaired. 
The collection of debts had been suspended 
during the war, and with the return of peace 
the courts were rilled with suits; while the 
markets were flooded with goods beyond 
the power of purchase. The several states 
exercised the power of issuing paper money, 
and making it a legal tender for debts, and 
each exercised the right of imposing duties 
upon imports and exports. All these evils 
were producing the most disastrous results, 
and in Massachusetts an open insurrection, 
known as Shays's rebellion, threatened not 
only the peace of that state, but the exist- 
ence of the Union, which, indeed, was very 
feeble under the confederation. In Septem- 
ber, 1787, the present constitution was finally 
adopted, and the work of construction 
commenced. The leading measures adopted 
did not come fully into operation until 1791, 
when the custom-houses, the mint, the bank, 
the post-office, commercial treaties, and du- 
ties on imports, with the restrictions upon 
the states as to levying duties, coining money, 
making paper a legal tender, and minor 
regulations, were put in force. 

The power granted to Congress by the 
new constitution, of levying duties upon 
goods imported into the country, met the 
exigencies of the case. The states had been 
repeatedly and vigorously called upon to pro- 
vide the means of meeting the public debt 
and expenses, and it was urged upon them 
that independent means granted to it was 
the only way by which the federal govern- 
ment could sustain its position. This power, 
with that to levy direct taxes, was finally 
obtained by Congress under the constitution 
of 1787. In the meantime the exports of 
the country w r ere actively resumed with the 
cessation of hostilities. There were, how- 
ever, no means of knowing the actual state 
of trade until the adoption of the regulations 
under the constitution of 1791. The trade 
was, however, very active. The desire to 
trade on both sides was great ; and no sooner 
was peace declared, than the king by proc- 
lamation removed all legal restraints upon 
intercourse with the United States, dispens- 
ing for a limited time with a manifest, certifi- 
cate, or other Legal document on the arrival 
of any vessel belonging to the United States 





Export- to 




Gri'iii Britain 


1784, 


£74:'..:; 15 


1785, 


893,594 


1786, 


843,119 


1787, 


893,637 


1788, 


1,023,789 


1789, 


1,050,198 


1790, 


1,191,071 



in Great Britain, American vessels generally 
were placed upon the footing of colonial ves- 
sels, Although there were no United States 
official returns, the English custom-house 

returns show the trade between the two 
countries for that period as follows: — 

Imports from 
Great Hrituin. 

£3,670,467 
2,308,023 
1,603,465 
2,009,111 
1.886,142 
2,525,298 
3,431. 77S 

The imports from Great Britain alone, in 
the two first vcars of peace, must have been 
nearly $30,000,000, or $10 per head of the 
people against an export of $9,000,000, and 
were sufficient cause for much distress. This 
was, however, of a nature which would natu- 
rally cure itself, since it involved a fall in 
prices that would promote exports and check 
imports, and these were more nearly equal- 
ized in 1788. 

In that year, however, a new event gave a 
great impulse to American exports. The 
French government had previously made a 
free trade treaty with England ; and in 1787, 
under the liberal sentiments which that gov- 
ernment espoused, they issued a decree, 
placing American citizens commercially on 
the same footing as Frenchmen, and admit- 
ting American produce free of duty. Under 
this regulation, the United States exported 
in 1788, 246,480 tierces of rice, 140,959 
barrels of flour, 3,064,176 bushels of wheat, 
558,891 bushels of rye, 520,262 bushels of 
barley. These figures represent very large 
exports for the state of the country at that 
time, when the population was small, and the 
farm produce drawn altogether, from the 
Atlantic states of the country. The farms of 
the Hudson river and its milling powers wero 
then in great requisition. The fisheries had 
large sales, and the south exported freely its 
rice. The enjoyment of the French and Eng- 
lish trade gave a great impulse to the shipping 
interest, and the United States were rapid- 
ly growing into a power whose influence was 
felt in all the commercial relations of Eng- 
land; The political difficulties of Europe 

were also taking a new shape. The failure 
of the harvests hastened the march of affairs, 
and a new war between France and England 
left in the hands of the United States the carry- 
ing trade ofthe world. While American ship- 
ping was called upon to supply raw materials 



814 COLONIAL TRADE IMPERIAL RESTRICTIONS EMANCIPATION OF INHABITANTS. 



and food for England and western Europe, 
it was also called upon to carry between Euro- 
pean countries and their colonics. French 
ships could no longer safely trade with the 
West Indies, the Spanish merchants and 
government depended upon neutral flags 
to convey their merchandise and treasures, 
and even the English preferred the safety of 
third bottoms for the transport of their goods. 
The insurrection in St. Domingo, and the 
events in other islands, drove great numbers 
of persons to the United States, and many 
fortunes were founded. That of Stephen 
Girard received a great accession from the 
wealth placed on board his ships by persons 
who were slaughtered in the attempt to fol- 
low. The activity with which American 
shipping was employed in those years did 
not prevent them from seeking new trade in 
the east, and an American ship made its 
appearance in the China seas, in a com- 
merce which has not ceased to grow to 
the present day. The period was marked 
by the development of the most enter- 
prising genius in mercantile adventure. 
The fame of William Gray, of Boston, soon 
became world-wide, and was as honored in 
the east as it was in the west. His ships 
navigated every sea, and employed hundreds 
of hardy men. The skilful and bold seamen 
who commanded his ships were not of the 
later class of " dandy captains," who came in 
with the " liners," but it was his saying that 
the best captains would sail with a load of 
fish to the West Indies, hang up a stocking 
in the cabin and put therein the hard dollars 
as they sold the fish, and pay out from it as 
they bought the rum, or molasses, or sugar, 
tie up the balance, and hand it into the 
counting-house on their arrival home, in lieu 
of all accounts. The honesty and judgment 
of their proceedings were beyond question ; 
and the problem of profits between the fish 
sent and the cargo and stocking returned, 
was for the clerks to solve. The genius for 
plotting long and intricate voyages belonged 
to the head of the house. New York, in 
John Jacob Astor, had still a more extensive 
operator. lie first projected the enterprises 
to the north-west coast, and laid out schemes 
which required ten years to ripen, with pro- 
found skill, and his name was known through- 
out the world. Philadelphia had an exponent 
of her commercial power in Stephen Girard, 
whose enterprises belonged to the same pe- 
riod of large operations and bold conduct. 
The Patersons of Baltimore led the com- 



merce of that city ; and behind these leading 
names came a crowd of great merchants — 
for the mercantile intellect seemed as active 
in that day as was military, political, and 
literary genius both on this continent and 
throughout the world. 

With the year 1791 the new government 
of the United States, under the constitution 
adopted 1*787, came into operation, and from 
that date regular official figures of the an- 
nual progress of the national commerce have 
been published. The leading changes pro- 
duced by that event were the abolishment 
of all state laws imposing duties upon im- 
ports and exports; the creation of a tariff 
by Congress ; the establishment of a mint, a 
national bank, a post-office ; the funding of 
the government circulating paper, the with' 
drawal of all state issues, and the enactment 
of a navigation law in retaliation of the 
English law. The general course of trade 
proceeded, however, much as before, until 
it encountered the interruption that grew 
out of the European war. A few years of 
this prosperity excited the ire of the bel- 
ligerents, and England could no longer re- 
frain from treating the Americans still as 
colonists. In 1793 she issued an order to 
prevent food from being carried to any port 
occupied by French troops, and also to pre- 
vent American vessels from trading between 
France and her colonies. She also exercised 
the right of impressing American seamen to 
man her navy. Under these and other or- 
ders, American merchants had been robbed 
of large amounts of property. The com- 
plaints thus created threatened war; but it 
was arrested by a treaty concluded by Mr. 
Jay, under which $10,000,000 indemnity was 
paid. This treaty gave umbrage to France, 
which also seized American vessels ; but the 
first consul put an end to the complaints in 
1800. England had, however, in view of 
the apparently progressive difficulties in 
Europe, revived the principle she had laid 
down in 1756, viz. : that neutrals could carry 
on no trade in time of war that they had not 
pursued in time of peace : in other words, 
that American ships should not do the French 
carrying trade. Her next step, in May, 1806, 
was to promulgate the unheard-of and absurd 
edict, that Europe was in a state of blockade 
from the Elbe to Brest. The import of this 
was, that American ships should visit none 
of those ports. This monstrous pretension, 
in addition to some minor orders, drew from 
Napoleon, November, 1806, his Berlin de- 



COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATE*. 



815 



cree in retaliation, prohibiting all intercourse 
with the British islands. This was replied 
to, by Great Britain declaring France and 
her colonies in a state of blockade. To 
these insane edicts on both sides succeeded 
others, which so multiplied the difficulties of 
commerce that the United States government, 
to avoid war, laid an embargo upon com- 
merce in 1808. It was not to be expected, 
however, that when the chief interests of the 
country were commercial, that such a mea- 
sure should be otherwise than very unpopu- 
lar, and the government changed it, in 1809, 
to non-intercourse with France and Great 
Britain. Notwithstanding all the troubles 
thrown in the way of commerce by the edicts 
of France and England, the American mer- 
chants contrived to carry on a large traffic. 
Under Bonaparte's continental system, which 
sought to exclude colonial and British pro- 
ductions, produce was very scarce and high 
in Europe. The emperor, to remedy the 
matter, offered high premiums for the in- 
vention of substitutes for many articles, such 
as indigo, cane sugar, coffee, etc. To those 
premiums are due the large use now made 



of chicory-root as a substitute for coffee. 
It originated in Germany, hut has since 
spread to England and the United States. 
Beet-root sugar, which has become so large 
an industry in France and Germany, being 
equal in consumption to cane, originated in 
the same manner. Nevertheless, all com- 
modities were very high, and when a cargo 
could be got in, it realized a fortune. To 
get them in was the problem ; and this was 
usually done by fees, or pots de vin, which, 
were mostly appropriated by Talleyrand and 
Fouche, and afterward rights were openlv sold 
by the emperor to raise money. Jerome Bon- 
aparte, who died so recently, had married, in 
1 803, Miss Paterson, of Baltimore, a direct de- 
scendant of " Old Mortality," immortalized by 
Scott in a novel. The Paterson interest 
with Jerome was the means of procuring 
admission for many a valuable cargo. In- 
terest and enterprise effected much, and few 
merchants desired to lose all chance through 
the intervention of their own government.. 
Nevertheless, the embargo took place in 
1808. The progress of trade from 1790 to 
1808, was as follows: — 



IAIPOUTS 


AND EXTORTS 


OF THE UNITED 


STATES, AND TONNAGE IN THE 


FOREIGN TRADE. 




Tonnage. 


I)nm. exports. 


For. exports. 


Total exports. 


Import*. 


1790, 


474,374 


$19,666,000 


$539,156 


$20,205,156 


$23,000,000 


1791, 


502,146 


18.500,000 


512,041 


19 012 041 


29,200,000 


1792, 


564,457 


19,000.000 


1,753,098 


20,753,098 


31.500.000 


1793, 


520,764 


24,000,000 


2,109,572 


26,109,572 


31,100,000 


1794, 


628,618 


26,500,000 


6,526.233 


33,026,233 


::4.GOO,000 


1795, 


747,965 


39 500,000 


8,489,472 


47,989.472 


69,756,268 


1796, 


831,899 


40,764,097 


26,300,000 


67,064097 


81,436,164 


1797, 


876,913 


29,850,026 


27,000,000 


56,850,206 


75,379,406 


1798, 


898,328 


28,527,097 


33,000,000 


01,527.097 


68,551,700 


1799, 


939,400 


33,142.522 


45,523,000 


78,665,522 


»9,069,1 18 


1800, 


972,492 


31,840,903 


39,130,877 


70,971,780 


91,262,768 


1801, 


947,577 


47,473,204 


46,642.721 


94.115.925 


111,363,511 


1802, 


892,104 


36,708,189 


35.77J.971 


72.483,160 


76,333,333 


1803, 


949.172 


42,205,961 


13.594.072 


55.800,033 


64,666,666 


1804, 


1,042,404 


41,467,477 


36,231,597 


77,699,074 


85,000,000 


1805, 


1,140.368 


42,387,002 


53,179,019 


95,566,021 


120,600,000 


1806, 


1,208,716 


41,253,727 


60,283,236 


101,536,963 


1 2 9,4 10, 000 


1807. 


1,268,548 


48,699,592 


59,643,558 


108,343,150 


138,500,000 



In the period here embraced there oc- 
curred many events which had a very lasting 
and important bearing upon the future of the 
United States. The temporary free trade 
with France had imparted a sudden impulse 
to the export of farm produce. The wars 
that succeeded greatly enlarged the sphere 
of action for the shipping, and we find in the 
table that the imports of goods rose year by 
year from 23,000,000 in 1790 to 138,000,- 
000 in 1807. Of these large imports, how- 
ever, it appears, from the column of exports 
of foreign merchandise, a large portion was 
42 



re-exported, forming the carrying trade be- 
tween the countries of Europe and their 
colonies, that the war threw into the Ameri- 
can bottoms, and which passed through 
American ports. A large portion of this 
trade was paid in money in England, form- 
ing those credits which were transferred by 
the Americans to the English, in payment 
of merchandise thence imported. Thus the 
trade was generally in favor of England 
with the United States, and in favor 01 the 
latter with Europe. Now, as England could 
have no direct trade with Europe during the 



816 COLONIAL TRADE IMPERIAL RESTRICTIONS EMANCIPATION OF INHABITANTS. 



war, and yet was compelled to send funds 
thither for political purposes, the credits she 
received from the Americans were of vast 
service to her. It was in the conduct of that 
trade that the tonnage multiplied to the ex- 
tent seen in the column. The amount 
increased from 474,374 tons in 1790, 
to over 1,260,000 tons in 1807, or an 
increase in capital so employed from $15,- 
000,000 to $50,000,000 The wealth of the 
country was thus rapidly increasing in a 
foreign trade, which formed one-half of the 
whole commerce. The fisheries were very 
active and nourishing ; the agricultural in- 
terest prospered under the large exports and 
high prices, and manufactures began to be 
actively developed. The Secretary of the 
Treasury, Mr. Hamilton, in his celebrated 
report upon manufactures in 1791, says: 
" It is certain that several important branches 
have grown up and flourished with a rapidity 
that surprises, affording an encouraging assur- 
ance of successive future attempts." Among 
those enumerated as then flourishing are 
leather, iron, wood, flax, bricks, paper, hats, 
carriages, etc. It was computed that four- 
fifths of all the clothing of the inhabitants 
•was made by themselves, and that great 
• quantities of coarse cloths for table and bed- 
ding were manufactured in households. All 
these industries pertained mostly to the 
north, and their surplus formed at that time 
•most of the exports of the whole country. 
The southern states were possessed of 600,- 
000 blacks, for whom there was no adequate 
employment. They were mostly engaged 
upon the production of tobacco and rice, but 
the market for them was not such as to 



afford much encouragement for the future. 
The increase of blacks who were not earning 
their support was not regarded with favor 
by southern statesmen under such circum- 
stances : hence the incorporation into the 
federal constitution of the inhibition of the 
slave trade after 1808. That provision was 
resisted by the New England shipowners, 
of whose business the transportation of blacks, 
as a return cargo, after carrying produce to 
England, formed an important part. An 
event occurred in 1793, however, which 
wrought an entire change in the business of 
the country and the prospects of the south. 
Up to that time a little cotton had been 
raised, but the difficulty of freeing it from 
the seed was such that one hand could clean 
but 1 lb. per day, and even at 30 cents per 
lb. it was not profitable, under such condi- 
tions. The mode of carding and spinning 
it was also laborious and slow. At about 
that period the steam-engine in England was 
introduced as a motive power, and such in- 
ventions were made in the process of carding 
and spinning cotton as to enable one man to 
do the work that required 2,\100 by old 
methods. These were the conditions of an 
immense demand for the raw material. Prov- 
identially, precisely at that juncture, 1793, 
Eli Whitney, of Massachusetts, invented 
the cotton-gin, by which one hand, in- 
stead of only 1 lb., could clean 360 lbs. per 
day. Thus the market for cotton, and the 
means of preparing it, were both provided 
at once, and they were thenceforth to furnish 
the chief employment for American ships. 
The items of domestic exports in the above 
table were therefore varied as follows : — 



Cotton. Tobacco. Flour & provisions. Rice. 

1700, $42,285 $4,349,567 $5,991,171 $1,753,796 

1803, 7,920,000 6,209.000 15,050,000 2,455,000 

1807, 14,232,000 5,470,000 15,706,000 2,307,000 



Manufactures. Total. 

$12,136,819 
2.000,000 31,179,000 

2,309,000 44,002,400 



Thus cotton in a few years came to form 
nearly one-third of the whole exports, there- 
by supplying to the shipping in 1808 a com- 
pensating freight for the blacks, who were 
no longer to be imported. That cotton trade 
has not ceased to grow to the present day, 
and with ever increasing importance. It 
has supplied not only the manufacturers of 
Europe with raw material, but also those 
of the northern states. The impulse thus 
given to the cotton culture produced a vital 
change in the condition of the south, and 
this change is well indicated in the charge 
made by Judge Johnson, -of Savannah, in 



1807, in the case of a suit brought by Whit 
ney to make good his claim to his patent. 

" The whole of the interior," said Judge 
Johnson, "was languishing, and its inhabit- 
ants were emigrating, for want of some object 
to engage their attention and employ their 
industry, when the invention of this machine 
(the gin) at once opened views to thcr 
which set the whole country in active mc 
tion. From childhood to age it has pre 
sented to us a lucrative employment. Indi- 
viduals who were depressed with poverty 
and sunk in idleness have suddenly risep to 
wealth and respectability. Our debts have 



COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES. 



817 



been paid off, our capitals have increased, 
and our lands doubled in value. We cannot 
express the weight of obligation which the 
country owes to this invention. The extent 
of it cannot now be seen." 

In these words we have the proof of the 
utter depression that then existed at the 
south, affording a strong contrast to the im- 
mense wealth that has since been developed. 

The kinds and quantities of goods import- 
ed into the country were adapted to the 
wants of the people at that time, when lux- 
uries had by no means so large a share of 
the public taste as is now the case. The 
homespun goods of the country were to be 
gradually supplanted by machine goods as 
these improved and cheapened, and they did 
so rapidly under the influence of larger sup- 
plies of raw material, operated upon by the 
most astonishing inventions in new machines, 
and the improved scientific processes applied 
to the manufacture. The American manu- 
facturers were required to withstand not only 
the competition of the large capital and 
cheap labor of England, but the constant 
effects of new inventions, of which the first- 
fruits were manifest in imported goods. They 
therefore grew but slowly, and hardware, 
dry goods, and other leading branches of 
merchandise, continued to be imported. The 



aggregate amount retained in the country 
for consumption did not materially increase 
in the ten years up to 1807. 

All branches of industry were in a high 
state of prosperity, when the course of events 
brought on the embargo, which produced 
an immense change in the course of affairs. 
All those interests that had thriven so well 
since the peace of 1783, became suddenly 
depressed by the circumstances which gave 
an impulse to manufacture. The raw mate- 
rial and farm produce which had been so 
actively exported now accumulated on hand 
at falling prices, tempting the manufacturer 
to employ the labor no longer occupied with 
commercial interests, and a new order of in- 
dustry sprang into being. Trade was, how- 
ever, not entirely interrupted; many coast- 
ing vessels, with suitable cargoes, were by 
pretended stress of weather driven into 
foreign ports, and the United States courts 
were filled with suits brought for ^reaches of 
the embargo acts. Under the non-inter- 
course act of 1809, business recovered to 
some extent, only to encounter those new 
vexations which brought on the war of 1812. 
That event rather changed the course of 
trade than interrupted it, and was succeeded 
by a greater degree of activity than ever. 
The imports and exports were as follows : — ■ 





Tonnage. 


Domestic exports. 


Foreign exports. 


Total exports. 


Total imports 


1808, 


1,247,596 


$9,433,546 


$12,997,414 


$22,430,960 


$56,990,000 


1809, 


1,350,281 


31,405,700 


20,797,531 


52,203,231 


5iU00,000 


1810, 


1,424,784 


42,366,679 


24,391,295 


66,757,974 


85,400,000 


1811, 


1,232,502 


45,294,041 


16,022,790 


61,316,831 


83,400,000 


1812, 


1.269,997 


30,032,109 


8.49.'., 1 'J 7 


38,527,236 


77,030,000 


1813, 


1,166,629 


25,008,152 


2,847,845 


27,855,997 


22.0(15.000 


1814, 


1,159.210 


6,782,272 


145,169 


6,927.111 


12,965,000 


1815, 


1.368,127 


45,974.403 


6,583.350 


52,557,753 


113,041,274 


1816, 


1,372,2.18 


64,781.896 


17,138,556 


81,920,452 


147, 103,700 


1817, 


1,399,911 


' 68^313,500 


19,358,069 


87,671,569 


99,250,373 


1818, 


1,225.184 


73.854,437 


19.426,096 


93,280,533 


121.750,000 


1819, 


1,260,751 


50,976.838 


19,165,683 


70,142,521 


NT. 125,000 


1820, 


1,280,166 


51,683,640 


18,008,029 


69,691,669 


74.150,000 




$545,907,213 


$185,376,954 


$731,284,167 


$1,039,910,:147 



The large carrying trade thr': had existed 
in foreign produce gradually perished on the 
return of peace in Europe, throwingmuch ton- 
nage out of employ ; and domestic produce, 
although it found its way abroad to some ex- 
tent, still fell in value, and accumulated in 
quantity in the home ports. Cotton in par- 
ticular felt the want of the foreign market, 
although its presence in New Orleans be- 
came an instrument in the great triumph of 
our American troops over the British vet- 
erans who had just driven the French out 



of Spain. The same men who had routed 
the legions of Napoleon embarked at Bor- 
deaux for New Orleans, to fall before the 
cotton hags defended by Jackson and his 
gallant hand. 

The course of events that had been pro- 
ductive of so much prosperity from 1783 to 
1808, was followed in the next Beven \ ears 
by commercial disasters, it is true, hut those 
disasters were relieved by the brilliant posi- 
tion assumed by the United States among 
the nations of the earth as a naval power. 



818 



COLONIAL TRADE IMPERIAL RESTRICTIONS EMANCIPATION OF INHABITANTS. 



The American tonnage, which increased to 
over 1,000,000 in 1807, had given employ- 
ment to large numbers of hardy and skilful 
seamen, men whose professional skill and 
nautical daring had already made them fa- 
mous, and had incited Great Britain to those 
impressments by which she sought to ob- 
tain the services of such able men. When 
her conduct drove the American government 
to embargo commerce, the employment of 
ships and men became restrained, and their 
daring manifested itself in infractions of the 
iaw. Non-intercourse and war drove them 
altogether out of employment, and they 
crowded into the navy and privateers. Up 
to that time England was the admitted mis- 
tress of the seas. Every nation in Europe 
had been driven from the contest. The 
best fleets of Napoleon, invincible upon land, 
had invariably struck to the British flag, and 
the feeble nation upon this continent, just 
formed out of revolted colonies, was hardly 
worth considering at all as a power. The 
proof of the contempt in which it was held 
was given in the conduct of the nations that 
forced non-intercourse and war upon the 
United States. It came very hard for all 
the thriving interests here to face ruin in the 
shape of wi,r, but it became inevitable. So 
distrustful, however, was even Congress of 
the ability of the country to resist England, 
that it was determined, on the declaration 
of war, to send the government ships up the 
rivers, where they would be out of the reach 
of the dreadful English cruisers. It was 
only at the earnest solicitation of the leading 
officers of the navy that permission was 
finally given for the ships to go to sea. The 
astonishment in Europe, the dismay in Eng- 
land, and delight in the United States, could 
scarcely be equalled when the encounter on 
the seas resulted in the unprecedented spec- 
tacle of a series of triumphs over the tyrant 
of the ocean. In the short period of twenty 
years a power had arisen that was thenceforth 
to know no master upon the ocean, and sub- 
mit to no insults, and this power had been 
born of commerce. The war closing with 
the defeat of the best troops of England, the 
"liberators of Spain," before the lines of 
New Orleans, left the United States no longer 
in the position of merely liberated colonies, 
but in that of a victorious power among the 
nations of the earth. It had cost much to 
win that position, but it was worth the 
struggle, since it ensured continued peace 
thereafter. The nations of Europe have not 



since thought it worth while to provoke new 
hostilities, but have, on the other hand, from 
time to time, settled up for the injuries they 
then committed upon American commerce. 

The intervention of war had paralyzed every 
industry. The farm products that had been 
raised for export no longer had an outlet 
for the surplus ; cotton, rice, and tobacco ac- 
cumulated idly in warehouses. The ships 
were freightless at the docks, and all the 
earnings of industry were at their minimum. 
It was an advantage to manufacturers, indeed, 
to have no competition from abroad ; but, on 
the other hand, the general depression of all 
other industries destroyed the home market 
for goods. The general depression of trade 
and the depreciation of property undermined 
all credits. Those who had contracted obli- 
gations to pay when merchandise was sale- 
able and property convertible, could not pay 
when all values were paralyzed. In order 
to remedy this state of affairs to some ex- 
tent, which was ascribed by certain parties to 
the want of a United States bailk, new state 
banks were multiplied, under the erroneous 
notion that these could supply capital. In- 
asmuch, however, as the radical evil was 
inability to pay, increase of promises did not 
help the matter, and a general suspension of 
the banks took place. The country was 
filled with irredeemable paper ; and the fed- 
eral debt, which had been $75,463,476 on 
the consolidation of the revolutionary debt 
in 1790, had risen to $127,334,934 when 
peace took place in 1815. In such a state 
of affairs the return of peace brought with it 
a flood of imported goods, which amounted 
to $147,000,000 in 1816, giving the govern- 
ment a customs revenue equal to $36,306,- 
874 in the year. The new United States 
Bank went into operation at the same time, 
causing for the moment additional pressure ; 
but the sale of its stock, and of the federal 
government stock, subscribed to its capital, 
abroad, helped to correct the exchanges. 
The produce that had accumulated during 
the war also went forward in great quan- 
tities, giving a considerable impulse to the 
aggregate of domestic exports, which rose to 
$73,854,000 in 1818. Of this amount 40 
per cent, was cotton. In some sort, the 
trade which had lain dormant during the 
war was forced into the first three years of 
peace. In the five years that ended with 
1820 there was, consequently, great activity 
of trade, demanding greater banking facili- 
ties, thus promoting a restoration of con- 



COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES. 



819 



fidence, and aiding the United States Bank 
in restoring order to the currency. The 
year 1820 brought with it new regulations 
in regard to the taking of the census, and a 
law of Congress was enacted for correctly 
keeping the import, export, and tonnage 
returns, which has since been done, and an- 
nually reported. The revenues of the gov- 
ernment, which depended upon duties on 
imports, suffered interruption during the 
war, and a resort to taxation became neces- 
sary. This had been done in 1791 by a tax 
on houses and lands. A new valuation took 
place in 1815 ; and this, compared with the 
valuation of 1791, gives the progress of real 
property in all the states during that period. 
The census of 1820 comprised, in addition 
to the population, some items of the industry 
of the people. Comparing the leading aggre- 
gates at the two periods, the results are as 
follows : — 

1791. 1S20. Increase. 

Population Estimated. 4,049,000 9.03SJ31 (5,688,531 

Taxable land, acres. . 163,746,tiSG lSs,2h6,480 24,639,794 

Valuation 479.-J93,'263 2,275,730,124 I,796,43fi,S6i 

Imports 23,00O,(MK> 74,450,000 51,450,000 

Exports 20,205,156 69,691,0(59 40,480,518 

Tonnage 474,374 1,280,166 805.792 

Bank capital 3,000,000 137.110.611 134,110,611 

Manufactures 5 600.000 52,776,530 47,176,530 

U.S. debt 75,463,476 91.015.566 15,55?,090 

" revenue 4,399,478 16,779,331 12,879,^58 

Post offices, No. 75 4,500 4,425 

Post roads, miles 1.905 67,586 65,6S1 

Postal receipts 46,294 1,111,927 1,064,733 

Such was the progress of the country in 
the first thirty years of its existence. Its 
population had increased 125 per cent. It 
had added five states to the Union, and 
24,539,794 acres to its taxable property, the 
value of which had risen nearly fivefold. 
Its tonnage had increased threefold, its 
manufactures tenfold, and the capital em- 
ployed in banking had been increased $134,- 
000,000. This great prosperity had mani- 
fested itself in face of a war with the great- 
est naval power the world had ever seen, 
and over which a decisive victory had been 
won. Commerce, under favorable circum- 
stances, had been the basis of this great 
growth of wealth. 



CHATTER II. 

CHANGED INTERESTS— MANUFACTURES— 
COURSE OF TRADK — SPECULATION- RE- 
VULSION — BANKRUPT LAW— ENGLISH 
FREE TRADE— REVOLUTION IN FRANC K 
—FARMERS— GOLD. 

The events of the war of 1812 had brought 
with them much experience. Up to that 



period great dependence upon foreign manu- 
factures had existed. It is no doubt true 
that most of the common wearing apparel 
and similar goods were made in families, 
but iron ware, and mosl articles thai enter 
into the materials of daily avocations, came 
from abroad. With the war came great 
deprivation, and many necessary goods, that 
had been abundant, were no longer to be 
had. Materials for the army and navy, of all 
sorts, particularly blankets tor the men, were 
with difficulty obtained. This necessity 
gave a great spur to individual enterprise, 
and at the same time forced upon the gov- 
ernment the idea of fostering home industry. 
This necessity was also apparent from the 
nature of the government. The federal 
Constitution had given to Congress the 
power to levy duties upon imports, and also 
direct taxes for its support. The former 
right was exercised up to the war, and the 
government finances were independent and 
flourishing. When, however, the war put 
an end to commerce, the government rev- 
enues also ceased, since, there being no im- 
ports, there could be no duties. Resort to 
taxation was then the alternative. The mode 
adopted by Congress was to apportion the 
amount required upon each state, and let 
the respective governments collect it. It 
was soon found that this was a very ineffi- 
cient mode of proceeding, since the states 
could not be coerced, and the federal govern- 
ment was in danger of falling to pieces. The 
statesmen of the day saw the necessity of 
strengthening the government on the return 
of peace, and this was done by the same 
means as it was sought to encourage horns 
manufacture, viz., by raising the duties upon 
imported goods. A new tariff was therefore 
enacted in 1816, increasing the duties, par- 
ticularly upon cotton goods, in taxing which 
the minimum principle was introduced — 
that is, that the goods should pay 20 per 
cent, duty, but that the cost on which it 
was calculated should not be less than a fixed 
minimum. Thus, cotton cloth was to pay 
30 per cent., but the cost must not be under 
20 cents per yard, or 6 cents per square 
yard duty. The new duties, falling upon 
the large importations that followed the 
peace, rapidly swelled the revenues beyond 
the current wants of the government ; at the 
same time, notwithstanding that the navy 
had so well discharged its duties in time of 
war, and the merchant marine had SO well 
vindicated its ability to furnish sailors, Con- 



820 



CHANGED INTERESTS MANUFACTURES. 



gress saw fit to pass a navigation act, by 
which the officers and three-fourths of the 
crews of American vessels should he Amer- 
ican citizens. The act is of itself mostly a 
dead letter, since naturalization is carried on 
to an extent which makes the phrase " Am- 
erican citizen " a very ambiguous one. The 
object is desirable, but the means hampers 
trade, and does not effect the object. With 
the operation of the higher duties during 
the four years that ended with 1820, the 
imports diminished ; the currency was con- 
tracted and restored to a specie basis ; the 
exports of the country, that accumulated 
during the war, passed off; the proceeds 
had cancelled obligations, bringing the 
country into a better condition ; and the fed- 
eral government had been enabled to pay off 
a considerable amount of its debt. The 
countries of Europe had also become settled 
after the convulsion of war and the effects 
of peace. The Bank of England, that had 
been suspended for a quarter of a century, 
resumed payments, and trade generally be- 
gan to resume its accustomed channels. 
Many currents of business had, as a matter 
of course, been disturbed. The large foreign 
carrying trade that had been enjoyed by 
American vessels was now resumed by the 
nations of Europe, and new currents of en- 



terprise were to grow up, under new appli- 
ances. The capital of New England, that 
before the war had been exclusively employ- 
ed in navigation and agriculture, was, by the 
events of the war, diverted to banking and 
manufactures, and was now growing in the 
last direction, banking having proved dis- 
astrous. The tariff of 1816 had been meant 
to aid them, and in 1818 and 1819 additions 
were made to the protective character of the 
duties. Cotton manufacture grew, and the 
great staple culture of the south — cotton — 
was developed, while Europe, no longer 
wanting so much food, the agriculturists be- 
came depressed. The manufacturing interest 
was therefore the favorite, and in 1824 a new 
tariff of higher duties was 'demanded and 
passed, to be succeeded by one of a higher 
grade of protection in 1828. The effect of 
these changes, with the steady nature of the 
demand for produce abroad, was to keep 
the imports and exports at moderate figures 
up to 1831, when a reduction of duties took 
place. In all that period, under the action of 
the United States Bank, and the annual pay- 
ments of an average of some $7,000,000 by 
the government on its public debt, the curren- 
cy was very steady, and commerce regular. 
The exports and imports for the ten years 
under those rising tariffs, were as follows : — 





Bom. exports. 


For. exports. 


Total exports. 


Imports. 


Ex. specie. 


lm. specie. 


1821, 


43.071.894 


21,302,488 


64,974,382 


62,585,724 


10,478,059 


8,064,890 


1822, 


49,874,185 


22,286,202 


72,160,387 


83.241,511 


10,810,:"80 


3,369 846 


1823, 


47,155,408 


27,543,622 


74,699,030 


77,579.267 


6,372,987 


5,097,896 


1824, 


50 649,500 


25,337,157 


75,986,657 


80,549,007 


7,014.552 


8,379,835 


1825, 


66,944,745 


32,590,643 


99,535,388 


96,340,075 


8,932,034 


6,150,765 


1826, 


53,055,710 


24,539,612 


77,595,322 


84,974,477 


4,704,533 


6,&80,966 


1827, 


58,921,691 


23,403,136 


82,324,827 


79,484,068 


8,014,880 


8,151,130 


1828, 


50,669,669 


21,595,017 


72,264,686 


88,509,824 


8,243,476 


7,489,741 


1829, 


55,700,193 


16,658,478 


72,358,671 


74,492,527 


4,924,020 


7,403,612 


1830, 


59,462,029 
$536,105,024 


14,387,479 


73,849,508 

$765,748,858 


70,876,920 


2,178,773 


8,155,964 




$229,643,834 


$798,633,400 


$71,673,494 


$69,144,645 



If we compare this period of ten years 
with the ten years of comparative quiet im- 
mediately preceding the war, we shall find 
the following aggregate results : — 



Imnnrin Re-exports of Domestic 
imports. f ol . eigngO0( j 8# eX p or ts. 



Total 
l goods, exports. exports. 
J79S— 1803, $95fi,470,000 $422,500.0011 $393,700,000 $S16.200,000 
1S21— 1881, 798,688,427 229,648,881 530,104,918 705,74S,752 



$50,451 ,24S 



Decrease $157,836,573 $192,S5G,IG6 

Increase $142,404,918 

The decrease was altogether in the foreign 
goods, or colonial produce brought into the 
country during the European war for re- 
shipment to Europe ; while the increase in 
domestic exports was mostly cotton, that 



article forming three-fifths of the whole 
value exported. The exports of flour and 
provisions were limited, but manufactures 
began to form an item in the exports. It is 
to be borne in mind that Great Britain had 
made great efforts after the war, when her 
navigation laws were modified, to concen- 
trate the trade of the world in her ware- 
houses. Inducements were held out by 
facilities of entry and advances on merchan- 
dise to attract thither the produce of all 
nations, because, under such circumstances, 
not only did the British manufacturers have 
within their reach the raw materials of all 
manufactures, but trading vessels had, in 



COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES. 



821 



those ample warehouses, every variety of 
goods to make up an assorted cargo for any 
voyage in the world, and make of them the 
medium of selling British goods. Thus, all 
the new countries of America, Africa, and 
Asia offered markets which would absorb 
small quantities of a great variety of articles, 
but a cargo of any one description would glut 
them. To make a profitable voyage, there- 
fore, the cargo should be composed of such 
a variety of wares as would all sell to ad- 
vantage. If Virginia was to send a whole 
cargo of tobacco to Africa, a portion of it 
would sell, and the remainder be a dead 
stock, and the voyage a losing one. The 
same thing would happen to a cargo of rum, 
or calicoes, or gunpowder, or hardware, or 
the infinite variety of articles that make up 
the wants of a small community. If a ves- 
sel's cargo should be composed, in proper 
proportions, of all these articles, the whole 
would sell well, and the voyage pay ; but 
for a vessel to go round to places where each 
of these articles is to be had, and so collect 
a cargo, is expensive, and would still result 
in loss. The English warehouse system 
sought to supply a want here by attracting 
into them all possible descriptions of tropical 
and other produce. A ship might then 
make up her cargo for any part of the world 
at the smallest average expense, and every 
cargo was sure to be completed with British 
manufactures. Under such circumstances, 
they could compete with any other nation. 
The advantage was so manifest, that American 
ships Avould go out in ballast to England, to 
fit them out for Asiatic markets. It resulted 
from this that England continued to be the 
recipient of most American produce, not 
only for her own use, but for re-export else- 
where. "With her large capital she advanced 
on the produce, and so controlled it, becom- 
ing the banker for the Americans. The 
nations of the continent, slowly recovering 
from the effects of the long wars, began to 
manufacture such articles as found sale in the 
United States, while they did not purchase 
largely in return. China furnished teas and 
silks, and got its pay by bills drawn against 
American credits in London. The new bank 
of the United States operated the credit, giv- 
ing the China merchant a six months' bill on 
London, which he took in preference to sil- 
ver, which he before remitted. These bills 
were paid out for the tea, and by the Hong 
merchant, who received them, were paid 
to the British East India merchant for opium 



or raw cotton. By the latter it was remit- 
ted to London, where it was met by the funds 
already provided through the United States 
Bank, by sales of American produce. This 
centralization of trade in England became, 
however, inconvenient. The American ships 
that now began to carry cotton, tobacco, 
rice, and some breadstuffs to Europe, had 
thence no adequate return freights, because 
those countries did not as yet offer a good 
supply of merchandise. Soon, however, 
there sprang up an increasing migration to 
the LTnited States from Germany across 
France via Havre, and these passengers be- 
came a desirable return freight, causing a 
change in the model of the ships engaged in 
the trade. By this means the freight was 
reduced, or rather the ship could carry cot- 
ton out cheaper, since she was no longer 
compelled to return empty. The result was, 
therefore, cheapened transportation, in the 
same manner that the modification of the 
navigation laws, enabling ships to carry car- 
goes both ways, had cheapened freight. The 
increasing exports, and the weight of the 
tariff of 1828 upon imports, had so operated 
upon exchanges as to cause an excess of 
specie to be imported to the extent of some 
$15,000,000 in the last few years. This in- 
flux accumulated in banks, and disposed 
them to inflate the currency, thereby induc- 
ing imports at a moment when reductions in 
duties were made by the tariff of 1831 ; and 
this inflation was aided by the conflict which 
then began between the United States Bank 
and the government in relation to the re- 
charter of the institution. These circum- 
stances laid the foundation for the great 
speculation which followed. The high tariff 
of 1828 had produced much agitation, that 
promised serious difficulties. The northern, 
or New England states, whose interests were 
originally commercial, opposed the war, be- 
cause it was destructive of those interests. 
Their capital was turned by it into manu- 
factures, and they demanded protection for 
that interest. This was acceded to, because 
all parties had witnessed the evils <.4' a de- 
pendence upon foreign nations for manufac- 
tures, and also because the federal govern- 
ment needed strengthening by the >upport 
which high duties would give it. In 1830 
the manufactures had enjoyed fifteen yean 
of protection, and should be firmly rooted. 
The federal government, from being too 
weak, had become too strong. The public, 
who consumed goods foreign and domestic, 



822 



COURSE OF TRADE SPECULATION REVULSION. 



were paying too high a tribute for the sup- 
port of the manufacturers, and the states 
felt their rights encroached upon by the 
growing power of centralization. A change 
of policy in respect of the tariff was insisted 
upon, and a reduction took place in 1831, 
many goods being made free. In 1832 Mr. 
Clay's compromise was passed, by which 
biennial reductions were to take place, 
until, in 1842, all the duties should be re- 
duced to a general level of 20 per cent, ad 
valorem. These reductions in duties, at a 
time of bank inflation and speculation, emi- 
nently promoted those imports which, under 
such circumstances, were carried to excess. 

The manufactures of the country had 
largely increased during the ten years up to 
1830. The capital employed in cotton 
manufacture at that date was $40,614,984. 
There were 795 mills, working 1,246,503 
spindles and 33,506 looms. They produced 
230,461,000 yards of cloth, that weighed 
59,604,926 lbs., and was worth $26,000,000. 
These mills employed 117,626 persons, 
whose wages were $10,294,944 per annum. 
This was a large interest grown up in cotton. 
The progress of manufactures generally was 
given by the census, as follows : — 

1S20. 

Cotton 4,834,157 

Wool 4,113,068 

Pig iron and castings . . . 2,230,276 

Wrought iron 4,640,669 

Brewers and distillers . . 4,876,486 

Salt 1,852,258 

Other articles 29,919,621 



1S30. 

40,614,984 

14,528,166 

4,757,403 

16,737,251 

3,434,808 

935,173 

46,077,092 



Total $52,466,535 $127,084,877 

In the considerable increase of interests, 
here apparent, many of the factories suffered 
by home competition, when too much capi- 
tal had been induced, by hope of protection, 
to go into the business. The operations of 
these manufactures no doubt produced a 
local demand for materials and food ; but 
this did not suffice, however, in the absence 
of a foreign demand, to support prices of 



farm produce, in face of the large develop- 
ment given to agriculture by the increasing 
immigration and settlement of the western 
lands. 

The season of speculation which now 
seized the public mind was one of the most 
remarkable in the history of commerce. 
There is no doubt that it had its origin in 
the great success which had hitherto been 
manifest in the progress of the country. 
Those who had seen but thirty years of 
active life had witnessed the most extraordi- 
nary growth of numbers and wealth in the 
whole country, and in cities particularly. 
The highest prizes had attended those who 
had held land at the points favorable to 
trade, which trade was the foundation of 
cities. There seemed hardly any limit to 
the rise that might take place in the value 
of property, and so liberal were bank accom- 
modations, there was very little difficulty in 
procuring the means to hold land. In almost 
all cities, the early settlers had become pos- 
sessed of land cheap. The rapid growth of 
trade, bringing in numbers to occupy those 
lands for stores and dwellings, caused a 
competition that raised rents and values 
rapidly in price. The effort was then to 
become possessed of land for speculation, 
and this effort was attended with the wildest 
excitement ; a few hours sufficed to place a 
moderate fortune in the hands of the buyer, 
and prices rose to a fabulous extent in a 
short time. From the cities, the excitement 
spread all over the Union, and productive 
employments were neglected to trade in 
lands ; at the same time, the fictitious for» 
tunes made by these means stimulated 
expense, and the wealth of the country was 
diminished by a double process — by lessened 
production, and increased consumption — 
" the candle was burned at both ends," and 
there could be little surprise that it was 
speedily consumed. The course of the 
trade for the ten years up to 1840 was as 
follows : — 





Horn, exports. 


For. exports. 


Total exports. 


Imports. 


Ex. specie. 


Im. specie. 


1831, 


$61,277,057 


$20,033,526 


$81,310,583 


$103,191,124 


$9,014,971 


$7,305,945 


1832, 


63,137,470 


24,039,473 


87,176,943 


101,029.266 


5,656,340 


5,907,304 


1833, 


70,317.698 


19,822,735 


90,140,433 


108,118,311 


2,611,701 


7,070,368 


1834, 


81,034,162 


23,312,811 


104,346,973 


126,521,332 


2,076,758 


17,911,633 


1835, 


101,189,082 


20,504,495 


121,693,577 


149,895,742 


6,477,775 


13,131,441 


1836, 


106,916,680 


21,746,360 


128,663,040 


189,980,035 


4,324,336 


13,400,881 


1837, 


95,504,414 


21,854,962 


117,419,376 


140,989,217 


5,976,249 


10,51 C, 1 14 


1838, 


96,033,821 


12,452,795 


108,486,616 


113,717,404 


3,508,046 


17,747,116 


1839, 


103,533,891 


17,494,525 


121,028,416 


162,092,132 


8,776,743 


.Vi!>.-),176 


1840, 


113,895,634 


18,190,312 


132,085,946 


107, 141,:. 19 


8,417,014 


8,882,813 




$892,899,909 


$199,451,994 


$1,092,351,903 


$1,302,676,082 


$56,839,933 


$107,469,096 



COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES. 



823 



This period of commerce shows remark- 
able results, since it illustrates the nature of 
the pure speculation that possessed the coun- 
try. In the period up to 1830, the imports 
had exceeded the exports $32,884,675, or 5 
per cent, in the whole ten years, an amount 
which was not more than healthy. In the 
succeeding ten years, the excess of imports 
over the exports was $210,334,181, or 20 
per cent., and this took place although the 
exports were valued at inflated prices, which 
were not realized abroad. The course of 
business at that period required shipments 
of American produce, mostly cotton, to 
firms abroad, who made advances on the 
consignment at a certain ratio, less than the 
face of the invoices. The produce was 
then afterward sold for the account of the 
owner, and not unfrequently did not bring 
the amount of advances. Thus, if cotton 
was shipped at 16 cts. per lb., and 12 cts. 
advanced, the amount realized might be only 
11 cts. Hence, the real exports of the 
country were not always measured by the 



export value. On the other hand, the goods 
imported were mostly ordered by importers 

here, and purchased on credits in the manu- 
facturing districts. These credits were oper- 
ated through huge London houses connei ted 
with the American trade, and whose ability 
to extend credits depended upon the indul- 
gence of the Bank of England, and that 
institution itself was subject to pressure 
whenever the harvests should fail. The 
system of credits was open, however, up to 
1836, in England, under apparently favorable 
circumstances. The United States and rival 
banks here favored the extension of credits 
in every possible way; and the goods bought 
on credit in Europe were sold on credit 
here, and consumed by those who held 
fortunes based upon the apparent rise in 
lands bought on speculation, for promises. 
The numbers so engaged diminished pro- 
duction, while luxuries were imported more 
rapidly than ever. The returns of certain 
articles of domestic exports and imports, in- 
dicate the extent of this process as follows : — ■ 





Imports. 


Imports. 


Exports. 




Silks. 


Wines. 


Spirits. 


Sugar. 


Flour. 


Provisions. 


1831, 


$5,932,243 


$1,673,058 


$1,037,737 


$4,910,S77 


$10,461,728 


$17,538,227 


1832, 


9,248,907 


2,397,479 


1,365,018 


2,93", 688 


4,974,121 


12,421. 7(13 


1833, 


9,498,366 


2,601,455 


1,537.226 


4,755.856 


5,642,602 


14,209,128 


1834, 


10,998,064 


2,944,388 


1,319,245 


5,538,097 


4,560,379 


11,524,024 


1835, 


16,677,547 


3,750,608 


1.632,681 


6,806,425 


4,394,777 


12,009,399 


1836, 


22,980,212 


4,332,034 


1,917,381 


12,514,718 


3,572,599 


10,614.130 


1837, 


14,352,823 


4,105,741 


1,470,802 


7,203,206 


2,987,269 


9,588,359 


1838, 


9,812,338 


2,318,282 


1,476,918 


7,586,825 


3,603,299 


9,636.650 


1839, 


21,752,369 






9,929,502 




14,147,779 


1840, 


9,835,757 






5,580,950 




19,067,535 



Thus, while the import of silk rose from 
less than $6,000,000 to nearly $23,000,000, 
and the four articles, including wine, spirits, 
and sugar, from $13,550,000 in 1831, to 
$41,850,000 in 1836, the export of provis- 
ions, notwithstanding the high prices, fell 
from $17,538,227 to $10,614,130. So great 
had been the decline in production, that in 
the last-named year, 1836, wheat was actually 
imported at $2 per bushel, from Russia, on 
credit, to feed land speculators in the west. 
The mania for land speculation was fed by 
bank bubbles, and large sums were drawn 
from the east as well as Europe, for the 
creation of banks west and south-west. 
The transmission of these sums was the 
means of credits by which goods were con- 
sumed. There were created in the period 
from 1830 to 1840, 577 banks, having an 
aggregate capital -of $218,000,000. These 
banks were mostly started west and south- 
west, with eastern capital paid in subscription 



to the bank stock, and with fate bonds issued 
in aid of the banks. Thus a stream of credit 
issued from London, which, aided by cir- 
cumstances, poured over the Union, checking 
industry, exhausting capital, and raising 
prices. The harvests of England had been 
good for some years, and the importation of 
corn had ceased. As a consequence, ex- 
changes were in favor of England, and the 
bank disposed to be liberal. It was so to 
the American houses in London. These 
houses were thus enabled to grant credits to 
United States importers of goods who made 
their purchases in Lancashire. The goods 
arriving in the United States, were sold to 
jobbers and through the auction houses at 
long credits, and these were payable at the 
local banks started all over the country. The 
quantity of goods thus sold was increased by 
the large fire in New York in December, 
1835, by which it was estimated $18,000,000 
worth of property was consumed. Theso 



824 



COURSE OF TRADE SPECULATION REVULSION. 



goods were replaced on credit, and the city 
rapidly rebuilt by the same means, adding 
much to the accumulating liabilities. At 
the same time, as we have seen, $200,000,000 
■were sent from the east to the west to start 
banks. These banks were also authorized to 
issue paper to circulate as money ; and capi- 
tal and circulation were loaned to those who 
purchased and consumed goods. Thus, while 
the city merchants were selling their goods 
to the dealers of the interior, on credit, the 
capitalists were sending money in the same 
direction, with which to start banks ; these 
were to lend the dealers the means of taking 
up their notes. As long p& this lasted, 
business was brisk ; but it soon came to an 
end. The federal government had also been 
a party to the excitement, by selling its lands 
on credits to speculators, and the amount of 
these sales became enormous, when suddenly 
the government issued its famous " specie 
circular," by which the lands were to be 
paid cash in specie. This was the first blow 
to the credits. The government, determined 
to curtail all credits, had made peremptory 
demand upon France to pay the indemnity 
long since due. This payment took place, 
and was received at this juncture very oppor- 
tunely "in gold. The capital of England, 
which had been loaned so freely all over the 
world, began to run short. The harvests, 
also, which for so many years had sufficed 
for the national wants, suddenly failed, in 
1836, and it became necessary to import 
corn for cash. This circumstance caused 
exchanges to run higher against England, 
and the bank began to contract. Its first 
notice was in August, 1836, to the American 
houses to curtail their credits. This was 
the signal for payment through the whole 
line of credits from the Bank of England to 
the western consumer of goods. The pres- 
sure became intense, and in May, 1837, every 
bank in the Union had suspended their pay- 
ments. The three large American houses in 
London, known as the " three Ws," Wildes, 
Wiggins, and Wilson, failed for many mil- 
lions, and their assets consisted of the credits 
they had granted American importers. The 
latter stopped in great numbers, with assets 
due from dealers all over the country ; and 
the latter stopped with large assets due from 
speculators who held land at paper prices, 
and who insisted that a return of paper 
inflation would enable them to pay. The 
banks of the interior had lar^e sums due 
them from speculators who held land, as 



well as from shopkeepers who had trusted 
consumers. The shopkeepers had bought 
of the merchants in eastern markets, and 
had given notes payable at their local banks. 
Those notes were generally sent for collection 
through the city bank to its country corres-> 
ponding bank, and on their maturity were 
met by a discount of the maker's note by the 
local bank. This mode of payment only 
transferred the debt from the merchants to 
the bank, and was possible only as long as 
the eastern bank did not claim the balance 
due it. When that was done, failure took 
place. A great struggle was made to restore 
that inflation, particularly by the United 
States Bank, which, with its southern and 
western dependents, felt that unless the 
debts contracted all over the country in an 
inflated currency, could be paid in a similar 
currency, they could not be paid at all. 
Public opinion was, however, bent on re- 
sumption, and January, 1839, it took place. 
The United States Bank sought to create 
foreign credits by obtaining state stocks on 
credit, and, by selling them in Europe, aid 
the exchanges. It also entered the cotton 
market as a monopolizing buyer. The insti- 
tution, on the expiration of its United States 
charter, had obtained a new one from Penn- 
sylvania. When it went into operation as a 
state institution, its old bills had been called 
in, and new oues issued. W T hen it struggled 
to maintain its resumption in 1839, it had 
the boldness to exhume its old bills and pay 
them out for cotton at almost any price, 
which cotton was sent to its agents in Liver- 
pool for sale, and against which to draw 
sterling bills, which it sold in New York for 
cash ; thus forming a kiting operation. At 
the same time, it had obtained some $15,- 
000,000 of state stocks from Mississippi, 
Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and other states, 
on similar terms, and these were sent to 
London for sale; but not selling readily, 
they were pledged to cover bills drawn by 
the bank. All these plans were insufficient 
to sustain the institution under its load of 
debt, and it became evident that nothing 
short of a second general suspension of the 
banks could save it. This it undertook to 
bring about by selling in the New York 
market its bills on France and England to 
any amount, and drawing the proceeds from 
the New York banks in specie. This course 
was pursued through August, 1839; when, 
early in October, the news came that the 
bills so sold in New York on France had 



COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES. 



827 



been protested. The bank then finally failed, 
and went into liquidation, when it was found 
that more than its whole capital had been 
lost. This event carried with it most of the 
banks in the country that had followed a 
similar" policy. Liquidation then became 
general, and went on up to 1843, when the 
lowest point of credits was reached. The 
short harvests of England, that were the 
immediate cause of the explosion in 1837, 
were also the cause of a gradual restoration 
of sound prosperity in the United States, by 
reviving a demand for the products of land. 
This was the more readily done that the 
fictitious paper prices that prevented Ameri- 
can farmers from competing with those of 
Europe, had disappeared with the bank 
stoppages. The farmers had nominally sold 
their produce well, but they had taken pay in 
bank paper, which the revulsion left valueless 
in their hands. The process of liquidation 
swept several hundred banks out of existence, 
but there remained an immense load of debt 
due by individuals, to relieve whom Con- 
gress, in 1841, passed a bankrupt law. The 
operation of the law relieved 39,000 persons, 
from debts to the amount of $441,000,000. 
The disasters involved the failure of several 
6tates, with an aggregate debt of $100,000,- 
000. The banks that were liquidated had 
an aggregate capital of $200,000,000. Thus, 
the recorded losses were as follows : — 

States $100,000,000 

Bankrupt debts 441,000,000 

Bank capital 200,000,000 



$741,000,000 



The debts that were settled without the 
intervention of the law, were supposed to 
be equal to those legally discharged, but the 
amount recorded is an enormous sum. In 
consequence of those disasters, many states, 
in revising their constitutions, forbade the 
authorization of more bank charters. 

While speculation had thus run riot, 
during the ten years up to 1840, consuming 
the available capital of the country, the 
population had not failed to increase and 
extend itself over the face of the country. 
Many of the states had projected large works, 
for the construction of which they had con- 
tracted debts; and the expenditure upon 
the works had attracted laborers, who ulti- 
mately became settlers. The sales of public 
lands had been very large, but these had to 
a great extent been taken up by speculators, 
and this operation in some degree prevented 



actual settlement. All these lands were i. op- 
pressing upon tli.' market, and the distress 
in cities attending the subsidence of building 
and other employments, drove crowds upon 

fanning lands, laying the foundation of 
future prosperity. During the speculative 
years, the commercial cities increased most 
rapidly; and with the revulsion, the agricul- 
tural states took the lead. The cotton cul- 
ture had received a great impulse 'luring 
the same period, by means of the hanking 
credits. The old lands of the Atlantic states 
were capable of producing cotton at G cts.; 
per lb., but it was found that the new lands 
of the Mississippi valley would produce it at 
a much less rate. The migration of planters 
with their hands then took place to the 
new lands of the west, and the means of so 
doing were supplied to a great extent by the 
state bonds issued in aid of banking capital. 
These institutions made loans to the planters 
on security of the crops. Under this spur, 
large tracts of land were got under cultiva- 
tion, disastrously to the banks, but favorable 
to a large supply of cotton, of which the 
export became large. 

The ten years, 1841 to 1850, thus opened 
under great depression. The receipts of the 
federal government, in consequence of the 
revulsion of trade in 1837, had fallen far 
behind its expenses, while the duties under 
the biennial reductions of the compromise 
tariff were approaching their lowest grade <<{ 
20 per cent., and it became necessary to 
restore the duties, in order to procure rev- 
enue. The utter failure of the United States 
Bank, of which a large portion of the Mock 
was sent abroad; the failure of so many 
states, some of which repudiated their debts 
altogether; and the bankrupt law, which 
had expunged so large a volume of private 
debts, had produced so much discredit 
abroad, that a 6 per cent, stock of the fed- 
eral government was utterly unsaleable, not- 
withstanding that in 1835 the last dollar of 
the old national debt had been paid in full. 
Congress, therefore, in 1841, passed an act 
levying 20 per cent, duties on a long list of 
articles before fret, and in 1842 raised the 
general level of duties. At this juncture 
there had been no plan of settling the state 
debts, ami efforts to restore the national 
bank failed. Amid these adverse circum- 
stances, however, industry revived from the 
ruins of speculation, and the foreign com- 
merce was placed upon a more liberal foot- 
ing. The English government, taught by 



828 



BANKRUPT LAW ENGLISH FREE TRADE. 



the experience of the past, had decided to 
relieve commerce from many restrictions, 
and in 1842 modified her com laws, and ad- 
mitted provisions, which had previously been 
prohibited, to entry, at comparatively low 
duties. The first opening of the trade to 
provisions — cheese, butter, etc. — was not at 
once successful ; many attempts were re- 
quired, and much perseverance, before the 
American articles became properly prepared 
for and appreciated in the English markets. 
Success, however, ultimately attended the 
trade, and a large opening to western prod- 



uce was made, that has proved of a per- 
manent nature. This circumstance gave an 
impulse to commerce, which was greatly ac- 
celerated by the failure of the potato crops 
in 1845 and 1846. That event was of so 
grave a nature as to lead to the abrogation 
I of the corn laws altogether, and also to a 
suspension of the navigation laws in England, 
France, Holland, and Belgium, for the reason 
that the shipping was inadequate to the 
transportation of food. The course of com- 
merce during the ten years, 1841 to 1850, 
was as follows : — 













Of those amounts. 




Exports. 
Domestic. Foreign. 


Total. 


Imports. 


Specie. 
Exports. Imports. 


1841, 


$106,382,723 


$15,469,081 


$121,851,804 


$127,946,177 


$10,034,332 


$4,988,633 


1842, 


92,969,996 


11,721,538 


104,691,534 


100,162.087 


4,813,539 


4,087,016 


1843, 


77,793,783 


6,552,697 


84,346,480 


64,753,799 


1,520,791 


22,320,335 


1844, 


99.715,179 


11,484,867 


111,200,046 


108,435,035 


5,454,214 


5,830,459 


1845, 


99,299,776 


15,346,830 


114,646,606 


117,254,564 


8,608,495 


4,070,242 


1846, 


102,141,893 


11,346,623 


113,488,516 


121,691,797 


3,905,268 


3,777.732 


1847, 


150,637,464 


8,011,158 


158,648.622 


146,545,638 


1,907,024 


24,121,289 


1848, 


132,904,121 


21,132,315 


154,036,436 


154,998,928 


15,841,616 


6,360,224 


1849, 


132,666,955 


13,0x8,865 


147,755,820 


147,857,439 


5,404,648 


6,651,240 


1850, 


136,946,912 


14,951,806 


151,898,718 


178,138,318 


7,522,994 


4,628,792 




$1,131,458,802 


$129,105,780 


$1,262,564,582 


$1,267,783,782 


$65,012,921 


$86,835,932 



In these aggregates we have the reverse 
of the trade during the ten years to 1840, 
since the imports scarcely exceeded the ex- 
ports, including specie ; and exclusive of 
specie, there was an excess of $14,677,036 
exports over imports. The exports of do- 
mestic produce had become very considerable. 
The large breadth of land that had been 
brought under cotton, and the rapid settle- 
ment of farm lands after the revulsion, had 
laid the foundation for an extended produc- 
tion, while the means of transportation had 
been so much increased, as to equalize prices 
at a lower level on the seaboard, and supply 
a far larger quantity for shipment than had 
been possible before. Nevertheless, the de- 
mand became so urgent in the three years 
ending with 1847, as to tax every means of 
transportation to its utmost capacity, and to 
carry freights to an inordinate height, notwith- 
standing the suspension of the navigation 
laws in England. 

The demand for food abroad had super- 
seded all other demands to a considerable 
extent. The necessity of carrying food 
raised the freights so high, that other ma- 
terials would not pay to carry ; the more so, 
that it is a well-known effect of dear food, 
to lessen the purchase of clothing and other 
articles. Hence, when the market for cloths 
was lowest, the freight on the materials was 



highest. The condition of Ireland made it 
necessary to introduce Indian corn as a sub- 
stitute for potatoes. This was by great 
efforts accomplished in a degree, and thereby 
a permanent market made for corn. That 
article of food is, however, very far from 
being popular with the people. The effect 
of the famine, joined to the general influence 
of the change of English policy, was to carry 
up the domestic exports from $106,000,000 
in 1841 to $150,000,000 in 1847. This in- 
crease was almost entirely due to breadstuff? 
and provisions, which reached a value of 
$68,761,921 in 1847, being nearly one-half the 
whole domestic exports for that year. The 
large sale of western produce so inaugurated 
gave an unusual stimulus to the activity of 
internal trade, and to the value of western 
lands and credits ; and the foundation was 
thus laid for the movement which so sin- 
gularly culminated in 1857. 

While the famine demand of 1846 caused 
so large an export of American produce, in 
return for which merchandise was necessarily 
to be received, the federal government re- 
covered from the embarrassments induced 
by the revulsion. It was, however, still em- 
barrassed, but this time with a surplus, 
rather than a revenue ; and in 1846 the tariff 
was again revised, so as to reduce the gen- 
eral average of duties some 7 per cent. Tho 



COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES. 



829 



principle of protection was finally disavowed, 
and that of revenue only admitted as a rule 
of action. This reduction of duties naturally 
gave a spur to importation, at a moment 
when the exports were very large. There 
was at that time, however, no speculative 
action in this country, nor much inflation of 
credit, by which large quantities of goods 
could be suddenly placed ; and the sales of 
produce were so prompt, as to throw a large 
cash balance in favor of the country : hence, 
of the imports of 1847, $24,121,289 were in 
specie — the largest amount ever imported 
from abroad in one year — a fact which im- 
parted much activity to trade ; and in the 
following year, when the exports of farm 
produce declined, $15,841,616 of that specie 
returned whence it came. That re-export 
was, however, much stimulated by the ex- 
traordinary political convulsions that over- 
took Europe in February, 1848. The pecu- 
liar theories avowed by the successful rev- 
olutionists in relation to property, which 
was declared to be " robbery," greatly alarm- 
ed the public mind, and tended to make 
French property utterly unsaleable for the 
moment. The consequence was the most 
active shipment of money, silver particularly, 
with which to purchase the cheap goods of 
France. The panic soon passed, but de- 
pression continued under the provisional 
government, which, in order to encourage 
industry and employ workpeople, gave the 
manufacturers orders for goods, and allowed 
a drawback of 10 per cent, on merchandise 
exported out of France. This state of affairs 
caused the importation thence into the 
United States to be larger. Among the 
goods so imported was a quantity of Lyons 
silk, which had been ordered by the govern- 
ment with the view to employ the operatives. 
As the government had given no directions 
as to colors, the whole was made up, to the 
extent of 10,000,000f., in tricolor. A large 
portion of this was bought by a New York 
house, and gentlemen's coats for a long time 
had tricolor sleeve linings. With the in- 
stitution of the new government in France, 
confidence returned, and new branches of 
trade were opened with France, as well as 
other countries of the continent, which be- 
gan to be rivals for the American trade. 
The Germans and Belgians had so far ad- 
vanced in the production of certain manu- 
factures, as to dispute the French and English 
pretensions to supply the United States, and 
credits beimn once more to form the medium 



of extended sales of foreign merchandise. 

The competition was now, howerer, tar more 
severe with the home manufactures, which 
were so far advanced as not only 1«» main- 
tain themselves against new competition, but 

to drive out those which had long held the 
field in particular goods. The balance of the 
ten years' business was, notwithstanding, \ ery 
small. The period closed, however, with 
one of the most remarkable discoveries 
of modern times. We allude to the gold 
discoveries in California. The war, which 
carried Americans to California, gave them 
the opportunity to discover, and the "dust" 
was soon detected in the neighborhood of 
Captain Sutter's fort. The intelligence was 
received with great incredulity. The learned 
said the location and character of the gold 
was contrary to all precedent ; but soon the 
metal came, and was satisfactorily assayed. 
Each successive arrival brought stronger 
confirmation, and about $9,000,000 worth 
was received in 1850. Since then, the 
amount received has been more than $52,* 
000,000 worth per annum. 

The decade ending with 1860 was one of 
the most extraordinary in the history of 
commerce. It commenced with a confirma- 
tion of the astounding gold discoveries in 
California, followed by as important a dis- 
covery of the same nature in Australia. 
These events deeply stirred the commercial 
mind throughout the world, coming, as they 
did, at the moment when the political difficul- 
ties of Europe had settled down in a manner 
to win public confidence in continued peace 
and security. The discovery of such large 
supplies of gold induced the general belief 
that the metal would depreciate, as compared 
with commodities and silver, and that the 
depreciation would manifest itself in a rise 
in prices of all industrial products. Seri- 
ous apprehensions were entertained through 
this superficial view of the case, particularly 
in Europe, where a large class are rich on 
fixed annuities, or in the receipt of a fixed 
amount of money per annum. If all property 
was to rise in value, leaving the amount of 
rents the same in money, it would be equiva- 
lent to ruining creditors for the benefit of 
debtors. Thus, if a farmer had mortgaged 
his farm for say $5,000, the annual interest 
at 6 per ct. would be $300; at an average 
price of $1 per bushel for wheat, it would 
require 300 bushels per annum to pay the 
interest, and ultimately 5,000 bushels to pay 
the principal. If the mortgage run five 



830 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



years, he "would be required to give, alto- 
gether, 1,500 bushels for interest, and 5,000 
bushels for principal — together, 6,500 bush- 
els. If, through the influx of gold, prices 
came permanently to be $2 for wheat, it 
would at once reduce the quantity per annum 
that he would have to pay to 150 bushels, 
and the ultimate amount for principal to 
2,500; in other words, he would save half 
his grain, at the expense of his creditor, and 
the money value of his farm would be 
doubled. This would be of no benefit to 
him, beyond the discharge of his debt, be- 
cause the value of all that he had to purchase 
would rise in the same proportion. All 
creditors would lose hall that was due them. 
This was an important consideration for the 
debt-covered countries of Europe, where so 
large a portion of the people are creditors 
of tie governments. In Holland, to avoid 
this, they passed a law doing away with 
gold ai a legal tender, and making silver the 
only medium of payment, under the impres- 
sion that silver would rise in the same 
proportion as other commodities. In the 
United States, the same impressions were 
entertained, but the event showed that the 
fears were groundless. But this view natu- 
rally stimulated the production of commod- 
ities that were to rise in value, and industry 
became unusually active, since all classes 
wished to profit by the anticipated rise. 
Above all, commercial enterprise and migra- 
tion tended strongly to the gold countries, 
the dire t source of the anticipated benefits. 
A vast amount of capital was sent to both 
California and Australia. The United States 
shipped to the latter country, in 1853, a large 
amount of goods ; and to California the drain 
continued on a very extensive scale, with 
small renumeration to the shippers. The 
production of gold during the decade was 
$600,000,000, and it cost an equal amount 
of capital. In other words, there had been 
no profit on the production. The capital 
that it cost exists in the gold itself, and in 
the cities and property of California. From 
nearly all nations the capital that now con- 
stitutes the wealth of California, flowed 
thither in exchange for the gold. While 
these great mining enterprises were in course 
of prosecution, another of equal magnitude 
was undertaken: the construction during 
that decade of 21,000 miles of railroads, at a 
costof $750,000,000. The capital for the 
enterprise was drawn from Europe, in the 
shape of money and iron, and from the east- 



ern states, in subscriptions to stocks and 
bonds. These did not all turn out well, but 
the capital expended remained in the shape 
of railroads that were ready' and efficient 
means of developing future trade. The 
speculative investments in lands and western 
property also ran to an inordinate extent in 
the same period, and nearly $500,000,000, 
on the best estimates, took this direction, 
following the trail of American migration, 
from the eastern to the western states, im- 
pelled by the large immigration from Europe. 
As we have seen elsewhere, 2,518,054 per- 
sons arrived from abroad in the period here 
mentioned. These persons brought with 
them, at the usual estimate of $1 00 per head, 
$251,805,400 in capital, asmoney and goods. 
A large portion of this was expended in 
transportation expenses and in settling new 
homes. "We have, then, the following esti- 
mated items of extraordinary expenditures 
in the ten years, 1850 to 1860: — 

Capital sent to California, $600,000,000 

" spent in 21,000 miles of railroad, 750,000,000 

" expended in land operations, 500,000,000 

" expended by newly-arrived immigrants 

at fifty dollars each, 125,000,000 

Total extraordinary expenditures, $1,975,900,000 

The 300,000 persons who went to Cali- 
fornia to consume the capital sent thither, 
returned $600,000,000 worth of gold, of 
which a large portion went to Europe, 
whence goods came. The railroad expendi- 
ture resulted in effective investments in 
trade. The land investments were not 
" active," for the time, but were not entirely 
lost. The immigrants were mostly at work, 
producing capital in new states. 

While these large expenditures took place 
in the United States, Europe incurred a 
heavy loss in the failure of her corn harvests, 
that she was obliged to make good from 
the corn crops of the United States. She 
also incurred a heavy expense in the Russian 
war, which returned very little for the invest- 
ment, but which required a larger supply of 
American produce, particularly pork, whis- 
key, but of gold, above all. The loss of her 
vine crops, also, brought American whiskey 
in demand, as a substitute, and thereby, 
possibly, cut off a supply of genuine grape 
liquors for the United States, from France. 
Those events caused a larger demand for 
produce, at a time when the expenditures 
for gold, rails, and land were so active. It 
is not a matter of surprise, under all these 
circumstances, that the gold diggers, road 



COMMERCE OP THE UNITED STATE8. 



831 



builders, speculators, and emigrants, so well 
supplied with money, should require a larger 
quantity of goods, both manufactured and 
imported, while similar activity in Europe, 



in addition to war and short crops, demanded 
more raw materials. The import and export 
table, therefore, shows higher figures than 
ever before, as follows : — 



1851, 
1852, 
185:5, 
1854, 
1855, 
1856, 
1857, 
1858, 
.1859, 
1860, 



Domestic. 

$196,089,718 

192,368,984 

2 13, 41 7,697 
25:i,;5!)0,870 
246,708,553 
310,586,330 
338,985,065 
293,758,279 
335,894,385 



Exports. 



Foreign. 
£21,698,293 
17,289,382 
17,558,460 
24,850,194 
28,448,293 
16,378,578 
23,975,617 
30,886,142 
20,865,077 



373,189,274 26,933,022 



Total. 

$218,388,011 
209,658,366 
230,976,15"? 
278,241,064 

275,156,846 
326,964,908 
362,960,682 
324,644,421 
356,759,462 
400,122,296 



Imports. 

£216,224,932 
212,945,442 
267,978,641 
304,562,381 
261,468,520 
31 1,639,942 
360,890,141 
282,613,150 
338,768,130 
362,166,254 



Of these amounts. 
Bpede. 

I in porta. 

$5,453, 503 

6,505,044 

4.201,382 

6. 989.J '142 

3,659.812 

4,207.632 

12,461,799 

19,274,496 

7,434,789 

8,550.135 



Exports 
$29,472,752 
42,674,135 
27,486,875 
41,281.504 
56,247,343 
45,746,488 
69,136,922 
52,633,1 17 
63,887,411 
66,546,239 



$2,745,109,155 $228,883,058 $2,983,872,213 $2,922,159,539 $495,111,813 $77,687,934 

buyers of food. Thus the wheat crop of 
the United States in 1850, by census, was 
equal to 22,000,000 bbls of flour. The aver- 
age export price in that year was $5, giving 
to the crop a value of $110,000,000! In 
1S55, the average price was $10, giving a 
value of 8110,000,000 greater. This sum 
was taken out of the pockets of the food 
buyers, to the profit of the food sellers, at 
the moment when the latter were enjoving 
so large an expenditure for other purposes. 
The exports of agricultural products rose 
from $24,309,210, in 1850, to $77,686,455, 
in 1 85 6. The great activity of the years end- 
ing with 1 857 was, then, due to heavy expen- 
diture of capital at the west simultaneously 
with profitable sales of its crops. The panic 
of that year caused not only a total cessation 
of the expenditure, but an earnest desire to 
recover capital invested at the west. Rail- 
road building stopped, migration ceased, 
speculation was at an end, and European 
crops being good, prices of produce fell in 
face of very poor western harvests. There 
was no exhaustion of capital, since it was ap- 
parently more abundant and cheaper at the 
great eastern reservoirs than ever before; 
but the stimulus to its employment was gone, 
and it accumulated in first hands. The 
broad lands of the west had filled up to some 
extent, with industrious inhabitants: they 
were supplied with sufficient means of com- 
munication for their needs, at that time; 
and when the wheels of commerce should 
be again set in motion they were ready to 
respond with abundant crops. 

If we bring together by recapitulation 
the aggregates of the seven decades since 
the formation of the government, we shall 



The imports rose steadily to over 
000,000 in 1854, under the first Australian 
and Californian excitement, and took larger 
dimensions as the railroad operations pro- 
gressed. Railroad iron figured largely in 
the amount in exchange for bonds. The 
imports of silks rose from $13,731,000, in 
1 850, to $30,630,000. The most remarkable 
rise in the importation was, however, in 
sugar, which, from $11,000,000, rose to 
nearly $55,000,000, in 1857, in consequence 
of the failure of the Louisiana crop, at a 
moment of very active demand. So high a 
figure to be paid for sugar at a critical mo- 
ment went far to disturb the exchanges, and 
aid the panic of 1857. We find that the 
whole amount of importations for the ten 
years reached $2,922,159,539, exceedingly 
$1,654,375,757, the importations of the pre- 
vious ten years. This excess of expenditure 
corresponds with the estimated amount of 
capital expended for extraordinary purposes, 
since a considerable portion of the expendi- 
tures was applied to domestic manufactures. 
The operation of the treaty with Canada pro- 
duced a somewhat larger receipt of foreign 
goods. These also swelled proportionately 
the aggregate imports. The excitement man- 
ifest in the United States in regard to gold 
and railroads, was also present in England 
and Europe. The production of manufac- 
tured wares to send to the gold countries, 
and to avail of the local demand for goods, 
required more raw material, at a moment 
when the short harvests and war enterprise 
enhanced general wants. The effect of these 
was equivalent to a large transfer of capital 
to the west, not only from Europe, but also 
from those eastern states that arc usually 



832 



FARMERS GOLD, ETC. 



have a very interesting synopsis of the national 
progress in respect of commerce. The trea- 
sury department has also caused to be pre- 
pared, with great care, the annual value of 



agricultural products and manufacturing in- 
dustry at corresponding periods. If we add 
them to the table, it will be so much the 
more complete, as follows : — 



Exports for periods of ten years. 
Domestic. Foreign. Total. 



1800, 
1810, 



$293,034,645 
383,401,077 
1820, 462,701,288 
1830, 536,104,918 
1840, 892,889,909 
1850, 1,131,458,801 
1860, 2,745,109,155 



£191,344,293 
372,536,294 
127,190,714 
229,643,834 
199,451,994 
129,105.782 
228,883,058 



$484,968,938 

755,937,371 

589,892,002 

765,748,752 

1,092,351,903 

1,260,564,583 

2,983,872,213 



Imports. 

$591,845,454 

927.663,500 

688,120,347 

798,633,427 

1,302,476,084 

1,267,783,782 

2,922,159,539 



Manufactures. 
Annual value. 

$145,385,906 

62,766,385 

111,645,466 

483,278,215 

1,055,595,899 

1,886,000,000 



Agriculture. 
Annual \ ulna. 



$621,163,977 

994,093,842 

2,000,000,000 



5,445,299,793 $1,478,155,969 $7,933,336,662 $8,498,682,133 3,744,671,871 $3,615,257,819 



This table, mostly official, gives the ex- 
traordinary results of a nation's industry and 
commerce in a period of seventy years. The 
growth has such an accumulative force, as to 
be very surprising. In the item of re-exports 
of foreign goods, the trade never recovered 
the figu res they touched at the period when 
American vessels did the carrying trade for 
fighting Europe. In the period 1855-1860, 
however, under the warehouse system of the 
United States, and the reciprocity treaty with 
the British provinces, some increase in that 
respect took place, the more so that steam 
and extended relations opened to the United 
States a larger share of the South American 
trade, tending ultimately to give the United 
States the preponderating influence. The 
exports of domestic goods grew rapidly 
under the more extended demand for cotton 
throughout the world, and of which the 
United States was the only source of supply. 
All other cotton countries, India particularly, 
required more cotton in the shape of goods 
than they supply in the raw state. The de- 
mands for cotton clothing increase in the 
double ratio of greater numbers and greater 
wealth throughout the world. Cotton is, 
however, not the only article which increases 
in export value. The tables show us that 
gold figured in ten years for $495,000,000 as 
an article of export, and may not be less in fu- 
ture decades. The agricultural resources of 
this country have just begun to be developed. 
Up to 1842 there was, under the restrictive 
systems of Europe, comparatively no market 
for American farm produce. In that year 
the statesmen of England recognized the fact 
that the demands of English workpeople for 
food had outgrown the ability of the British 
islands to supply it on terms as low as it 
could be bought elsewhere. They therefore 
removed the prohibition upon the import of 



cattle and provisions, and reduced the duty 
on grain. This opened a market for Amer- 
ican produce, which grew rapidly. The cir 
cmnstances of the famine of 1846 justified 
the wisdom of the English government, and 
led to the entire removal of the corn duties 
in 1849. That example was followed by 
France and her neighbors. France, however, 
restored the duties in 1859. The liberal 
legislation of England, the famine, the wars, 
and speculations of Europe, have gradually 
extended the demand for American produce, 
at the time when a very broad field had been 
opened to supply that demand. This we may 
illustrate. The area of Great Britain's in- 
dustry — hills, lakes, vales, and valleys — is 
53,760,000 acres; and the population in 
1812, when she made war on us, was 11," 
991,107. Now we find from the table of 
land sales, elsewhere given, that the federal 
government had sold in twenty years select- 
ed farm lands to the extent of 68,655,203 
acres, and had given to railroads 42,000,000 
acres more of selected lands, making 110,- 
000,000 acres, most of which passed into 
the hands of settlers. This is a surface double 
the whole area of Great Britain ; and the pop- 
ulation on that area increased, in the same 
time, to 11,374,595, or a number nearly as 
! large as that of Great Britain in 1 81 2. There 
i were built on that area, between 1850 and 
I860, and are still in operation, 20,000 
miles of railroads, crossing every part of it, 
and bringing most of the farms within 
reach of a market. The speculators and road 
builders, who ate up the produce of that area, 
during the process of road construction, 
vanished, and the whole was offered by a 
hundred channels to the best bidders of 
Europe. We have ,said that corn is the 
settler's capital, and that corn, m the shape 
of grain, pork, and whiskey, is the staple 



AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



S33 



export of a new country. The corn product 
of 1855, per state reports, was GOO, 000,000 
bushels. The number of hogs packed that 
year was 2,489,050, averaging 200 lbs. each, 
and giving a total weight of 497,900,000 lbs. 



of pork. In that year the weight of pork 
exported was 164,374,681 lbs. Of this 
amount, 58,526,683 lbs. went to England, 
or 12 per cent, of the whole production, as 
the result of her more liberal policy of 1 842. 



QUANTITIES OF CORN AND PORK EXPORTED TO GREAT BRITAIN. 





Pork, 


Hams and 


Lard, 


Corn, 


Wheat, 


Flour, 




barrels. 


Bacon, lbs. 


lbs. 


bushels. 


bu»lu-K 


barrels. 


1840, 




1,061 




104,341 


015.1)72 


620,919 


1841, 


"4,769 


26,394 


444,305 


12,548 


119.854 


208,984 


1849, 


111,385 


53,150,465 


21,388,265 


12,392,242 


0O.S.661 


958,815 


1860, 


91,640 


19,447,163 


18,866,178 


3.726,786 


699,713 


1,926,202 


1862, 


48,010 


155,462,500 


62,325,300 


5,776,772 


18,564,756 


2,971,918 


1869, 


105,210 


82,901,728 


28,667,968 


32,986,804 


24,538,646 


977.714 


1872, 


285,847 


246,208,143 


191,651,660 


34,491,650 


26,423,080 


2,514,535 


1874, 


352,412 


347,405,405 


205,527,471 


34,434,606 


71.039.92S 


4,094,094 


1877, 


348,360 


460,057,146 


234,741,233 


70,800,983 


40,325,611 


3,843,665 


1879, 


422.0H9 


732,249,576 


326,658,686 


86,296,252 


122,353,936 


5,629,714 


1880, 


479,749 


759,773,109 


374,979,286 


98,169,877 


153,752,795 


6,011,419 



The cotton, tobacco, and rice of the south, 
the farm produce of the west, and the gold 
of California, each contributed an increasing 
proportion to the general exports ; but man- 
ufactures have also come to figure largely 
in the general aggregate. 



The following table gives the proportions 
in which the general heads of exports have 
contributed from time to time to the result, 
since the formation of the government; 
and also the total exports, including all 
articles: — 



HEADS OF EXPORTS. 



Cotton. 



Tobacco 
and Rice. 



1790, 
1803, 
1807, 
1816, 
1831, 
1836, 
1847, 
1851, 
1860, 
1864, 
1868, 
1870, 
1874. 
1878, 
1880, 



$6,103,363 
8,664,000 
7,783,000 
15,187,880 
6,908,655 
12,607,390 
10,848,982 
11,390,148 
18,473,946 
12,482,255 
26,169,264 
22,832,880 
32,995,603 
28,518,435 
18,455,639 



Flour and 
Provisions. 

$5,991,171 

15,050,000 

15,706,000 

20,587,376 

12,424,701 

9,588,359 

68,701,921 

21,948,651 

43,767,922 

133,021,299 

102,245,023 

101,426,472 

239,527,854 

305,342,043 

415,080,077 



$42,285 
7,920,000 

14.232,000 

24,106,000 

31,724,682 

71,284.925 

53,415,848 
112,315,317 
191,806,555 
1,180,113 
152,820,733 
227,027,624 
211,223,580 
180,031,484 
211,535,905 

These general heads represent all parts of 
the Union — cotton and tobacco in the south, 
flour and provisions in the west, manufac- 
tures in the east, and gold in the Pacific 
states. For many years previous to 1861, 
there had been a steady increase in the de- 
mand for cotton and tobacco from Great 
Britain and France, and cotton, especially, 
had come to be so important an item of our 
exports and of European import, that the 
statesmen of Great Britain had become 
alarmed, and had made great efforts to stim- 
ulate the production of cotton in India, 
Egypt, and elsewhere, that they might be 
less dependent upon the United States for 
so necessary a product. These efforts had 
not been attended with great success. A 
43 



Manufactures. 

$2 ,000, 000 

2,309,000 

2,331,000 

5,086.890 

6,107,528 

10,351.364 

20,136.967 

39,803,080 

27,171,017 

93,313,456 
135,444,501 
162,403,158 
148,085,171 



United States Total of all 
Specie. Domestic Exports. 

$19,666,000 



9,014.931 
345,738 
2.620 
18,069,580 
56,94G,N51 
75,804,747 
70,841,396 
58,155,666 
66,630,405 
33,740,125 
17,142,919 



42,205.901 

48,699,592 

64.781.s9ti 

61,277,057 

106,916,680 

150,637.4<!4 

196,689,718 

373, is!). 271 

320,035,199 

454.301,713 

499,092.11:: 

693,039,054 

722,811,815 

833,294,246 



considerable quantity of cotton was indeed 
grown in India, but it was of so shorta sta- 
ple that it would not make strong anddur- 
able goods ; and the natives of India requi red 
a constantly increasing quantity of machine 
made cotton goods, which it was thought 
could only be made from American cotton. 
Our cotton growers, therefore, felt confident 
that their market for all the cotton they could 
raise was a permanent one, and that the price 
would constantly advance. But the war of 
1861-65 materially changed the face of af- 
fairs. As we have seen, our exports of cot- 
ton fell off, and from approaching 200 mil- 
lion dollars in yearly value, in 1862 they 
were only §1,180, 1 13. The cotton of India 
improved in quality, and, though not so 



834 



FARMERS — GOLD, ETC. 



good as American, took its place largely. 
In 1859, 192,330,880 pounds were imported 
from India into Great Britain, at a cost of 
about 15 million dollars. In 1866, the im- 
port from India was 654,106,686 pounds, 
valued at about 88 million dollars. When 
the south recovered itself so as again to 
raise large crops of cotton, European custo- 
mers were found ready to buy all she had 
to sell, though they still used Egyptian and 
Indian cotton to some extent ; but American 
cotton is better, and the exports of that 
crop since 1870 have largely exceeded 
both in amount and value those of 1860 
-61, while the crop itself has been a mil- 
lion and a half bales greater than that 
of that year. Still it is not as exclusive a 
crop in the south as it was before the 
war. It was formerly believed that Eu- 
rope would not require any great quantity 
of food supplies from us except in years 
of very bad harvests; but the increase 
of manufacturing and decrease of the sup- 
plies of grain from the Black Sea, have 
rendered "Western Europe permanently 
dependent upon us for breadstuffs and 
provisions, and were not our country so 
vast and our climate so varied that our crops 
do not fail in all sections at once, there 
might be reason for apprehension, that with 
our rapidly increasing home demand a short 
crop might cause famine in Europe. 

The column of manufactures produced is 
not brought down beyond 1860, but we give 
below the estimated amount for 1880. 
The quantity and values of manufactures 
exported is brought down to 1880 and 
shows a most rapid increase. If we in- 
cluded in this statement the flour and meal, 
the hams and bacon, the butter, cheese, lard 
and canned and preserved meats and vege- 
tables, all of them properly manufactured 
products, but included in that table as flour 
and provisions, the annual export of manu- 
factures would be not less than 300 millions 
of dollars. 

In order to manufacture to advantage, 
something besides a law is necessary. 
There must be capital and a supply of 
skilled labor. Those, in the long race of a 
thousand years, grew up in England, where 
the system of manufactures is mostly indi- 
vidual. A man learns his trade and devotes 
himself to the production of an article, or 
a part of an article, and by the constant ex- 
ercise of intelligence and economy, he comes 
finally to perfect it in the cheapest manner. 



These productions are combined by other 
parties into merchantable commodities. In 
the United States it was a consequence of 
the prohibition under the imperial govern- 
ment, that these individual industries did 
not grow up. There were no factories in 
which young artisans were learning a bus- 
iness, and when separation took place there 
was no experienced labor. "When, there- 
fore, the capital that had been earned in 
commerce was suddenly applied to manu- 
factures, the only mode of proceeding was 
the corporate mode; the capital was sub- 
scribed by a company, and the works di- 
rected by persons often of little practical 
experience. Under such a system, pro- 
gress was difficult. "With the large immi- 
gration of skilled workmen from abroad, 
however, a greater breadth has been given 
to all branches, and progress is very rapid, 
the more so that the general prosperity en- 
ables consumers to extend the best possible 
encouragement to producers, by buying 
their wares. The chief consumers of these 
have been the agriculturists, and the inter- 
change of manufactures for agriculture 
forms the chief trade of the whole country. 
In 1840, per census reports, the value of 
manufactures was $483,278,215, and of ag- 
riculture, $621,163,977; the imports were 
$107,000,000. The interchange of these 
commodities, at first hands, would involve 
an aggregate trade of $1,211,442,192. 
The same items for 1860 would give an ag- 
gregate of $4,830,000,000— four times the 
amount. But the raw material passes 
through many hands before it reaches the 
manufacturer, and his wares pass through 
a succession of merchants, jobbers, and re- 
tailers before they are finally consumed. 
Grain passes through many hands before it 
is finally eaten. The grinding of flour is 
one of the largest manufactures of the 
country, turning out in 1860, $248,580,365 
per annum. It is probable that each of the 
articles which form the aggregate of the" 
mining, manufactures, agriculture, and im- 
ports, is sold four or five times before it is 
finally consumed. This would give an ag- 
gregate trade of $25,000,000,000 per an- 
num, in 1860, against $6,000,000,000 in 
1840, or an average of $3,300 per annum 
for every effective man in the country. 
This seems very large. If, however, we 
have recourse to the circular of the leading 
mercantile agency in New York, whose 
ramifications extend over the Union, we 



COMMERCE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



835 



find they report upon their books, 250,000 
firms in business in 1857 — the panic year; 
of these firms in business 4,932 failed in 
1857, for an aggregate of $291,750,000 of 
liabilities, or an average of $58,350 each. 
If the average of all the persons doing bus- 
iness was only $50,000, or $8,350 each 
less than those who failed, then the aggre- 
gate amount of credits must have been 
$1-2,500,000,000 in 1857. Tho firms on 
the books do not include many retailers. 
Of course the credits of the retailers added 
to these, and the greatly larger volume of 
trade in 1860, would more than double 
these figures. Again, the bank discounts 
for the year 1860 were $637,183,899; these 
purport to represent bills not more than 
sixty days to run. The average of some of 
the largest city banks is 54 days; at 60 
days the amount of discounts for a year 
would be in round numbers, $4,000,000,- 
000; and the exchanges at the New York 
clearing house, as we see in another chap- 
ter were over $8,000,000,000 per annum.* 
These figures gives some idea of the vast- 
ness of that immense traffic, which consists 
in the interchange of the products of indus- 
try. In 1840, the active bank loans were 
$278,000,000, which, at the same average 
time, would give $1,668,000,000 of dis- 
counts foi the year, which holds about the 
same. In 1850, the loans were $413,756,- 
759, which would give an aggregate dis- 
count for the year of $2,484,000,000. 
♦In 1S80 these exchanges exceeded $40,000,000,000. 



Comparing these aggregates for several 
years, we have results as follows: — 



Years. 



1840 
1850 
1800 
1870 
1880 



Annual 
Productions. 



$1,211,442,102 
8,805,848,446 
4,830,500,000 
6,848,669,618 

10,610,253,148 



Annual 
Transactions. 



$6,055,000,000 
11,626.000,000 
24,162,5 0,000 

45,813,300,000 
67,474,100,000 



Bank 
Discounts. 



81,^^,000.000 
2,464,000,000 
8,948 I 
8,676 8 

10,247,688,926 



"We have, then, the fact that the national 
trade doubled in the ten years ending with 
1850, as a consequence of the increased pro- 
ductions of industry; and the best data give 
the same general results for the decades 
from 1 850 to 1 880. These large figures, as- 
tonishing as they seem, are not out of pro- 
portion to the immense growth of the 
country in breadth and numbers. 

The thirteen colonies that emerged from 
a war, ninety years since, have grown to bo 
thirty-eight states, with a land value of, in 
round numbers, $16,160,000,000. All this 
vast territory is now productive, yielding its 
annual returns, and giving an amount of an- 
nual capital beyond any thing the world 
has hitherto witnessed. 

The following table gives the states and 
territories in the order of their admission to 
the Union, or organization, their area in 
acres, population in 1790, and population 
and valuation of each state in 1850, 1860, 
1870, and 1880. The new states and ter- 
ritories have made great strides in popula- 
tion and valuation since 1860. 



836 



SHIPS TONNAGE NAVIGATION LAW8L 



CHAPTER III. 

SHIPS— TONNAGE— NAVIGATION LAWS. 

The appearance of the United States as a 
nation was fraught with the most extraordi- 
nary results in respect to the condition, pol- 
icy, and governments of Europe, but in none 
greater than in respect of navigation. From 
the moment that the stars and stripes floated 
from the mast-head of a merchantman, a 
revolution was commenced which has not 
yet ceased its influence upon the commerce 
of the world. Up to that time, England had 
gradually attained the supremacy of the 
seas. The Dutch, who had fought a steady 
battle with the ocean, until they had driven 
it back and fortified their country by dykes 
from its invasion, had earned a right to rule ; 
which, by their energy, they did for a time. 
Their country was small, however, and pro- 
duced but little: hence, they could not sup- 
port commerce in the face of the power of 
England. The United Kingdom has great 
productive power, though its area is only 2£ 
times that of Pennsylvania. Its coast is in- 
dented on all sides with harbors; and from 
which side soever the wind blows, it is fair 
for some of her vessels to arrive, and others 
to depart. A sea-girt population is neces- 
sarily a nautical population. The English 
were peculiarly fitted for sea adventure ; 
and with such advantages, added to their 
skill in building, they could not fail to ac- 
quire ascendancy upon the ocean, which 
their large population maintained and fed 
b) r planting colonies in all parts of the world. 
When the commerce of England had well 
grown, as a consequence of these advan- 
tages, her government, in the hands of Crom- 
well, sought to increase it by enacting the 
famous " navigation law," which was popular, 
because it professed to give England the 
supremacy of the ocean. The principle of 
the law was, that no goods should be im- 
ported into England from Asia, Africa, or 
America, except in British vessels ; that 
goods imported from Europe in European 
vessels should pay more than if imported in 
British vessels. This was very plausible. 
It would, it was supposed, give England the 
world's commerce ; but as there then exist- 
ed none but British vessels in either of the 
three continents out of Europe, there was no 
more trade, in consequence of the law, than 
before. The law was a dead letter. The growth 
of English commerce was evidently great. 



The statesmen of Europe ascribed it rather 
to the law than to the circumstances of the 
people, and they imitated its provisions. 
The trade between England and her colonies 
was large, but the vessels were all British. 
The development of this industry of the 
North American colonies, and their trade, 
was probably the first real opposition on the 
ocean that the Dutch received. So much 
did it flourish in the seventeenth century, 
that Sir Joshua Childs, writing in 1670, 
states that " Our American plantations em- 
ploy nearly two-thirds of our English ship- 
ping, and thereby give constant subsistence 
to, it may be, 200,000 persons here at home." 
Ship-building had been pursued with great 
success in the colonies ; and the genius of 
the colonists had already given their ships a 
distinctive character. On the declaration of 
peace, in 1783, that "bit of striped bunt- 
ing" was found floating at the gall' of all the 
best vessels. They, by the law, could now 
carry no goods to England. The large ex- 
ports of the United States were now to go 
in the worst vessels, because they were 
English. The United States immediately 
passed a similar law, that forbade any goods 
to be imported, except in American vessels. 
The American vessel then went out in bal- 
last to bring home English goods, and the 
English vessel came out in ballast to carry 
home American produce. Two ships were 
employed to do the work of one, and all im- 
ports and exports were charged two freights. 
This was too absurd, even for statesmen. 
A treaty was consequently made, by which 
the vessels of both nations were placed upon 
the same footing. The practical effect of 
this was to double the quantity of tonnage 
employed, since the vessels of both nations 
could now carry freights both ways. The 
position of affairs was, however, entirely new. 
The United States — a young country, with 
few ships and less capital, distributed among 
a sparse population — presented itself to the 
old, wealthy, and aristocratic governments 
of Europe, and demanded of them that they 
should admit its ships to visit their pop- 
ulous and wealthy cities, in return for the 
privilege of their visiting the comparatively 
poor and unattractive towns of the states. 
This kind of reciprocal intercourse had never 
existed ; and the United States now came 
forward to propose it, and to lay down prin- 
ciples for its guidance. Their moral influ- 
ence caused them to be adopted. These 
principles were, "independence," J equal 



COMMERCE OF THE UNITED 8TATE8. 



837 



favor,' 1 and "reciprocity." These principles 
were first laid down in the treaty made be- 
tween France and the United States in 1778, 
and they became the basis of all subsequent 
negotiations. The commercial sagacity of 
the English prompted them to accede at 
once. The United States vessels were ac- 
cordingly placed upon the footing of the 
"most favored nation." From the moment 
the United States entered that wedge, the 
whole system of exclusiveness began to fall 
to j ieces. There arc now forty-eight treaties 
between the United States and other coun- 
tries, most of them containing the favored 
nation clause. The benefits of this example 
have been so fruitful, that all the nations of 
Europe have eaten through their old restric- 
tive systems, by similar treaties with each 
other. Although England was forced into 
this concession in her direct trade, she, for 
a long time, refused it in respect of her col- 
onies. It was reserved for a later period to 
force her into that movement. The vessels 
of the United States having thus gained an 
international footing, events supervened to 
give a great impulse to their employment in 
the carrying trade. In colonial times, Mas- 
sachusetts Bay was the chief theatre for ship- 
building, but Maryland was also noted for it. 
The vessels built in 1771 were as follows: — 

AN ACCOUNT OF THE NUMBER AND TONNAGE OF VESSELS 
BUILT IN THE SEVEttAL PROVINCES IN TUB YEAR 1771. 

Square-risged 8l °T „, 

vessels. , and Tonnage, 
schooners. 

New Hampshire 15 40 4,991 

Massachusetts Bay ... 42 83 7,704 

Rhode Island. 15 60 2,148 

Connecticut 7 39 1,483 

New York 9 28 1,698 

New Jersey 2 70 

Pennsylvania 15 6 1,307 

Maryland 10 8 1,645 

Virginia 10 9 1,678 

North Carolina 8 241 

South Carolina 3 4 560 

Georgia 2 4 543 

Total 128 .291 24,068 

The tonnage entered and cleared for the 
year 1771, to all ports, was as follows : — 

Cleared from Entered 

colonies. colonies. 

Great Britain 98,025 82,934 

.uthern Europe 37,237 * 37,71 7 

West Indies 108,150 106,713 

South and Central America. 107,552 104,578 

350,964 331,942 

This was before the war. After the war, 

the trade received a great development from 

the French treaty of 1 7 78, and from that with 



Great Britain. The ship-building during 
the colonial period had been in \er V different 
styles, so that every seaman, at a glance, 
could recognize the origin of the \> 
The Baltimore clipper, the Essex fishing 
schooner, the Chesapeake schooner, the 
down east lumber schooner, or brig, the 
Hudson river sloop, the Long Island sloop, 
the Newport boat, the Massachusetts Bay 
dory, were distinct types, and still preserve 
their styles to some extent, although the 
march of improvement has tended to assimi- 
late all styles, by combining their good 
points. The changes of trade have varied 
the demand, and since California has brought 
clippers in demand, they are now by no 
means a Baltimore peculiarity. The fishing 
vessels were peculiarly adapted to their em- 
ployment. The fisheries were the chief 
business of the northern colonists, and they 
had not only the benefit of the large sale to 
the West Indies and to the Catholic countries 
of Europe, but the eating of fish in England 
had, by the law of Elizabeth, in 1563, been 
ordered on Wednesdays and Saturdays, for 
the encouragement of seamen, thus affording 
a large market, from which foreign fish were 
excluded. The same law became a custom 
down to our day, it being still almost uni- 
versal in New England to eat fish on Satur- 
day. Indeed, so strictly was this custom 
observed, that in the old slave days of 
Massachusetts, it being ordered that slaves 
should not be in the streets on Sunday, a 
black was arrested on the common, lie 
denied tha it was Sunday, and proved his 
point by showing that " massa no eat salt 
fish yesterday." The fisheries were thought 
to be the nursery of seamen, and when the 
Union was formed, a law of July 4, 1789, 
allowed a drawback on fish exported equal 
to the supposed quantity of salt used. This 
law, in 1792, was changed to a bounty per 
ton on the vessels engaged in the fisheries, 
and has been continued down to the present 
time. The number of tons now in the 
cod fisheries is 79,885. The bounty was 
paid to this interest until the change in the 
tariff in 1864, when it was exchanged for a 
drawback on the duty upon all salt used in 
curing the fish. The difficulty with the 
Dominion in regard to the fisheries has 
rendered this fishery less profitable. The 
whale fishery seemed peculiarly adapt- 
ed to the skill and daring of the Ameri- 
can seamen. The whale boats were of a 
peculiar build, and gradually, although they 



838 



SHIPS TONNAGE NAVIGATION LAWS. 



received no protection from the government, 
they drove away other nations from the seas. 
m hc interest is, however, depressed, from the 
growing scarcity of whales, and the great 
competition that its product receives from 
other sources. The making of lard oil 
brought "prairie whales" into effectual com- 
petition with those of the ocean. 

The tonnage engaged in the foreign trade 
increased up to 1810 very rapidly under the 



influence of the carrying enjoyed under the 
treaties with Europe, and the effect of the 
wars between the great powers. The coast- 
ing trade did not increase in the same ratio, 
for the reason that the trade enjoyed by the 
registered tonnage was not the carrying of 
American goods, but of foreign products 
from colonies to Europe. The compara- 
tive increase of the tonnage is seen as fol- 
lows : — 









TONNAGE OF UNITED STATES. 






Years. 


Foreign Trade, 
Registered. 


Coasting Trade, 

Enrolled and 

Licensed. 


Whaling 
Trade, Reuist'd 
and Enrolled. 


Cod Fisheries, 

Enrolled and 

Licensed. 


Mackerel 
Fisheries, En- 
rolled. 


Steam Vessels. 


Total Touuaga 


Oce»n. 


Coasting. 


Marine. 


1789 
1810 
1821 
1829 
1840 
1850 
1858 
1863 
1868 
1870 
1875 
1880 


123,893 

981,019 

693,825 

592,859 

762,838 

1,439,694 

2,301,148 

1,926.886 

1,494.389 

1,448,846 

1,515,598 

1,314.402 


68,607 

405,347 

614,845 

508,858 

1,176,694 

1,797,825 

2,401,220 

2.960,633 

2,702,140 

2,638,247 

3,219 698 

2,637.686 


3.589 

27,995 

57,284 

136,927 

146,017 

198,594 

99,228 

71,343 

67.954 

38,229 

38.408 


9,062 

34,828 

62,293 

101,797 

76,036 

93,806 

119,252 

117.290 

83,887 

91,460 

80,207 

77,539 


28,269 
58,112 
29,594 
51,019 


4,155 
44,952 
78,027 
133,215 
221.939 
192.544 
191 .6S9 
199,876 


198,184 

481,005 
651.363 
442.304 
975,142 
882..151 
976,979 
1,011,683 


201,562 
1,424.783 
1,298,958 
1,260,798 
2.1S0.764 
3,535,454 
5,049,808 
5,155.056 ■ 
4.351.759 
4,246,507 
4,853.732 
4.068.035 



This table gives a sort of chart of the 
whole progress of the tonnage. It is observ- 
able that up to the close of the first period, 
viz. : to the embargo and non-intercourse of 
1809, the registered tonnage, or that engaged 
in the foreign trade, increased most rapidly ; 
there were then no large home productions 
to require much inland transportation, and 
the carrying trade of Europe was very active. 
"With the growth of cotton, however, an 
immense freight was given as well to coasting 
as to registered tonnage, and that was far 
more valuable to the latter than the carrying 
trade which had been lost. When the war 
and non-intercourse stopped the growth of 
external tonnage, a great impulse was given 
to that of the interior. The lakes and rivers 
began to be covered with craft, which swelled 
the enrolled tonnage. In the south a good 
portion of this tonnage was employed in the 
transportation of cotton to the seaboard, 
where it was freighted to Europe in regis- 
tered vessels. The operation of the laws in 
relation to the measuring of vessels had an 
injurious influence upon the form. The 
making the beam of the vessel an element 
in the calculation of the tonnage she would 
carry, led to the construction of " kettle 
bottoms," which swelled out in the form of 
a kettle, allowing her to carry much more 
than her register showed. These vessels 
carried cotton mostly to European ports, 
whence there was little return cargo ; but 
wdien, after the war, migration set in freely 
from Havre, affording a return freight, the 
'form was altered to give accommodation to 
the passengers, and an impulse was given to 
6hip-building. The latter branch of industry 



languished up to 1829, since there was little 
carrying trade, and the cotton crop was only 
one-sixth its present quantity. The British 
government had refused to allow the West 
India colonies to be open to American ves- 
sels. The West Indies, however, were depend- 
ent upon the United States for supplies of 
produce, while they were required to send 
their own sugar, coffee, and rum to the 
mother country in British vessels. By re- 
fusing to let American vessels go thither, 
she sought to secure three freights for British 
ships. Thus, a vessel left England with 
goods for the United States, then loaded 
provisions for the W'est Indies, and took 
home thence sugar, etc., to England, making 
a round voyage. This the United States 
refused to permit, unless American vessels 
participated ; and the trade was closed. The 
English colonists, deprived of American sup- 
plies, set up a clamor which compelled the 
government to open certain ports to Ameri- 
can ships on the same terms as British ships ; 
and Congress, in return, authorized the Pres- 
ident, by proclamation, to open United 
States ports to colonial vessels, whenever he 
should have proof of a reciprocal movement. 
This took place in 1830, and the trade has 
rapidly increased since. 

The increase of registered tonnage, as of 
all others, had been large up to 1840, under 
the general animation that trade encountered 
from the speculative action of those years. 
Two circumstances now, however, occurred 
to enhance the demand for shipping. These 
were the English-China war, and the Amer- 
ican-Mexican war. The attempts of the- 
English to force the opium trade upon the 



COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES. 



830 



Chinese, contrary to their laws, had induced 
the Chinese, in 1841, to destroy a large 
quantity of opium. This brought on the 
war which resulted in the opening of five 
Chinese ports to the commerce of the world, 
and hy so doing increased the demand for 
American ships — always favorites with the 
merchants in the trade between India and 
China. One result of the English war with 
the Chinese was the negotiation of a treaty 
of a very favorable nature between the 
United States and the Chinese government. 
The Americans and English had long traded 
together, and their nationality had long been 
a puzzle to John Chinaman. As far as he 
could see, they both spoke the same lan- 
guage, although they sailed under different 
Bags; but, with his natural acuteness, he had 
observed that the "red-haired devils" had 
more capital than the Americans; he conse- 
quently classified the latter as "second-chop 
Englishmen." He was now, however, not 
sorry to give them the advantage in the 
treaty negotiated by Hon. Caleb dishing, 
or, as they styled him, Ku-ching. The re- 
turn of that minister to the United States 
across Mexico was attended with a new in- 
sult from that people, who robbed him of 
his baggage. Subsequently, the long train 
of insults heaped upon Americans through 
the recklessness and arrogance of the Mexi- 



cans, ended in a war in 1846. That event 
caused a large demand for shipping on the 
part of the government, for transports. The 
expedition fitted out under General Scott tor 
Vera Cruz, was the largest naval enterprise 
ever undertaken by any nation up to that 
time — that is a like number of troops had 
never before been transported so great a dis- 
tance by sea to open a campaign in an ene- 
my's country The American expedition was 
promptly successful. Following these two 
events, that absorbed so much shipping, 
came the Irish famine. The same famine, 
which created the extended demand for 
American produce, also stimulated a large 
migration to the United States, furnishing 
ample freights to the homeward-bound 
shipping. 

The increase of steam tonnage was the 
most remarkable. The first arrival of a 
steamer from England was the Sirius, April 
23, 1838. That experiment was looked 
upon with distrust, but it has succeeded so 
far, that thirty-three lines, running one hun- 
dred and ninety-six ships, have been started 
between the United States and Europe. In 
July, 1840, the Brittania, the Cunard boat, 
arrived at Boston; and that line has con- 
tinued to be almost uniformly successful up 
to the present time. The lines since started 
are as follows, mostly running from N. Y.: — 



STEAMSHIP LINES BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND EUROPE SINCE 1840. 



Line. 


From What 
Port. 


To What Port or Ports. 


Style. 


Ownership. 


No. of 
Yes - Is. 


Aggregate 

Tonnage. 


Cunard Line, 


N.Y., 


Liverpool, 


Screw, 


British, 


10 


abt. 88,000 


Cunard Line, 


Boston, 


Liverpool, 


Screw, 


British, 


5 


abt. lfi.000 


♦Collins Line, 


N. Y., 


Liverpool, 


Paddle wheel, 


American, 


3 


B 727 


♦Scotch Line, 


N.Y., 


Glasgow, 


Screw, 


British, 


3 


6,109 


♦Irish Line. 


N.Y., 


Cork. 


Screw, 


British, 


o 


2.000 


General Transatlantic, 


N. Y., 


Havre and Marseilles, 


Screw, 


French, 


10 


abt. 38.000 


'French or Pereire Line, 


N. Y., 


Havre, 


Screw, 


French, 


6 


abt. 15.000 


♦Old Havre Line, 


N.Y., 


Havre, 


Paddle wheel. 


American, 


3 


7,900 


♦Vanderbilt Line, 


N. Y., 


Havre, 


Paddle wheel. 


American, 


3 


7,000 


♦Independent Line, 


N. Y., 


Havre, 


Paddle wheel. 


American, 


1 


1,800 


Red Star Line, 


N.Y., 


Antwerp, 


Screw. 


Belgian, 


6 




♦Bremen Line, 


N. Y., 


Bremen, 


Paddle wheel. 


American, 


2 


4.000 


♦Hamburg Line, 


N. Y., 


Hamburg, 


Screw, 


German, 


2 


2.400 


♦Philadelphia, 


Phila., 


Liverpool, 


Screw, 


British, 


3 


ti.s r >r. 


♦Portland, 


Portland, 


Liverpool, 


Screw, 


British, 


2 




♦North Atlantic, 


N. Y., 


Southampton, 
Liverpool, 


Paddle wheel. 


American, 


5 


16.000 


♦Liverp'l & Gt. West'n, 


N.Y., 


Screw, 


British, 


10 


80,600 


Inman Line. 


N. Y., 


Liverpool, 


Screw, 


British, 


10 


3*'..(KK) 


National Line, ■ 


N. Y., 


Liverpool and London, 


Screw, 


British, 


19 


40.000 


White Star Line, 


N.Y., 


Liverpool, 


Screw, 


British, 


s 


88.000 


Galon Line, 


N.Y., 


Liverpool, 


Screw, 


British, 


6 


96.000 


North (Jerman Lloyds, 


N. Y., 


Bremen, 


Screw, 


German, 


7 


94.600 


Anchor Line, 


N. Y., 


Gla9.. Lon., and Barrow, 


Screw, 


British, 


18 


77. nod 


Hamburg American, 


N.T., 


Plym'th, Lon., and Ham., 


Screw, 


German, 


9 


97.000 


State Line, 


N. Y., 


Glasgow, Liverpool, &c, 


Screw, 


British, 


ti 


■ 


Monarch Line, 


N. Y., 


London, 


Screw, 


British, 


5 


10.9011 


Phila., New Line, 


Phila., 


Antwerp. 


Screw, 


Netherlands, 


:! 


0.(100 


Penn. State Line, 


Phila., 


Liverpool, 


Screw, 


American, 


3 


10.600 


Rotterdam Line, 


N. Y., 


Rotterdam, 


Screw, 


Netherlands, 


5 


16,000 


Great Western Line, 


NY.. 


Bristol and Cardiff, 


Screw, 


British, 


5 


16.000 


Miss. & Dom. Line, 


N. Orleans, 


Montreal and Liverpool, 


Screw, 


Am and Can., 


in 




Allan Line, 


Bos. & (^iie. 


Liverpool, 


Screw, 


Am and Can.. 


in 


88,000 


Med. & N. Y. Line, 


N. V.. 


Mediterranean Ports, 


Screw, 


British? 


3 


7.500 



♦These lines have been discontinued. Twenty lines, with 140 ships, only three of them American, are now 
engaged in this traffic, and all are now fully employed. 



840 



TONNAGE AND NAVIGATION LAWS. 



It is very difficult to estimate the num. 
ber of passengers who have crossed the At- 
lantic on these steamers since 1840. At 
first, and until there were regular lines es- 
tablished, there were many who preferred 
the clipper packet ships, and at the end of 
the first twenty years, 1840-1860, it was 
thought that the whole number of passen- 
gers either outward or homeward bound 
did not exceed 500,000. After the civil 
war, the number of lines rapidly increased, 
though, we are sorry to say, there were very 
few American vessels among them. Bus- 
iness men were constantly crossing the 
ocean, either for business or recreation; 
many thousands desired to see Europe and 
the east, and the international expositions 
drew additional thousands. Every steam- 
er carried and brought all the passengers 
for whom it had accommodations, and new 
lines were called for. Some of these und er- 
took to bring immigrants as steerage pas- 
sengers; these had heretofore come only by 
sailing vessels, but when the steamships 
undertook this additional service, they soon 
built large vessels and almost every ship 
became a floating city. Before 1870, it 
was estimated that more than 1,500,000 
passengers had made the passage of the 
Atlantic by them. "With the vast outgoing 
tide of travelers and tourists, and the still 
vast incoming flood of immigrants, five or 
six thousand landing in a day, and 600,000 
in a year from these steamers, at the port 
of New York alone, the aggregate to July 
1881, cannot be less than 6,500,000. 

In such an immense passenger traffic 
there have been, of course, some disasters 
and loss of life; but the percentage has 
been very small, the loss of life from disas- 
ters in the whole 40 years being a little less 
than 5,000, or about one person in every 
1,300, so that, as "Mark Twain" says, "the 
voyage is safer than remaining at home; 
the chance of dying in your bed at home 
being greater than that of dying by acci- 
dent to the steamer." These 5,000 deaths 
include, however, only those occurring from 
loss of the steamer ; not those from person- 
al accidents, suicide, or sickness, either 
previously existing, or contracted on the 
'• vessel. But the percentage of these is not 
large. 

But our ocean steamship service is not 
confined to the lines from our Atlantic 
ports to Europe. We have also steamers 
of large capacity plying to Richmond, 



Charleston, Savannah, and New Orleans, 
to the West India ports, and especially to 
Havana, to Galveston, Indianola, Vera 
Cruz, Aspinwall, and Nicaragua. On the 
Pacific coast, there are the lines of the Pa- 
cific Mail Co.; the steamships to Japan, 
Hong Kong, the Sandwich Islands, and 
Australia, and those plying northward to 
the Columbia River, Puget Sound, British 
Columbia, and Alaska. 

The growth of steam service in the in- 
terior of the country was more rapid than 
its external development. The amount of 
steam tonnage in ocean navigation, in 
1850, was 44,942, against none in 1840. 
The inland tonnage engaged on lakes, riv- 
ers, and coasting, was 48 1,004 — an increase 
of 283.000 in ten years, at a cost of $28,- 
000,000. 

When the western country, with its fer- 
tile fields and magnificent water-courses, 
attracted settlers, and these had produce 
for sale, there was but one way to market, 
and flat -bottom boats, launched upon the 
descending streams, bore the freights to 
New Orleans. At that point they were not 
unfrequently broken up, the owners return- 
ing by land. In 1794, two keel boats sailed 
from Cincinnati to Pittsburg, making the 
trip in four weeks. Each boat was covered, 
so as to be rifle-proof; was loop-holed for 
muskets, and six guns, to carry pound 
balls. It was in this manner that persons 
and property were protected from Indian 
aggression. The other western rivers pre- 
sented similar means of travel. Even this 
was progress, however; and each year saw 
•the numbers and wealth of the dwellers 
increase. In 1790 the first sea-going brig 
was built at Marietta, Ohio. She was 
called the St. Clair, 120 tons, owned and 
commanded by Commodore Preble, who 
descended the Ohio and Mississippi, and ar- 
rived, via Havana, at Philadelphia, where 
she was sold. In 1802-4, four ships, three 
brigs, and three schooners, were built at 
Pittsburg for the Ohio navigation. Keel 
boats and sea-going vessels rapidly multi- 
plied; but the dangers of the navigation 
retarded commerce. The dangerous falls 
of the Ohio were a drawback; and the 
Kentucky legislature, in 1804, incorpor- 
ated a company to cut a canal round them. 
This was, however, not done until 1830. 
After 1806, the march of commerce and 
civilization began to make itself felt, and 
trade was carried on in keel boats, which, 



TONNAGE AND NAVIGATION LAWS. 



841 



however comfortable they might float with 
the stream, required three months for a voy- 
age from New Orleans to Cincinnati. The 
first steamboat on the rivers was built by 
Fulton at Pittsburg, in 1811. She cost 
$20,000, and took her first freight and pas- 
sengers at Natchez, arriving at New Or- 
leans in December. She continued to run 
three or four years between those points, 
eight days up and three days dow^i, clear- 
ing, the first year, $20,000. Steam ton- 
nage then rapidly multiplied. 

The increasing population and traffic 
growing out of the annexation of Louisi- 
ana territory, and the results of the war of 
1812, greatly stimulated river navigation 
and trade. From 1815 to 1840, a period 
of twenty-five years, there was a complete 
transformation in the appearance of the 
Ohio river and its tributaries, and the val- 
ley which they watered. Instead of the 
long stretches of uninhabited lands lying 
between Pittsburg and Cincinnati, and the 
mouth of the Ohio, which made the voyage 
so monotonous to the keel-boatman, the 
passengers on the hundreds of steamboats 
saw everywhere on the shores of the "beau- 
tiful river," prosperous towns and villages, 
and penetrating inland, found a numerous 
and busy population depending on these 
steamboats for the means of transporting 
their crops and products to market. The 
region drained by the Ohio and its tribu- 
taries has an area of 142,000 square miles, 
or 91,000,000 acres. 

The computation of those who owned 
the first steamboat on this river, made after 
her first trip, is said to have been, that if 6 
cents freight could be obtained on each 
pound,, and they could get enough to do, the 
investment would be a profitable one. The 
result has shown that freight has been re- 
duced to less than a cent, and that ample 
employment is afforded for hundreds of 
boats. The number of steamboats built 
previous to the year 1835, inclusive, was 
588, of which 173 were built at Pittsburg, 
and 164 at Cincinnati. The number of 
boats in active business in 1838 was 357, 
measuring 65,000 tons, or 180 tons each; 
in 1871 (the Mississippi, Missouri, and Col- 
umbia rivers and their tributaries being 
added), the number of steamers in busi- 
ness on these rivers was 1,017, and their 
tonnage 272,795; in 1880, the number of 
vessels was 1,225, and the tonnage 256,916. 

The opening of the Erie canal, in 1825, 



gave a new direction to western produce. 
The great lakes, fr©m forming a separation 
from Canada, at once became a means of 
communication between the inhabitants of 
the vast circle of their coast and Buffalo, 
the gateway to the east. Those vast seas 
form a basin, into which pours from every 
quarter the produce of eight sovereign 
states, not including the Canadian side. 
On these lakes a few craft had floated ; and 
in Erie harbor, in 1812, was built, in sev- 
enty days from cutting the timber, that re- 
markable fleet that bore Perry's flag to vic- 
tory, and made the lakes American seas. 
Tonnage multiplied as the produce in- 
creased, and the construction of the Ohio 
canals gave a northern direction to it. 

Up to 1820 there was but one steamer 
on the lakes, and not until 1827 did a 
steamer reach Lake Michigan. In 1832 a 
steamboat landed troops at Chicago. In 
1833 there were on the lakes eleven boats, 
which had cost $360,000. They carried 
61,480 passengers in that year. In 1840 
there were forty-eight boats on the lakes, 
and their value was $2,200,000. In 1S59 
the number of boats was 186, and the val- 
ue $3,997,000, including propellers. 

Since the civil war, not only has our 
merchant marine greatly diminished, much 
of our vast carrying trade being trans- 
ported in foreign ships and steamers, ow- 
ing to the encouragement given by Great 
Britain to Confederate privateers during 
the war, but our inland tonnage on the 
lakes and rivers, which at first increased 
after the war, has since gradually fallen 
off, owing to the enormous increase of rail- 
roads, which now traverse almost every 
county of the northern and northwestern 
states. In 1868 there were 5.3()."> v< 
of all kinds traversing the lakes alone, with 
a tonnage of 695,604 32 tons; and 2.382 
vessels on the western rivers, having a 
tonnage of 481,218 tons. 

In addition to these, there wore 19,467 
American vessels engaged in the Atlantic 
and Gulf coast trade, with a measurement 
of 2,974,975 tons, and 904 of our vessels 
on the Facific coast, with a tonnage of 
166,512 tons, making a grand total of 28,- 
118 American vessels in the home trade, 
with an aggregate tonnage of 4,318,310 
tons. In 1880 the figures were as follows: 



842 



TONNAGE AND NAVIGATION LAWS. 



Sections. 
Atlantic and Gulf 
Coasts, 



Pacific Coast, 



Northern Lakes, 



Class. 

Sailing Vessels, 
Steam Vessels, 
Canal Boats, 
Barges, 



Sailing Vessels, 
Steam Vessels, 
Canal Boats, 
Barges, 



Sailing Vessels, 
Steam Vessels, 
Canal Boats, 
Barges, 



No. 
14,609 

2,251 
603 
624 



Tonnage. 

1,912,800 

631,302 

59,430 

113,246 



18,147 2,716,779 
762 148,525 
310 111,295 



'71 


12,541 


1,143 


272,361 


1,459 
931 
572 
165 


304,932 

212.045 

47,159 

40,965 


3,127 


605,102 


1,225 


256,916 


1,070 


216,876 


2,295 


473,792 



Western Kivers, Sailing Vessels, 
Steam Vessels, 
Canal Boats, 
Bargee, 



Grand Total, 24,712 4,068,035 

The losses of screw-propellers upon the 
lakes by wreck and fire, rose from $39,000 
in 1848, to $1,159,957 in 1855, and dimin- 
ished to $91,830 in 1859. The number of 
vessels lost in ten years was 402, and the 
value $3,752,131. The number of vessels 
built in 1880, was 137 on the lakes, 22,899 
tons, and 135 on the rivers, 32,791 tons. 

Broad canals and numerous railroads are 
always busy delivering upon the bosom of 
the lakes the wealth annually created by 
18.000,000 of people, and valued at thou- 
sands of millions of dollars. The borders 
of those lakes are dotted with cities, whose 
marvelous growth has been proportioned 
to the rapid settlement of the surround- 
ing country. Oswego, Rochester, Buffalo, 
Cleveland, Sandusky, Toledo. Monroe, De- 
troit, St. Joseph, Chicago, Milwaukee, Ra- 
cine, Grand Haven, Sheboygan, Duluth, 
and many smaller ports, have, like nets, so 
to speak, accumulated a portion of the vast 
wealth that has rushed by them over the 
bosom of the lakes. Each of these cities 
has a large tonnage employed in the trans- 
portation of produce and merchandise ; and 
that tonnage has in the last thirty-five 
} T ears received a new development by the 
introduction of the screw-propeller. The 
invention of Fulton consisted in the adap- 
tation of paddle-wheels to propel vessels. 
The idea of propelling by a screw in the 
stern was quite as old as that of the paddle- 
wheels; it was not, however, successfully 
constructed until, in 1839, after many fail- 
ures by others, Ericsson succeeded. A 
small iron screw-steamer was built and nav- 
igated to this country, in 1839, by Capt. 
Crane, and she became a tug on the Rari- 



tan canal. From that time, screws vindi- 
cated their value for certain purposes, as 
superior to paddles. With the improve- 
ments which have been made in them with- 
in the last twenty-five years, they have 
driven out the paddle wheels for almost all 
purposes, being used now exclusively in 
ocean and lake navigation, and for freight 
and traction purposes on the rivers. The 
ferry-boats, and most of the larger river 
passenger steamers use paddle wheels, but 
the cost of fuel, and the number of hands 
employed is much greater. Strenuous 
efforts are now making to reduce the cost 
of fuel, and also to utilize the electric 
force. The form of the screw has un- 
dergone continual changes, to obviate 
some of the difficulties that presented 
themselves. The model used for many 
years upon the lakes, was the Loper 
propeller, invented by Capt. Loper, of Phil- 
adelphia. The screw was cast in one piece, 
and of a form that combines many advan- 
tages, particularly that of hoisting out of 
water with a fair wind. More than twenty 
years ago, however, a Buffalo invention 
was introduced, by which the engineer 
could regulate the " pitch," or angle of the 
screw blades, according to the circumstan- 
ces, without taking up the screw. These 
steam propellers are obviously of a nature 
to monopolize the trade of the lakes. They 
make their trips with regularity and 
promptness. There are now 900 on the 
lakes, with a tonnage of 205,000. The 
great progress made in the last twenty 
years in railroads, which have come to ri- 
val canals and rivers throughout the west, 
and skirting the lakes, has greatly affected 
the trade in vessels, as well steam as sail. 
The introduction of steam lessened the 
amount of tonnage, because steam can per- 
form more voyages. Railroads have again 
reduced the quantity of tonnage required, 
because they run all winter, and at all 
times with greater speed. While this has 
been taking place, however, greater facili- 
ties for getting to sea have made ship- 
building on the lakes more active. Several 
vessels have been built at the lake ports 
for Liverpool, going down the St. Law- 
rence, and some schooners have been built 
at Cleveland to run between Boston and 
Albany and Chesapeake bay. Those of 
about 200 tons cost $10,000. The advan- 
tage of building on the lakes consists in 
the fact that ship plank is much cheaper, 



TONNAGE AND NAVIGATION LAWS. 



843 



say $20 in Cleveland to $60 in Boston, 
spars $40 against $100; and the vessel 
makes a handsome freight in lumber on 
the voyage out. 

These circumstances of the increase of 
the western and lake tonnage, indicate the 
means by which freights accumulated at 
the seaports to employ the ocean or regis- 
tered tonnage, had increased in such rapid 
proportions in the last nine years. The in- 
crease from 1850 to 1858 was, it appears, 
637,410 tons, while the sail coasting ton- 
nage actually declined. The discovery of 
California gold led to the employment of 
clipper ships for quick passages round the 
cape, and these, under the pressure of high 
freights, rapidly multiplied. In 1854, the 
number of vessels built was 2,024, having 
a tonnage of 583,450, or a quantity equal 
to the whole coasting tonnage of the Union 
in 1830. The tonnage increased too fast, 
and reaction overtook it. The quantity 
built in 1859 was only 870 vessels, of 156,- 
602 tons. In ordinary years, cotton is the 
chief freight of ships, and the ordinary 
proportion of shipping is as one ton to a 
bale of cotton produced. 

The building under the clipper fever more 
than doubled from 1851 to 1852. The 
sales to foreigners have risen to a large 
item. In the twenty-five years, 1854-79, 
it amounted to 1,488,075 tons, or 20 per 
cent, of the whole quantity built. This, at 
an average of $100 per ton, amounts to 
$148,807,500, or yearly average sales of 
$5,952,300, forming a considerable manu- 
facture. The cheapened cost of building 
on the lakes and western rivers will trans- 
fer to that region much of that trade. 

The amount of shipping owned in the 
United States, and engaged in either for- 
eign or domestic commerce, reached its 
highest point in 1861, viz.: 5,539,813 tons, 
although it had attained to 5,212,000 tons 
as early as 1804 , but the presence of rebel 
privateers in the Atlantic, Pacific, and In- 
dian oceans, during the war, and their cap- 
ture of many merchant ships, led to the 
sale or transfer of great numbers of vessels 
to a foreign flag. Since the close of the 
war there has been more activity in the 
building and purchase of ships, but at no 
time since 1865 has the total tonnage 
reached 5,000,000 tons, the registered ton- 
nage of sailing vessels having fallen off 
nearly one-half, while the registered steam 
tonnage has gained moderately, and the en- 



rolled or home tonnage, though fluctuating 
considerably, has in the average of twenty 
years gained a little. The following table 
shows the changes which have taken place, 
since 1856, in the amount of shipping en- 
gaged in our commerce : — 

COMPARISON OF AMERICAN AND FOREIGN TON- 
NAGE ENTERING THE PORTS OF THE 
UNITED STATES, 1856-80. 



Years. 


American. 


Foreign. 


Differ- 
ence. 


Grand 

- 




Tons. 


Tons. 


Tons. 


Tons. 


1856 


3,194,275 


1,269,763 


41-921.512 


4,404,088 


1857 


8,481,944 


1,360,983 


,+8,180,961 


4,i 13,927 


1858 


8,061,181 


1,287.102 


41.701.lrJ0 




' 1859 


8,837,998 


1.585,033 


+1,748,965 




1860 


3,301.903 


1,698,291 


+1,608,613 


6,000,194 


1861 


3.025,124 


1,688,963 


+1.401.161 


1,669,1 87 


1862 


2,629,351 


1,661,945 


+1,067,406 


4,191,396 


1863 


8,807,708 


1,897.714 


+ 409,999 


4,805,430 


1864 


1, 655,43 1 


2,512,047 


— 856,613 


4,167,487 


1865 


1,615,817 


2.211,610 


— 596.293 


8.836.937 


1866 


1,891.453 


3.117,034 


— 1.225.581 


5,008,487 


1867 


2.145 691 


3,180,695 


— 975.004 


5.266.386 


1S6S 


2,465.695 


3,105,826 


— 610.131 


5,571,531 


1869 


8,469,386 


3.572.644 


—1,113,308 


6,081,960 


1S70 


8,458,886 


8,817,968 


—1,365,737 


6,370,189 


1871 


2.603,591 


4.390,606 


—1,787,016 


6,001.107 


1872 


2.584.646 


5,185.340 


—2,600.694 


7,769,966 


1873 


8,443,885 


5,961,464 


—8,608,179 


8,894,749 


1874 


2,914,942 


7,094,718 


—4. 179, "71 




1875 


2.887,153 


6.255.985 


—8,868,883 


o.i B.188 


1876 


2.927,780 


6,788.124 


—8,860,844 


9,715,904 


1877 


2,957,791 


7.4 18,607 


—1.40O.0U6 


10,406,468 


1878 


3,009.437 


8.521.1 '90 


—5.511.653 




1S79 


3.049.743 


10.718,394 


—7.668.661 


13,768,187 


1880 


3,128,374 


12,111,160 


—8,983,786 


16,289,684 



The + and — marks indicate respectively the 
when the American tonnage exceeded the foreign, and 
the years when the foreign exceeded the Americ;m. 

The commerce of the United States, both 
in the exportation and importation of goods 
and products, has advanced with great 
rapidity. The following table shows the 
extraordinary rapidity of its increase a- 
compared with that of Great Britain and 
France, the two greatest commercial na- 
tions of the world : — 

NATIONAL EXPORTS. 



Year. 


United States. 


Great Britain. 


France. 


1800 


$31,480,903 


1118,418,084 


|68,7l 


1819 


64.071.. '582 


176,06 




1889 


72,358,671 


179.213.115 


121,51 


1889 


121,028,416 


866,167.900 


188,101,847 


1849 


146,756,830 


317.0Si.12.-. 


907.861,108 


1860 


400.122.206 


ooi.; 


424,950,000 


1866 


866,697,188 


1,064,157,880 


7tUi.iiOO.000 


1870 


646,674,697 


1,280,408,885 


6llO.IIINI.IHH) 


1875 


749,885,620 


1,408,061,616 


774,620,000 


1878 


770,707,488 


1.472,500.111)0 


686,940,000 


1879 


754,180.169 


1,488,760,000 


646,860,870 


1880 


862,129,470 


1,395,000,000 


615.100,000 



The exports of a nation, it should be re- 
membered, are but a part of the surplus 
remaining after the wants of the people are 
supplied with the article exported. This 



844 



TONNAGE AND NAVIGATION LAWS. 



is particularly the case with all agricultural 
products, and the amount of these exported 
bears often a very small proportion to the 
whole crop. Of cotton, about one-third the 
yield is consumed at home; while of bread- 
stuffs, the export in 1880 was $288,036,835, 
and the total yield of the year was $1,342,- 
000,000, or about five times the whole ex- 
port. "With each year, too, the proportion 
of manufactured goods, the product of skill 
bestowed upon the raw material is increas- 
ing; though as yet we are not so far free 
as we should be from the use of foreign 
manufactured products; and the many du- 
ties which it has been found necessary to 
impose upon foreign manufactures, so far 
from diminishing their consumption, have 
seemed to increase it. The importations 
of 1880, aside from coin and bullion, which 
came in payment for goods, were $667,- 
954,746, larger than in any previous year 
of our history, although a large proportion 
of the articles imported pay a duty of from 
thirty -three to fifty per cent, on its prime 
cost; but the exports were nearly 200 
millions more. We ought to produce our 
own sugar, our silk goods, our rubber 
goods, and all our woolen goods; and by 
so doing we might diminish our imports 
at least 160 millions more. 

The war, which it was predicted would 
bankrupt the whole country, had just the 
contrary effect. It developed our resources, 
caused a vast immigration of skilled labor, 
and very considerable capital to our west- 
ern lands, led to the construction of rail- 
roads, and the opening up of new territory, 
to the exploitation of mines, and the exer- 
cise of an intense and widely varied indus- 
try. Millions of acres, hitherto regarded 
as utterly barren deserts, buried too deep 
beneath winter's frost and snow for crops 
to germinate, or burning beneath the glare 
of a torrid sun, treeless and rainless, were, 
a few years later, white with abundant 
crops of the choicest wheat, or rustling, 



like the waves of the sea, with the stalks 
and leaves of the gigantic corn. On all 
the hillsides thousands of cattle grazed, 
while white-fleeced sheep covered the lofty 
plains. 

No nation ever accumulated wealth so 
fast. The true valuation of the property 
of the country, in 1860, was $16,159,616,- 
068; that of 1870, after four years of war, 
and destruction of property to the amount 
of nearly $8,000,000,000, was $30,068,- 
518,507. That of 1880 is now in course 
of compilation, but enough is known of it 
to make it certain that it will not fall be- 
low $60,000,000,000. This includes only 
a small portion of the railroad property, or 
of the real value of most of the mining in- 
terests, and takes no account of the value 
of the vast Government domain as yet un- 
sold, or the other Government property, of 
which no estimate is made. In actual 
wealth, we surpass the United Kingdom of 
Great Britain and Ireland, hitherto re- 
garded as the richest nation in the world. 

In sixteen years we have paid off more 
than a thousand millions of our national 
debt, reducing it from $2,845,907,626, 
Aug. 31, 1865, to $1,840,598,812, July 1, 
1881, with a reduction of nearly 100 mil- 
lions more probable during the current 
year. Twelve years ago, our first trans- 
continental railroad — the Union Pacific — 
was completed ; to-day we have five, three 
of them completed, and the other two near- 
ing completion. In 1860, we had 30,635 
miles of railroad in operation; in 1881, we 
have 104,000 miles.* North and south, 
east and west, the lines cross and recross, 
till the whole land is gridironed with them. 
All these, as well as the ocean and inland 
steamers, bear our agricultural, mining, 
and manufacturing products to the great 
markets of the world. The vast individual 
fortunes of Europe are equaled by our 
railroad kings and bonanza princes. 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



CHAPTER I. 

EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE 
COLONIAL PERIOD. 

INTRODUCTION. 

The origin, nomenclature, and early pe- 
culiarities of the systems, institutions, and 
methods of instruction adopted in the origi- 
nal colonies, which now constitute a portion 
of the United States of America, will be 
found in the educational institutions and 
practices of the countries from which these 
colonies were settled — modified by the edu- 
cation, character, motives of emigration, and 
necessities of the settlers themselves. 

The earliest effort to establish an education- 
al institution in the English dominions in 
America, was made under the auspices of 
King James I, and by contributions of mem- 
bers of the Church of England from 1618 to 
1623. In a letter addressed to the Arch- 
bishops, he authorizes them to invite the 
members of the Church throughout the king- 
dom to assist "those undertakers of that 
Plantation [Virginia], with the erecting of 
some churches and schools for the education 
of the children of those barbarians" [the 
Aborigines] and of the colonists. Under 
these instructions, a sum of £1500 was col- 
lected for the erection of a building for a col- 
lege at Henrico — a town whose foundations, 
or site even, cannot now be certainly deter- 
mined, but which according to the best author- 
ities was situated near Varina on Cox's Island, 
about fifty miles above Jamestown. Author- 
ity was given by the Company to the Gov- 
ernor to set apart 10,000 acres of land for 
the support of the college, and one hun- 
dred colonists were sent from England to 
occupy and cultivate the same, who were to 
receive a moiety of the produce as the profit 
of their labor, and to pay the other moiety 
toward the maintenance of the college. In 
1620, George Thorpe was sent out as super- 
intendent, and 300 acres of land was set 
apart for his sustenance. Other donations 



and legacies were made for the endowment 
of this institution of learning. 

In 1619, the Governor for the time be- 
ing was instructed by the company to see 
" that each town, borough, and hundred 
procured by just means a certain number 
of their children to be brought up in the 
first elements of literature; that the most 
towardly of them should be fitted for college, 
in the building which they purposed to pro- 
ceed as soon as any profit arose from the 
estate appropriated to that use ; and they 
earnestly required their help in that pious 
and important work." In 1621, Rev. Mr. 
Copeland, chaplain of the Royal James, on 
her arrival from the East Indies, prevailed 
on the ship's company to subscribe £100 
toward a " free schoole" in the colony of 
Virginia, and collected other donations in 
money and books for the same purpose. 
The school was located in Charles City, as 
being most central for the colony, and was 
called the " East India School." The com- 
pany allotted one thousand acres of land, with 
five servants and an overseer, for the mainten- 
ance of the master and usher. The inhabitants 
made a contribution of £ 1 500 to build a house, 
for which workmen were sent out in 1022. 

The "college" and "free school" thus 
projected and partially endowed were in the 
style of the "college" and "free school" and 
the "free grammar school" of England, and 
were intended to be of the same character as 
the college afterward established at Cain- 
bridge, and the institution for which "the 
richer inhabitants" of Boston in 1638 sub- 
scribed toward " the maintenance of a free 
schoolmaster," and the same as. according to 
Governor \Vinthrop,in his journal, was erect- 
ed in Roxbsry in 1645, and other towns, and 
for which every inhabitant bound some 
house or land for a yearly allowance for- 
ever, and many benevolently disposed per- 
sons left legacies in their last wills, and the 
towns made "an allowance out of the com- 
mon stock," or set apart a portion of land 



846 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



"to be improved forever, for the mainten" 
ance of a free schoole forever." 

The same leading idea can be traced in 
tbe educational policy of the Dutch West 
India Company — which bound itself, in re- 
ceiving its charter of colonization, " to main- 
tain good and fit preachers, schoolmasters, 
and comforters of the sick." The company 
recognized the authority of the established 
Church of Holland, and the establishment 
of schools and the appointment of school- 
masters rested conjointly with the company 
and the classis (ecclesiastical authorities) of 
Amsterdam. When the company granted 
a special " Charter of Freedom and Exemp- 
tions" to the "Patroons," for the purpose 
of agricultural colonization, they were not 
only to satisfy the Indians for the lands 
upon which they should settle, but were to 
make prompt provision for the support of 
a minister and schoolmaster, that thus the 
service of God and zeal for religion might not 
grow cold, and be neglected among them. 
In 1633, in the enumeration of the compa- 
ny's officials at Manhattan, Adam Roeland- 
sen is mentioned as the schoolmaster, and 
that school, it is claimed, is still in existence 
in connection with the Reformed Dutch 
Church of New York. In the projected 
settlement at New Amstel on the Delaware, 
the first settlers were encouraged to proceed 
by certain conditions, one of which was that 
the city of Amsterdam should send thither 
" a proper person for a schoolmaster ;" and 
we find among the colonists who embarked, 
" Evert Pietersen, who had been approved, 
after examination before the classis, as school- 
master." In these early efforts to establish 
schools, we trace the educational policy of 
the Reformed Church of Holland as indi- 
cated by the synod of Wesel in 1568, and 
matured at the synod of Dort in 1618, by 
which the training of Christian youth was 
to be provided for — "I. In the house, by 
parents. II. In the schools, by schoolmas- 
ters. III. In the churches, by ministers, 
elders, and the catechists especially appoint- 
ed/or this purpose.'''' Owing in part to the 
commercial purposes entertained by the 
companies having charge of the coloniza- 
tion of New York, Virginia, and some other 
portions of the country, and to the edu- 
cational and religious institutions of the 
colonists being not so much a matter of do- 
mestic as of foreign policy, these institu- 
tions never commanded the regular and 



constant attention of the local authorities, 
or of the settlers themselves. 

The outline and most of the essential feat' 
ures of the system of common schools now 
in operation in the New England states, and 
the states which have since avowedly adopt- 
ed the same policy, will be found in the 
practice of the first settlers of the several 
towns which composed the original colonies 
of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Ha- 
ven. The first law on the subject did but 
little more than declare the motive, and make 
more widely obligatory the practice which 
already existed in the several neighborhoods 
and towns, which had grown up out of the ed- 
ucation of these colonists at home, and the cir- 
cumstances in which they were placed. They 
did not come here as isolated individuals, 
drawn together from widely separated homes, 
entertaining broad differences of opinion on 
all matters of civil and religious concernment, 
and kept together by the necessity of self- 
defence in the eager prosecution of some tem- 
porary but profitable adventure. They came 
after God had set them in families, and they 
brought with them the best pledges of good 
behavior, in the relations which father and 
mother, husband and wife, parents and chil- 
dren, neighbors and friends, establish. They , 
came with a foregone conclusion of perma- 
nence, and with all the elements of the social 
state combined in vigorous activity — every 
man expecting to find or make occupation 
in the way in which he had been already 
trained. They came with earnest religious 
convictions, made more earnest by the trials 
of persecution ; and the enjoyment of these 
convictions was a leading motive in their 
emigration hither. The fundamental articles 
of their religious creed, that the Bible was 
the only authoritative expression of the di- 
vine will, and that every man was able to 
judge for himself in its interpretation, made 
schools necessary, to bring all persons " to a 
knowledge of the Scriptures," and an under- 
standing " of the main grounds and princi- 
ples of the Christian religion necessary to 
salvation." The constitution of civil gov- 
ernment adopted by them from the out- 
set, which declared all civil officers elective, 
and gave to every inhabitant who would take 
the oath of allegiance the right to vote and 
to be voted for, and which practically con- 
verted political society into a partnership, in 
which each member had the right to bind 
the w T hole firm, made universal education 






EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 



847 






identical with self-preservation. But aside 
from these considerations, the natural and 
acknowledged leaders in this enterprise — 
the men who, by their religious character, 
wealth, social position, and previous expe- 
rience in conducting large business oper- 
ations, commanded public confidence in 
church and commonwealth, were educated 
men — as highly and thoroughly educated 
as they could be at the best endowed free 
and grammar schools in England at that 
period ; and not a few of them had en- 
joyed the advantages of her great univer- 
sities. These men would naturally «eek for 
their own children the best opportunities 
of education which could be provided ; and 
it is the crowning glory of these men, that, 
instead of sending their own children back 
to England to be educated in grammar 
schools and colleges, these institutions were 
established here amid the stumps of the pri- 
meval forests ; that, instead of setting up 
" family schools" and " select schools" for 
the ministers' sons and magistrates' sons, the 
ministers and magistrates were found, not 
only in town meeting, pleading for an allow- 
ance out of the common treasury for the 
support of a public or common school, and 
in some instances for a " free school," but 
among the families, entreating parents of all 
classes to send their children to the same 
school with their own. All this was done 
in advance of any legislation on the subject, 
as will be seen from the following facts 
gleaned from the early records of several of 
the towns first planted. 

TOWN ACTION IN BEHALF OF SCHOOLS. 

The earliest records of most of the towns 
of New England are either obliterated or 
lost, but among the oldest entries which 
can now be recovered, the school is men- 
tioned not as a new thing, but as one of the 
established interests of society, to be looked 
after and provided for as much as roads 
and bridges and protection from the Indians. 
In the first book of records of the town of 
Boston, under date of April 13, 1G34, after 
providing by ordinance for the keeping of 
the cattle by " brother • Cheesbrough," " it 
was then generally agreed upon that our 
brother Philemon Purmont shall be entreat- 
ed to become schoolmaster for the teaching 
and nurturing of children with us." This 
was doubtless an elementary school, for in 
1636 we find a subscription entered on 
the records of the town "by the richer 



inhabitants," " for the maintenance of a free 
schoolmaster, for the youth with us — Mr. 
Daniel Maude being now also chosen there- 
unto." Mr. Maude was a clergyman, ;i title 
at that day and in that community which 
was evidence of his being an educated man. 
This "free school" was, in the opinion of the 
writer, not necessarily a school of gratuitous ' 
instruction for all, but an endowed school 
of a higher grade, of the class of the Eng- 
lish grammar school, in which many of the 
first settlers of New England had received 
their own education at home. Toward the 
maintenance of this school, the town, in 

1642, in advance of any legislation by the 
General Court, ordered " Deer Island to be 
improved," and several persons made be- 
quests in their last wills. Similar provision 
can be cited from the early records of Salem, 
Cambridge, Dorchester, and other towns of 
Massachusetts Bay. 

The early records of the town of Hartford 
are obliterated, but within seven years after 
the first log-house was erected, thirty pounds 
are appropriated to the schools, and in April, 

1643, it is ordered "that Mr. Andrews shall 
teach the children in the school one year," 
and "he shall have for his pains £16, and 
therefore the townsmeu shall go and inquire 
who will engage themselves to send their 
children ; and all that do so, shall pay for one 
quarter, at the least, and for more if they do 
send them, after the proportion of twenty 
shillings the year ; and if they go any week 
more than one quarter, they shall pay six- 
pence a week; and if any would Bend their 
children and are not able to pay for their 
teaching, they shall give notice of it to the 
townsmen, and they shall pay it at the town's 
charge." Mention is also made of one " Goody 
Betts," who kept a "Dame School" after the 
fashion of Shenstone's "schoolmistress" at 
Leasower, in England. Similar entries are 
found in the town records of Windsor and 
Wethersfield in advance of any school code 
by the colony of Connectient. 

The records of the town of New Haven are 
full of evidence of the interest taken by the 
leading spirits of the colony, particularly by 
Governor Theophilua Baton and Rev. .John 
Davenport, in behalf of schools of every grade, 
and of the education of every class, from the 
apprentice boy to those who filled the high 
places in ehureh and state. The firsl settle- 
ment of the colony was in 16:5s, and within a 
year a transaction is recorded, which, while 
it proves the existence of a school at that 



848 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



early period, also proclaims the protection 
which the first settlers extended to the indi- 
gent, and their desire to make elementary ed- 
ucation universal. In 1639, Thomas Fugill 
is required by the court to keep Charles 
Iliginson, an indentured apprentice, " at 
school one year ;" or else to advantage him 
as much in his education as a year's learning 
comes to. In 1641, the town orders "that 
a Free School be set up," and " our pastor, 
Mr. Davenport, together with the magistrates, 
shall consider what yearly allowance is meet 
to be given to it out of the common stock 
of the town, and also what rules and orders 
are meet to be observed in and about the 
same." To this school "that famous school- 
master," Ezekiel Cheever,* "was appoint- 
ed," " for the better training up of youth in 
this town, that, through God's blessing, they 
may be fitted for public service hereafter, 
in church or commonwealth." Not con- 
tent with a Grammar School, provision was 
early made for " the relief of poor scholars 
at the college at Cambridge," and in 1645 
forty bushels of wheat were sent forward for 
this purpose,' and this was followed by other 
donations, and by a richer consignment of 
young men to enjoy the advantages of the 
institution. In 1647, in the distribution of 
home lots, it was ordered in town meeting, 
that the magistrates " consider and reserve 
what lot they shall see meet, and most com- 
modious for a college, which they desire may 
be set up so soon as their ability will reach 
thereunto." Among the active promoters 
of education and schools, the name of Gov- 
ernor Eaton, in connection with Mr. Daven- 
port, is particularly prominent. In 1652, 
he calls a meeting of the magistrates and 
elders " to let them know what he has done 
for a schoolmaster ;" that he had written a 
letter to one Mr. Bower, a schoolmaster of 
Plymouth, and another to Rev. Mr. Lan- 
dron, a scholar; and many of the town 
thought there would be need of two school- 
masters — " one to teach boys to read and 
write," as well'as the "Latin schoolmaster." 
At another time he reports his correspond- 
ence with a teacher in Wethersfield, then 
with one at old Plymouth, and again with 
one at Norwalk, "so that the town might 
never be without a sufficient schoolmaster." 
He seems to have been considerate of the 
health of the teachers, and proposes to ex- 



*See Barnard's American Teachers and Educators, 
Vol. L, art. "Ezekiel Cheever." 



cuse one " whose health would not allow 
him to go on with the work of teaching," 
which he seems to regard as more laborious 
than that of the ministry. On another oc- 
casion he introduces to the committee a 
schoolmaster who has come to treat about 
the school. He is allowed £20 a year, and 
30 shillings for his expenses in travel, besides 
his board and lodgings. He wished to have 
liberty to visit his friends, "which he pro- 
posed to be in harvest time, and that his 
pay be such as wherewith he may buy 
books." These particulars show the consid- 
erate interest taken by men in local authori- 
ty in the school and the teacher, in advance 
of any directory or compulsory legislation 
of the colony of New Haven. It was owing, 
in part, to the timely suggestions of Rev. 
Mr. Davenport, that Gov. Edward Hopkins, 
of Connecticut, by his will, dated London, 
March 7, 1657, bequeathed the residue of his 
estate (after disposing of much of his estate 
in New England) to trustees residing in New 
Haven and Hartford, " in full assurance of 
their trust and faithfulness" in disposing of 
it, " to give some encouragement in those 
foreign plantations for the breeding up of 
hopeful youths both at the grammar school 
and college, for the public service of the 
country in future times." By the final dis- 
position and distribution of this estate three 
grammar schools were established at New 
Haven, Hartford, and Hadley, which are in 
existence at this day, among the oldest insti- 
tutions of this class in America. 

The early records of the several towns 
which subsequently constituted a portion of 
the colony of New Hampshire, exhibit evi- 
dence of a different character and spirit in 
the first settlers. The plantations on the 
Piscataqua river were made by proprietors 
from mere commercial motives, and the set- 
tlers were selected in reference to immediate 
success in that direction ; and in these settle- 
ments we find no trace of any individual or 
town action in behalf of education until 
after their union with the colony of Massa- 
chusetts, whose laws made the establishment 
of schools obligatory. 

In the early records of the Rhode Island 
and Providence Plantations, we find traces 
of the same educational policy which mark- 
ed the early history of towns in Massachu- 
setts and Connecticut. According to Cal- 
lender, in Newport, "so early as 1640, Mr, 
Lenthal was by vote called to keep a public 
school for the learning of youth, and for 



EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 



849 



bis encouragement there were granted to 
him and his heirs, one hundred acres of land, 
and four more for a house lot. It was also 
voted that one hundred acres should be ap- 
propriated for a school for encouragement 
of the poorer sort to train up their youth in 
learning. And Mr. Robert Lenthal, while 
he continues to keep school, is to have the 
benefit thereof." The proprietors of other 
plantations reserved a portion of land for 
the maintenance of schools, and generally 
of a " free schoole ;" and " Mr. Schoolmas- 
ter Turpin," petitions the town of Provi- 
dence, that he and his heirs, so long as any 
of them should maintain the worthy art of 
learning, may be invested in the lands set 
apart for a school. 

These citations show the action of the 
towns independent of any general legislation 
by the several colonies of New England — 
action prompted by their own consciousness 
of the advantages of education in "Dame 
Schools," in " Free Schools,' 1 in " Grammar 
Schools" and in "Colleges" at home — aided 
by the presence among them of "masters" 
and "ushers," and also of "schoolmasters" 
•md " schoolma'ams" willing to engage in 
the same vocations in the new townships and 
tillages — stimulated by magistrates and min- 
isters, who had themselves received the best 
education that such schools could give in 
England, who inculcated the reading of the 
Scriptures as of daily obligation, and who 
believed that the foundations of the state 
should be laid in the virtue and intelligence 
of the whole people. 

COLONIAL LEGISLATION AND ACTION. 

We shall now notice briefly the legislation 
respecting children and schools of each of 
the colonies, in the order of their settlement. 

Virginia. — Although several attempts 
were made to establish "Free Schools" and 
a " College" in Virginia, by the Virginia 
Company and benevolent individuals, at an 
earlier day, the first general legislation re- 
specting the education of children by the 
Colonial Assembly was in 1631, when it was 
enacted : " It is also thought fit, that upon 
every Sunday the mynister* shall, halfe an 
hour or more before evening prayer, examine, 
catechise, and instruct the youths and igno- 
rant persons of his parish in the ten com- 



" * In this and some other quotations we have 
followed the orthography of the original. 

44 



raandments, the articles of the beliefe, and in 
the Lord's prayer ; and shall diligentlie heere, 
instruct, and teach the catechisme, setl forth 
in the book of Common Prayer. And all 
fathers, mothers, maysters, and mistrisses, 
shall cause their children, servants, or ap- 
prentices, which have not learned their cate- 
chisme, to come to church at the time ap- 
poynted, obedientlie to heare, and to be 
ordered by the mynister untill they have 
learned the same. And yf any of s.ivd 
fathers, mothers, maysters & mistresses, 
children, servants, or apprentices, shall neg- 
lect their duties, as the one sorte in not 
causinge them to come, and the other in 
refusinge to learne as aforesayd, they shall 
be censured by the corts in these places 
holden." To secure the execution of this 
last clause, it is provided in the oath of the 
warden, taken before " the justices for the 
monthlie corts" — "they shall present such 
mastyrs and mistresses as shall be delinquent 
in the catechisinge the youth and ignorant 
persons. So help you God." 

In 1660 an attempt was made to found a 
college for the supply of educated clergymen. 
"Whereas the want of able and faithful 
ministers in this country deprives us of those 
great blessings and mercies that always at- 
tend upon the service of God ; which want, 
by reason of the great distance from our 
native country, cannot in all probability be 
always supplied from thence : Be it enacted, 
that for the advance of learning, education 
of youth, supply of the ministry, and pro- 
motion of piety, there be land taken for a 
college and free school with as much speed as 
may be convenient, houses erected thereon 
for entertainment of students and scholars." 
In the same year it was ordered that a peti- 
tion be drawn up by the General Assembly 
to the king for a college and free school ; and 
that there be his letters patent "to collect 
the charity of well disposed persons in Eng- 
land, for the erecting of colledges & schools 
in this countrye," and also to bestow univer- 
sities "to furnish the church here with min- 
isters for the present." And this petition was 
recommended t<> the right honorable Gov- 
ernor, Sir William Berkeley. Sir William 
does not appear, in his reply to the Lords 
Commissioners of Foreign Plantations, dated 
1670, to have been very kindly deposed t > 
public schools of high or low degree. 

"Question 23. What course is taken 
about the instructing the people within 
your government in the Christian religion ; 



850 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



and what provision is there made for the pay- 
ment of your ministry ?" 

" Answer. The same course that is taken 
in England out of towns; every man accord- 
ing to his ability instructing his children. 
We have forty-eight parishes, and our min- 
isters are well paid, and by my consent should 
be better if they would pray oftener and 
preach less. But of all other commodities, 
so of this, the worst are sent us, and we had 
few that we could boast of, since the perse- 
cution in Cromwell's tyranny drove divers 
worthy men hither. But 1 thank God there 
are no free schools, nor printing, and I hope 
we shall not have these hundred years ; for 
learning has brought disobedience and heresy 
and sects into the world, and printing has di- 
vulged them, and libels against the best gov- 
ernment. God keep us from both !" 

In 1691, "the good design of building a 
free school and college for the encourage- 
ment of learning," was recognized, but it was 
not till 1693 that an act was passed locat- 
ing the college, for which a royal charter had 
been obtained April 8, 1692, with the title 
of William and Mary, at Middle Plantation, 
afterward Williamsburgh. Toward its en- 
dowment the royal founders granted £2000 
in money, land, and a revenue duty on to- 
bacco ; and the Assembly enacted an ex- 
port duty on skins and furs. The money 
grant of £2000 did not meet with much 
encouragement from the English Attorney 
General (Seymour) who was instructed to 
j»repare the charter, who remarked to the 
Rev. James Blair, the agent of the colony 
for this purpose, that the money was wanted 
for other purposes, and that he did not see 
the slightest occasion for a college in Vir- 
ginia. The agent represented that the in- 
tention of the colony was to educate and 
qualify young men to be ministers of the 
•Gospel, and begged Mr. Attorney would 
^consider that the people of Virginia had 
:souls to be saved as well as the people of 
England. "Souls!" said he; "damn your 
souls ! make tobacco." The plan of the 
building was designed by Sir Christopher 
Wren. The first commencement was held 
in 1700, at which, according to Oldmixon, 
"there was a great concourse of people; 
several planters came thither in their coaches, 
and several sloops from New York, Pennsyl- 
vania and Maryland ; it being a new thing 
in America to hear graduates perform their 
academical exercises. The Indians them- 
selves had the curiosity to come to Wil- 



liamsburgh on this occasion ; and the whole 
country rejoiced as if they had some relish 
of learning." After the English fashion, the 
college had a representative in the General 
Assembly. As a quitrent for the land grant- 
ed by the Crown, the students and professors 
every year marched to the residence of the 
royal Governor, and presented, and some- 
times recited, some Latin verses. On the 
breaking out of the Revolution the endow- 
ments of the college were cut off, and its 
constitution was somewhat changed. 

No general school law was established in 
Virginia until 1796, although a plan was 
proposed by Mr. Jefferson in 1779, which 
recognized three degrees of public instruc- 
tion, viz.: 1. Elementary schools for all chil- 
dren. 2. Colleges, for an extension of in- 
struction suitable for the common purposes 
of life. 3. A university, an extension of the 
means of higher culture on the basis of the 
college at Williamsburgh. 

Scattered through the colony were schools 
in connection with churches, both Episcopal 
and Presbyterian, and in many families 
private teachers were employed, and in some 
cases sons were sent out to England to com- 
plete their education. 

Massachusetts. — In 1636, six years.after 
the first settlement of Boston, the General 
Court of the colony of Massachusetts Bay, 
which met in Boston on the 8th of Septem- 
ber, passed an act appropriating £400 to- 
ward the establishment of a college. The 
sum thus appropriated was more than the 
whole tax levied on the colony at that time 
in a single year, and the population scattered 
through ten or twelve villages did not ex- 
ceed five thousand persons ; but among them 
were eminent graduates of the university of 
Cambridge, in England, and all were here 
for purposes of permanent settlement. In 
1638, John Harvard left by will the sum of 
£779 in money, and a library of over three 
hundred books. In 1640 the General Court 
granted to the college the income of the 
Charlestown ferry; and in 1642 the Gov- 
ernor, with the magistrates and teachers and 
elders, were empowered to establish statutes 
and constitutions for the infant institution, 
and in 1650 granted a charter which still 
remains the fundamental law of the oldest 
literary institution in this country. 

In 1642 the attention of the General 
Court was turned to the subject of family 
instruction in the following enactment: — 



EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 



851 



" Forasmuch as the good education of 
children is of singular behoof and benefit to 
any commonwealth ; and whereas many 
parents and masters are too indulgent and 
negligent of their duty in this kind : 

" It is therefore ordered by this Court and 
the authority thereof, That the selectmen of 
every town, in the several precincts and 
quarters where they dwell, shall have a vigi- 
lant eye over their brethren and neighbors, 
to see, first, that none of them shall suffer so 
much barbarism in any of their families, as 
not to endeavor to teach, by themselves or 
others, their children and apprentices so 
much learning as may enable them perfectly 
to read the English tongue, and knowledge 
of the capital laws, upon penalty of twenty 
shillings for each neglect therein ; also, that 
all masters of families do, once a week, at 
least, catechise their children and servants 
in the grounds and principles of religion, and 
if any be unable to do so much, that then, 
at the least, they procure such children or 
apprentices to learn some short orthodox 
catechism, without book, that they may be 
able to answer to the questions that shall be 
propounded to them out of such catechisms 
by their parents or masters, or any of the 
selectmen, where they shall call them to a 
trial of what they have learned in this kind ; 
and further, that all parents and masters do 
breed and bring up their children and ap- 
prentices in some honest lawful calling, labor 
or employment, either in husbandry or some 
other trade profitable for themselves and the 
commonwealth, if they will not nor cannot 
train them up in learning to fit them for 
higher employments; and if any of the select- 
men, after admonition by them given to such 
masters of families, shall find them still neg- 
ligent of their duty in the particulars afore- 
mentioned, whereby children and servants 
become rude, stubborn and unruly, the said 
selectmen, with the help of two magistrates, 
shall take such children or apprentices from 
them, and place them with some masters for 
years, boys till they come to twenty-one, 
and girls eighteen years of age complete, 
which will more strictly look unto and force 
them to submit unto government, according 
to the rules of this order, if by fair means 
and former instructions they will not be 
drawn unto it." 

In the same year the following general 
school law was enacted: — "It being one 
chief project of that old deluder, Satan, to 
keep men from the knowledge of the Scrip- 



tures, as in former times, keeping them in 
an unknown tongue, so in these latter times, 
by persuading from the use of tongues, so 
that at least the true sense and meaning of 
the original might be clouded and corrupted 
with false glosses.of deceivers ; and to the end 
that learning may not be buried in the grave 
of our forefathers, in church and common- 
wealth, the Lord assisting our endeavors : 

" It is therefore ordered by this Court and 
authority thereof, That every township with- 
in this jurisdiction, after the Lord hath in- 
creased them to the number of fifty house- 
holders, shall then forthwith appoint one with- 
in their town to teach all such children, as 
shall resort to him, to write and read, whose 
wages shall be paid, either by the parents or 
masters of such children, or by the inhabi- 
tants in general, by way of supply, as the 
major part of those who order the pruden- 
tials of the town shall appoint ; provided, 
that those who send their children be not 
oppressed by paying much more than they 
can have them taught for in other towns. 

" And it is further ordered, That where 
any town shall increase to the number of 
one hundred families or householders, they 
shall set up a grammar school, the masters 
thereof being able to instruct youths so far 
as they may be fitted for the university, and 
if any other town neglect the performance 
hereof above one year, then every such 
town shall pay five pounds per annum to 
the next such school, till they shall perform 
this order." 

With various modifications as to details, but 
with the same objects steadily in view, viz., the 
exclusion of " barbarism" from every family, 
by preventing its having even one untaught 
and idle child or apprentice, the maintenance 
of an elementary school in every neighbor- 
hood where there were children enough to 
constitute a school, and of a Latin school iu 
every large town, and of a college for higher 
culture for the whole colony, the colonial 
legislature, and the people in the several 
towns of Massachusetts, maintained an edu- 
cational system, which, although not as early 
or as thorough as the school code of Saxony 
and Wirtemberg, has expanded with the 
growth cf the community in population, 
wealth, and industrial development, and 
stimulated and shaped the legislation and ef- 
forts of other states in behalf of universal edu- 
cation. 

The early records of the colony of Ply- 
mouth contain no trace of the zeal ; r 



852 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



schools which characterized the colonies of 
Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, and New 
Haven. In 1662 the profits of the codfish- 
ery were appropriated to the maintenance 
of grammar schools in such towns as would 
make arrangements for the same ; and in 
1669 towns having fifty families were au- 
thorized to raise by rate on all the inhabi- 
tants the sum of twelve pounds for this 
class of schools, "for as much as the mainte- 
nance of good literature doth much tend to 
the advancement of the weal and flourishing 
state of societies and republics." After the 
union of the two colonies under one charter, 
several towns in the old colony were fined 
for not complying with the provisions of the 
law of 1647 respecting children and schools. 
In addition to the grammar school which 
each town having one hundred families was 
obliged by law to maintain, to enable young 
men to fit for college, in several counties 
endowed schools were set up; and in 1763 
the first of that class of institutions, known 
and incorporated as academies, was estab- 
lished in the parish of Byfield in the town 
of Newbury, on a legacy left by Gov. Wil- 
liam Dummer. Its objects were the same as 
those of the town grammar school, but its 
benefits were not confined to one town, nor 
was it supported in any degree by taxation. 

Rhode Island. — In this colony education 
was left to individual and parental care, no 
trace of any legislation on the subject being 
found in the proceedings of the General 
Assembly, except to incorporate in 1747 the 
" Society for the Promotion of Knowledge 
and Virtue," which was established in New- 
port in 1730 by the name of the "Company 
of the Redwood Library ;" and in 1764 to 
grant the charter to the College of Rhode 
Island, which was first located in "Warren, 
and in 1770 removed to Providence, and in 
1804 called, after its most liberal benefactor, 
Brown University. 

Connecticut. — In 1646, Mr. Roger Lud- 
low was requested to compile " a body of 
laws for the government of this common- 
wealth," which was not completed till May, 
1650, and is known as the code of 1650. 
The provisions for the family instruction 
of children and the maintenance of schools 
are identically the same as in Massachu- 
setts, and remained on the statute-book, 
with but slight modifications to give them 
more efficiency, for one hundred and fifty 



years. In the chapter on " capital" of- 
fences, it is enacted that if any child above 
sixteen years of age, and of sufficient under- 
standing, shall curse or smite his father or 
motlier, he shall be put to death, "unless it 
can be sufficiently testified that the parents 
have been unchristianly negligent in the ed- 
ucation of such children." In the chapter 
respecting schools, the proposition made by 
the "Commissioners of the United Colonies," 
that it be commended to every family which 
" is able and willing to give yearly but the 
fourth part of a bushel of corn, or something 
equivalent thereto," " for the advancement 
of learning," was approved, and two men 
were appointed in every town to receive and 
forward the contributions. This was done 
in the larger towns of the colonies of Con- 
necticut and New Haven, from time to time, 
until ten of the principal ministers, in 1700, 
at Branford, brought each a number of books, 
and as they laid them on the table, declared — 
"I give these books for founding a College in 
Connect/cut ;" and on that foundation rose 
Yale College. To fit young men for the 
college at Cambridge, and subsequently for 
Yaie, in 1672 it was ordered by the Gen- 
eral Court, " that in every county there shall 
be set up a grammar school for the use of 
the county, the master thereof being able to 
instruct youths so far as they may be fitted 
for college ;" and to aid the county towns in 
maintaining their schools, six hundred acres 
of land were appropriated by the General 
Court to each, " to be improved in the best 
manner that may be for the benefit of a 
grammar school in said towns, and to no 
other use or end whatsoever;" and in 1677 
a fine of ten pounds annually is imposed on 
any county town neglecting to keep the 
Latin school. In 1690, the county Latin 
schools of Hartford and New Haven are de- 
nominated " Free Schools," probably in ref- 
erence to the partial endowment of schools 
of this class by the trustees of the legacy 
of Governor Hopkins. 

As early as 1700, the system of public 
instruction in Connecticut embraced the fol- 
lowing particulars : 

1. An obligation on every parent and 
guardian of children, "not to suffer so much 
barbarism in any of their families as to have 
a single child or apprentice unable to read 
the holy word of God, and the good laws of 
the colony ;" and also, " to bring them up to 
some lawful calling or employment," under 
a penalty for each offence. 



EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 



853 



2. A tax of forty shillings on every thou- 
sand pounds of the lists of estates, was col- 
lected in every town with the annual state 
tax, and payable proportionally to those 
towns only which should keep their schools 
according to law. 

3. A common school in every town hav- 
ing over seventy families, kept for at least 
six months in the year. 

4. A grammar school in each of the four 
head county towns to fit youth for college, 
two of which grammar schools were free or 
endowed. 

5. A collegiate school, toward which the 
General Court made an annual appropriation 
of £120. 

6. Provision for the religious instruction 
of the Indians. 

The system, therefore, embraced every 
family and town, all classes of children and 
youth, and all the then recognized grades of 
schools. There were no select or sectarian 
schools to classify society at the roots, but 
all children were regarded with equal favor, 
and all brought under the assimilating influ- 
ence of eai'ly associations and similar school 
privileges. Here was the foundation laid, 
not only for universal education, but for a 
practical, political, and social equality, which 
has never been surpassed in the history of 
any other community. 

New Hampshire. — From 1623 to 1641, 
the early records of the first settlements 
within the present limits of New Hampshire 
exhibit no trace of educational enactments ; 
from 1641 to 1680, the school laws of Mas- 
sachusetts prevailed, and the presence of 
such men as Philemon Purmont and Daniel 
Maude, who were the first schoolmasters of 
that colony, must have contributed to inaugu- 
rate the policy of local and endowed schools. 
When the necessities of the college at Cam- 
bridge were made known, the people of 
Portsmouth, in town meeting, made a col- 
lection of sixty pounds, with a pledge to con- 
tinue the same amount for seven years, " for 
the perpetuating of knowledge both religious 
and civil among us and our posterity after 
us." In the original grants for towns one 
lot was reserved for the support of schools. 

In 1680 New Hampshire became a sepa- 
rate colony, and in 1693 the Colonial As- 
sembly enacted " that for the building and 
repairing of meeting houses, ministers' 
houses, and allowing a salary to a school- 
master in each town within this province, 



the selectmen shall raise by an equal rate 
an assessment upon the inhabitants;" and 
in 1719 it was ordained thai every town 

having fifty householders should be con- 
stantly provided with a schoolmaster to 
teach children to read and write; and those 
having one hundred should maintain a gram- 
mar school, to be kept by some decent 
person, of good conversation, well instructed 
in the tongues. In 17-1 it was ordered that 
not only each town but each parish of one 
hundred families should he constantly pro- 
vided with a grammar school, or forfeit the 
sum of twenty pounds to the treasury of the 
province. This system of elementary and 
secondary instruction continued substantially 
until the adoption of the state constitution 
in 1792. 

In 1770 Dr. Wheelock removed a school 
which he had established in Lebanon, Con- 
necticut, under the name of "Moor's Indian 
Charity School," to the depths of the forests 
in the western part of New Hampshire. 
Here, side by side with the school for 
Indians, he organized another institution, 
termed a college in the charter granted by 
Governor Wentworth in 1769, and which 
held its first commencement in 1771, with 
four graduates, one of whom was John 
Wheelock, the second president of the in- 
stitution, which was called Dartmouth Col- 
lege after Lord Dartmouth, one of the larg- 
est benefactors of the Charity School. 

At the close of the colonial period of our 
history, according to Noah Webster, the 
condition of the educational system in Con- 
necticut and New England was as follows: 

"The law of Connecticut ordains that 
every town or parish containing seventy 
householders, shall keep an English school, 
at least eleven months in the year; and 
towns containing a less number, at least six 
months in the year. Every town keeping 
a public school is entitled to draw from the 
treasury of the state a certain sum of money, 
proportioned to its census in the list of prop- 
erty which furnishes the rule of taxation. 
This sum might have been originally suf- 
ficient to support one school in each town 
or parish, but in modern times is divided 
among a number, and the deficiency of 
monev to support the schools is raised upon 
the estates of the people, in the manner the 
public taxes arc assessed. To extend the 
benefits of this establishment to all the in- 
habitants, large towns and parishes are di- 



854 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



vided into districts, each of which is sup- 
posed able to furnish a competent number 
of scholars for one school. In each district 
a house is erected for the purpose by the 
inhabitants of that district, who hire a mas- 
ter, furnish wood, and tax themselves to pay 
all expenses not provided for by the public 
money. The school is kept during the win- 
ter months, when every farmer can spare his 
sons. In this manner, every child in the 
state has access to a school. In the sum- 
mer, a woman is hired to teach small chil- 
dren, who are not fit for any kind of labor. 
In the large towns, schools, either public or 
private, are kept the whole year; and in 
every county town, a grammar school is 
established by law. 

" The beneficial effects of these institutions 
will be experienced for ages. Next to the 
establishments in favor of religion, they have 
been the nurseries of well-informed citizens, 
brave soldiers and wise legislators. A peo- 
ple thus informed are capable of understand- 
ing their rights and of discovering the means 
to secure them. In the next place, our fore- 
fathers took measures to preserve the repu- 
tation of schools and the morals of youth, 
by making the teaching them an honor- 
able employment. Every town or district 
has a committee, whose duty is to procure a 
master of talents and character ; and the 
practice is to procure a man of the best 
character in the town or neighborhood. The 
wealthy towns apply to young men of lib- 
eral education, who, after taking the bache- 
lor's degree, usually keep school a year or 
two before they enter upon a profession. 
One of the most unfortunate circumstances 
to education in the Middle and Southern 
states, is an opinion that school-keeping is 
a mean employment, fit only for persons of 
low character. The Avretches who keep the 
schools in those states very frequently de- 
grade the employment ; but the misfortune 
is, public opinion supposes the employment 
degrades the man : of course no gentleman 
will undertake to teach children while in 
popular estimation he must forfeit his rank 
and character by the employment. Until 
public opinion is corrected by some great 
examples, the common schools, what few 
there are in those states, must continue in 
the hands of such vagabonds as wander 
about the country." 

"Nearly connected with the establishment 
of schools is the circulation of newspapers 
in New England. This is both a conse- 



quence and a cause of a general diffusion of 
letters. In Connecticut, almost every man 
reads a paper every week. In the year 
1785, I took some pains to ascertain the 
number of papers printed weekly in Con- 
necticut and in the Southern states. I found 
the number in Connecticut to be nearly eight 
thousand ; which was equal to that published 
in the whole territory south of Pennsylvania. 
By means of this general circulation of pub- 
lic papers, the people are informed of all 
political affairs; and their representatives 
are often prepared to deliberate on proposi- 
tions made to the legislature. 

"Another institution favorable to knowl- 
edge is the establishment of .parish libraries. 
These are procured by subscription, but they 
are numerous, the expense not being con- 
siderable, and the desire of reading universal. 
One hundred volumes of books, selected 
from the best writers, on ethics, divinity, 
and history, and read by the principal in- 
habitants of a town or village, will have an 
amazing influence in spreading knowledge, 
correcting the morals, and softening the 
manners of a nation. I am acquainted with 
parishes where almost every householder has 
read the works of Addison, Sherlock, Atter- 
bury, Watts, Young, and other similar 
writings ; and will converse well on the 
subjects of which they treat." 

New York. — In the early history of the 
settlements of the New Netherlands, the 
school was regarded as an appendage of the 
church, and the schoolmaster was paid in 
part out of the funds of the government. 
Down to its organization as a royal province 
of England, a parochial school existed in 
every parish.. In 1658 a petition of the 
burgomasters and schepens of New Amster- 
dam was forwarded to the West India Com- 
pany, in which " it is represented that the 
youth of this place and the neighborhood 
are increasing in number gradually, and 
that most of them can read and write, but 
that some of the citizens and inhabitants 
would like to send their children to a school 
the principal of which understands Latin, 
but are not able to do so without sending 
them to New England ; furthermore, they 
have not the means to hire a Latin school- 
master, expressly for themselves, from New 
England, and therefore they ask that the 
West India Company will send out a fit 
person as Latin schoolmaster, not doubting 
that the number of persons who will send 



EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 



855 



their children, to such teacher will from year 
to year increase, until an academy shall be 
formed whereby this place to great splendor 
will have attained, for which, next to God, 
the honorable company which shall have 
sent such teacher here shall have laud and 
praise." In compliance with this petition, 
Dr. Alexander Carolus Curtius, a Latin 
master of Lithuania, was sent out by the 
company. The burgomasters proposed to 
give him five hundred guilders annually out 
of the city treasury, with the use of a house 
and garden, and tbe privilege of collecting 
a tuition of six guilders per quarter of each 
scholar. Dr. Curtius proved not to be a 
good disciplinarian, and parents complained 
to the authorities that " his pupils beat 
each other, and tore the clothes from each 
other's backs." The doctor retorted that 
he could not interfere, " as his hands were 
tied, as some of the parents forbade him 
punishing their children." lie accordingly 
gave up his place and returned to Holland, 
and was succeeded in the mastership by 
Rev. yEgidius Luyck in 1662. His school 
had a high reputation, and was resorted to 
by pupils from Virginia, Fort Orange, and 
the Delaware. 

After the establishment of the English 
authority, the governor claimed the privilege 
of licensing teachers even for the church 
schools, but no general school policy was 
established. In 1702 a free grammar school 
was founded and built on the King's Farm, 
and in 1732 a "Free School," for teaching 
the Latin and Greek and practical branches 
of mathematics, was incorporated by law. 
The preamble of the act of incorporation 
opens as follows : " Whereas the youth of 
this colony are found by manifold experience 
to be not inferior in their natural genius to 
the youth of any other country in the 
world, therefore be it enacted," etc. In 
17 10, the Society for the Propagation of the 
Gospel in Foreign Parts established a 
charity school in connection with the Epis- 
copal church, which is still in existence, and 
is now known as the Trinity School. In 
1750, Charles Dutens announced to the 
public " that he taught a school for the use 
of young ladies and gentlemen, whose love 
of learning might incline them to take 
lessons from him in French, at his house on 
Broad street, near the Long Bridge, where 
he also makes and vends finger and ear rings, 
solitaires, stay-hooks and lockets, and sets 
diamonds, rubies, and other stones. Science 



and virtue are two sisters, which the most 
part of the New York ladies possess," etc. 

Judge Smith, in his " History of the Prov- 
ince of New York," when speaking of the 
action of the legislature for founding a col- 
lege in 1746, says: "To the disgrace of our 
first planters, who beyond comparison sur- 
passed their eastern neighbors in opulence, 
Mr. Delancy, a graduate of the University 
of Cambridge (England), and Mr. Smith, 
were for many years the only aeademics in 
this province, except such as were in holy 
orders; and so late as the period we are now 
examining (1750), the author did not recol- 
lect above thirteen men, the youngest of 
whom had his bachelor's degree at the age 
of seventeen, but two months before the pass- 
ing of the above law, the first toward erecting 
a college in this colony, though at a distance 
of above one hundred and twenty years after 
its discovery and settlement of the capital by 
Dutch progenitors from Amsterdam." 

In 1754 a royal charter was obtained for 
a college in New York, with the style of 
King's College, which came into possession 
of a fund raised by a lottery authorized for 
this purpose by the Assembly in 1746, and 
of a grant of land conveyed to its governors 
by Trinity Church in 1755. Out of this 
grant, Columbia College is now (186l>) re- 
alizing an income of §60,000 a year. The 
first commencement was celebrated in 1758. 

" For the advantage of our new intended 
college" (King's), " and the use and orna- 
ment of the city," a number of eminent citi- 
zens of New York, in 1754, united in an 
association to form a library, which in 1772 
was incorporated with the title of the "New 
York Society Library." 

Maryland. — The first settlement was 
effected within the present limits of Mary- 
land in 1634; and in the years immediately 
following, we find no record of any marked 
individual or legislative effort to establish 
institutions of learning. The first act of the 
colonial Assembly is entitled a '•Supplicatory 
Act to their sacred majesties for erecting of 
schools," which was passed in 1694, and re- 
pealed or superseded by an act entitled a 
" Petitionary Act" for the same purpose. 
Appealing to the royal liberality, which had 
been extended to the neighboring colony of 
Virginia in the institution of the college, "a 
place of universal study," the Assembly ask, 
" that for the propagation of the Gospel, and 
the education of the youth of this province 



856 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



in good letters and manners, that a certain 
place or places for a free school or schools, or 
place of study of Latin, Greek, writing and 
the like, consisting of one master, one usher, 
and one writing-master or scribe to a school, 
and 100 scholars," be established in Arundel 
County, of which the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury should be chancellor, and to be called 
" King William's School ;" and a similar free 
school is asked for in each county, to be 
established from time to time as the re- 
sources of the several counties may suffice. 
To increase the educational resources of the 
counties, in 1 7 1 7 it was enacted that an ad- 
ditional duty of twenty shillings currentmoney 
per poll should be levied on all Irish servants, 
being papists, to prevent the growth of popery 
by the importation of too great a number of 
them into this province, and also an addi- 
tional duty of twenty shillings current 
money per poll on all negroes, for raising 
a fund for the use of public schools. In 
1723, "an act for the encouragement of 
learning, and erecting schools in the several 
counties," was passed, with a preamble set- 
ting forth that preceding Assemblies have 
had it much at heart, " to provide for the 
liberal and pious education of the youth 
of the province, and improving their natural 
abilities and acuteness (which seem not to 
be inferior to any), so as to be fitted for the 
discharge of their duties in the several sta- 
tions and employments in it, either in re- 
gard to church or state." By this act seven 
visitors are appointed in each county, with 
corporate powers to receive and hold estate 
to the value of £100 per annum; and they 
are authorized with all convenient speed to 
purchase, out of funds realized from revenues 
already set apart for this purpose, one hun- 
dred acres more or less, one moiety of which 
is to serve for making corn, grain, and pas- 
turage for the benefit and use of the master, 
who is prohibited growing tobacco, or per- 
mitting it by others on said farm. The 
visitors are directed to employ good school- 
masters, members of the Church of England, 
and of pious and exemplary lives and con- 
versation, and capable of teaching well the 
grammar, good writing, and the mathemat- 
ics, if such can be conveniently got, on 
a salary of £20 per annum, and the use of 
the plantation. In 1728 the master of each 
public school is directed "to teach as many 
poor children gratis as the majority of the 
visitors should order." 

Up to the establishment of the state gov- 



ernment in 1777, there was no system of 
common schools for elementary instruction 
in operation in Maryland. "A free school," 
like the free endowed grammar school of 
England, was established in a majority of 
counties, two of which were subsequently 
converted into colleges, that of Charlestown 
in Kent county, into Washington College in 
1782, and the second at Annapolis into St. 
John's College in 1784 — the former "in 
honorable and perpetual memory of his 
excellency General Washington, the illus- 
trious and virtuous commander-in-chief of 
the armies of the United States." 

In 1696, Rev. Thomas Bray, then residing 
in the parish of Sheldon, England, was made 
commissary of Maryland, to establish the 
Church of England in the colony. His first 
act was to inaugurate a plan of parochial 
libraries for the use of ministers in each 
parish. Through his influence, Princess 
Anne made a benefaction for this purpose, 
and in acknowledgment of the honor of 
having the capital of the province called 
after her name (Annapolis), donated books 
to the value of four hundred pounds to the 
parish library, which he called "the An- 
napoHtan Library." By his influence in 
England a plan of " lending libraries" was 
projected in every deanery throughout the 
kingdom, and carried out. 

New Jersey. — In the history of New 
Jersey as a colony we find no trace of any 
general legislation or governmental action in 
behalf of schools. Scattered at wide in- 
tervals over the state were schools kept 
by clergymen in connection with their 
churches. 

In 1748 a charter of incorporation for the 
College of New Jersey was obtained from 
George II., during the administration of 
Governor Belcher, " for the instruction of 
youth in the learned languages and liberal 
arts and sciences." During the adminis- 
tration of Governor Franklin in 1770, a 
second college was chartered, with the name 
of Queen's (now Rutger's) College, as a 
school of theology for the Reformed Dutch 
Church. Neither of the institutions receiv- 
ed any aid from the government. 

Pennsylvania. — The frame of govern- 
ment of the province of Pennsylvania, dated 
April 25th, 1682, drawn up by William 
Penn before leaving England, contains the 
following provision : " The governor and 



EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 



857 



provincial council shall erect and order all 
public schools and reward the authors of 
useful sciences and laudable inventions in 
said province." In the laws agreed upon 
a few months later in the same year by the 
governor and divers freemen of the province 
in England, it is provided " that all children 
within this province of the age of twelve 
years shall be taught some useful trade, or 
skill, to the end that none be idle, but that 
the poor may work to live, and the rich, if 
they become poor, may not want." In 1683 
the governor and council in Philadelphia, 
" having taken into their serious considera- 
tion the great necessity there is of a school- 
master in the town of Philadelphia, sent.for 
Enoch Flower, an inhabitant of said town, 
who for twenty years past hath been exer- 
cised in that care and employment in Eng- 
land, to whom having communicated their 
minds, he embraced it upon the following 
terms : to learn to read English, 4s. by the 
quarter ;" to learn to read and write, 6s. ; 
read, write and cast accounts, 8s. ; for board- 
ing a scholar, £10 per year. In 1689 the 
Society of Friends established a Latin school 
of which George Keith was the first teacher. 
In 1725 Rev. Francis Alison, a native of 
Ireland, but educated at Glasgow, became 
pastor of the Presbyterian church in New 
London, in Chester county, and opened a 
school there, which had great reputation. 
He at one time resided at Thunder Hill, in 
Maryland, where he educated many young 
men who were afterward distinguished in 
the Revolutionary struggle. He was subse- 
quently Provost of the college at Philadel- 
phia. 

In 1749 Benjamin Franklin published his 
" Proposals relating to the Education of 
Youth in Pennsylvania, 1 " 1 out of which ori- 
ginated subsequently an academy and char- 
ity school, and ultimately the University of 
Pennsylvania. At the head of the English 
department of the academy in 1751 was Mr. 
Dove, who was then engaged in giving pub- 
lic lectures in experimental philosophy with 
apparatus — an early Lyceum or popular lec- 
turer. 

In 1743 the American Philosophical So- 
ciety originated in a " Proposal for Promot- 
ing Useful Knowledge," published by Ben- 
jamin Franklin, which, after various forms 
of organization, took its present name and 
shape on the 2d of January, 1769. 

In 1765 the Medical School originated 
with the appointment of Dr. Morgan to the 



professorship of the theory and practice of 
physic; in 1767 it was fully organized, and 
in 1768 degrees in medicine were fur the 
first time conferred. 

Among the denominational Bchools which 
grew up in the absence of any general 
legislation on the subject, was a Moravian 
school for boys at Nazareth in 17 4 7, and for 
girls at Bethlehem 1749, both of which are 
still in existence, and the latter, especially, 
since 1789, has been one of the most flour- 
ishing female seminaries in this country. 

Delaware. — In the early settlements of 
the Swedes and Dutch in Delaware, the 
policy of connecting a school with the 
church was probably imperfectly carried 
out, but there is no historical trace of its 
existence. The only school legislation of 
the colony extant, is an act incorporating 
" the Trustees of the Grammar School in the 
borough of Wilmington, and county of New 
Castle/' dated April 10, 1773. 

North Carolina. — In North Carolina for 
fifty years, the policy of the provincial au- 
thorities was to discourage all forms of re- 
ligious and educational activity outside of 
the Church of England, to the extent of for- 
bidding expressly the establishment of print- 
ing presses. The first act on record relat- 
ing to schools, in 1764, was "for the build- 
ing of a house for a school, and the residence 
of a schoolmaster in the town of Newbern" 
— appropriating the half of two lots, before 
set apart for a church, for this purpose. In 
1 766 another act was passed incorporating 
trustees for this school, with the preamble 
" that a number of well-disposed persons, 
taking into consideration the great necessity 
of having a proper school, or public seminary 
of learning established, whereby the present 
generation may be brought up and instructed 
in the principles of the Christian religion, 
and fitted for the several offices and purposes 
of life, have at great expense erected a 
school-house for this purpose ;" and provid- 
ing that the master of the school shall be 
"of the established Church of England, and 
licensed by the governor." Similar acts were 
passed in 17 70 and l779forschoolsat Edenton 
and Hillsborough. In 1770 an act, reciting 
that a vcrv promising experiment had been 
made in the town of Charlotte in the county 
of Mecklenburg, with a seminary of learning 
"a number of youths there taught making 
great advancement in the knowledge of the 



858 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



learned languages, and in the rudiments of 
the arts and sciences, having gone to various 
colleges in distant parts of America," incor- 
porates the same with the name of Queen's 
College. This act was repealed by procla- 
mation in the next year, but in 1777 it was 
reincorporated by name of "Liberty Hall." 
With the downfall of the royal authority, 
and the religious party which had swayed 
the colony, a new educational policy was 
inaugurated. 

South Carolina. — In the early history 
of the colony of South Carolina, as of several 
other colonies, the first efforts to establish 
schools were in connection with the predom- 
inant church of the settlers, i. e., of the 
Church of England, through the aid of the 
" Venerable Society for Propagating the 
Gospel in Foreign Parts." By the mission- 
aries of that society charity schools were 
established in several parishes, some of which 
were afterward endowed by individuals, and 
incorporated by act of the legislature, and 
called "Free Schools." In 1710 a free 
school of this character was established at 
Goosecreek, and in 1712 in Charleston; and 
by the general act of February 22, 1722, the 
justices of the county courts were author- 
ized to erect a free school in each county 
and precinct, to be supported by assessment 
on land and negroes. These schools were 
bound to teach ten poor children each, if 
sent by said justices. In 1724, a memorial 
to the " Venerable Society" from the parish 
of Dorchester sets forth — " The chief source 
of irreligion here is the want of schools ; 
and we may justly be apprehensive, that if 
our children continue longer to be deprived 
of opportunities of being instructed, Chris- 
tianity will of course decay insensibly, and 
we shall have a generation of our own as 
ignorant as the native Indians." The so- 
ciety sent out schoolmasters to this and 
other parishes, and about 2000 volumes of 
bound books. In 1721 Mr. Richard Beres- 
ford bequeathed to the parish of St. Thomas 
and St. Dennis, in trust, for the purpose of 
educating the poor, £6500; and in 1732 
Mr. Richard Harris, for the same object, 
£1000. In 1728 Rev. Richard Ludlam be- 
queathed his whole estate to the parish of 
St. James, which in 1778 amounted to 
£15,272. Other bequests for the same 
objects were made at different times before 
the Revolution. In 1743 Rev. Alexander 
Garden wrote to the society that the negro 



school consisted of thirty children, and in 
1750 that it was going on with all desirable 
success. In 1748 a library was founded in 
Charleston by an association of seventeen 
young men, whose first object was to collect 
new pamphlets and magazines published in 
Great Britain, but in the course of a year 
embraced the purchase of books. After 
many delays and refusals, an act of incor- 
poration was obtained in 1754. There is 
but one older library in this country. 

Georgia. — The earliest effort to establish 
schools in Georgia was made by the Rev. 
George Whitefield. Before leaving England 
in 1737, he had projected an Orphan House, 
after the plan of that of Dr. Franke, at Halle, 
of which an account about that time ap- 
peared in English. His first visit to Savan- 
nah in 1738 satisfied him of the necessity 
of a charity school for poor and neglected 
children, and in the course of that year he 
returned to England to obtain his ordination 
as priest and collect funds for his educational 
enterprise. The trustees of the colony gave 
him five hundred acres of land upon which 
to erect his buildings. These were selected 
about ten miles out of Savannah, and on the 
25th of March, 1740, he laid the first brick 
of the house, which he called Bethesda, or 
House of Mercy, and opened his school in 
temporary shelters with forty children. In 
the fall of the same year he made a collec- 
tion and preaching tour in New England, 
during which he collected over £800 for his 
charity. After disasters by fire, etc., the 
Orphan House property was bequeathed to 
Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, in trust for 
the purposes originally designed, and subse- 
quently incorporated for this purpose. On 
her death, and after the Revolution, the legis- 
lature transferred the property to thirteen 
trustees, to manage the estate and make reg- 
ulations for an academy in the county of 
Chatham. Schools were established by the 
missionaries sent out by the Society for the 
Propagation of the Gospel at Savannah, Au- 
gusta, and Frederica, and by the Moravians 
and Huguenots in their respective settle- 
ments. 

results at the close of our colonial 

HISTORY. 

The educational systems and provisions 
of the colonial period of the United States 
were, especially in its earlier portion, closely 
connected with the ecclesiastical systems of 



IiEVOLUTIONARY AND TRANSITIONAL PERIOD. 



859 



the colonics. Schools were maintained by 
individual youth trained up in very many 
cases, because it was a duty to prepare use- 
ful future members of the church, which in 
some of the colonies was also the state. 

In three states, Massachusetts, Connecti- 
cut, and New Hampshire, it was very early 
made the legal duty of parents and towns 
to make provision for the education of youth. 
Elsewhere, such efforts as were made, aside 
from the natural desire of parents to afford 
their children such an education as was suit- 
able to their rank in life, or such as would 
aid their subsequent progress and prosperity, 
were, generally speaking, put forth by clergy- 
men, ecclesiastical bodies, or pious laymen, 
for colonial institutions for secondary edu- 
cation were not very numerous, including 
the town grammar schools of New England, 
and a small number of endowed or free 
schools. In these two classes of institutions, 
a small number of pupils were prepared to 
enter college. A far greater number of col- 
lege students, more especially in the middle 
and southern states, were prepared by clergy- 
men, who received each a small number of 
pupils into his family, as a means of secur- 
ing some additional income. There were 
also a few private schools of considerable 
reputation and value. 

In connection with these educational agen- 
cies, the small parochial and social libraries, 
and the two or three associations for the 
increase and dissemination of science, should 
also be referred to. 

The institutions of superior education, 
established during the colonial period, were 
seven in number ; namely, Harvard, Wil- 
liam and Mary, Yale, Nassau Hall, Rutgers, 
Brown, and Columbia. From these came 
forth nearly all the liberally educated men 
of that day, though it was a custom of a few 
of the wealthiest families of the day to grad 
uate their sons at a European university, 
Oxford or Cambridge being commonly se- 
lected. The colonial colleges, like the 
schools preparatory to them, were substan- 
tially church institutions, their pupils being 
the stock from which the clerical body was 
reinforced. 

It was not until the very close of the co- 
lonial period that a few special or profes- 
sional schools were established. A school 
of medicine, sufficiently entitled to the name, 
gave degrees in New York in 1769 ; a sort 
of theological seminary was founded in Penn- 
sylvania in 1778; while the first law school 



only arose the year after the peace of 1783. 
Professorships, however, in these depart- 
ments, had afforded a certain amount of in- 
struction in all of them as part of the college 
course, long before; indeed, from the foun- 
dation of the earliest colleges. 

Female education was comparatively neg- 
lected in the colonial period. <drls were 
taught housewifely duties far more assidu- 
ously than learning, and often depended 
uppn home instruction for whatever educa- 
tion they received; neither the common 
schools nor those for secondary education 
affording or being designed to afford accom- 
modation for them. 

That special supplementary training which 
at the present day does so much to alleviate 
the misfortunes of the blind, the deaf and 
dumb, and the feeble minded, was quite un- 
known, nor was the idea entertained that 
such a training was practicable. 



CHAPTER II. 

REVOLUTIONARY AND TRANSITIONAL 
PERIOD. 

The immediate effects of the war of the 
Revolution were adverse, and, in certain as- 
pects, disastrous to the interests of education. 
Dangers so great and imminent almost en- 
grossed all thought and absorbed all exertion 
and resources. Children, indeed, were not 
left without the instruction of the family and 
the local elementary school, and they were. 
thank God, everywhere Burrounded with the 
most stirring exhibitions of heroic patriotism 
and the self-sacrificing virtues. Bui too gen- 
erally the elementary school and the teacher, 
never properly appreciated, gave way to 
more pressing and universally-felt necessities. 
Higher education for a time experienced a 
severe shock. The calls of patriotism with- 
drew many young men from the colleges and 
the preparatory schools, and prevented many 
more from resorting thither. The impover- 
ishment of the country, and the demand for 
immediate action, compelled others to relin- 
quish an extended course of professional 
study. In some cases the presence of armies 
caused a suspension of college instruction and 
the dispersion of faculty and student-, and 
even converted the college buildings into 
barracks. Bui the action and influence of 
this period were not wholly adverse or dis- 
astrous to schools and higher education. The 



860 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



public mind was stimulated into greatly in- 
creased activity — now, for the first time, as- 
suming a collective existence and national 
characteristics. The heart of the people was 
thoroughly penetrated by the spirit of self- 
sacrifice, in cheerfully bearing the burdens of 
society with diminished resources, and in re- 
pairing the waste and destruction of the war. 
The examples of wisdom and eloquence in 
council, and courage and heroism in the 
field, and of patient endurance of privation 
and hardship, and towering above all and 
outshining all, the colossal greatness and 
transparent purity of the character of Wash- 
ington — these were lessons for the head and 
the heart of a young nation, which amply 
compensated for the partial and temporary 
suspension of schools. In the discussion and 
reconstruction of political society, in framing 
constitutions and organic legislation, and in 
the disposition of unsettled territory, the im- 
portance of the elementary school, the acad- 
emy, and the college, was recognized and pro- 
vided for. 

Among the earliest to do justice to this 
great subject was Noah Webster, who, in a 
series of essays, first published in a New 
York paper, and copied extensively by the 
press in other parts of the country, and after- 
ward embodied in a volume with other fu- 
gitive pieces, advocated a liberal policy by 
the national and local governments in favor 
of a broad system of education. " Here every 
class of people should know and love the 
laws. This knowledge should be diffused by 
means of schools and newspapers ; and an at- 
tachment to the laws may be formed by early 
impression upon the mind. Two regulations 
are essential to the continuance of republican 
governments: 1. Such a distribution of lands 
and such principles of descent and alienation 
as shall give every citizen a power of acquir- 
ing what his industry merits. 2. Such a sys- 
tem of education as shall give every citizen 
an opportunity of acquiring knowledge, and 
fitting himself for places of trust." " Edu- 
cation should be the first care of a legisla- 
ture ; not merely the institution of schools, 
but the furnishing them with the best men 
for teachers. A good system of schools 
should be the first article in a code of politi- 
cal regulations ; for it is much easier to in- 
troduce and establish an effectual system for 
preserving morals, than to correct by penal 
statutes the ill effects of a bad system. I am 
so fully persuaded of this, that I should al- 
most adore that great man who shall change 



our practice and opinions, and make it re- 
spectable for the first and best men to super- 
intend the education of youth." As speci- 
mens of the utterances of eminent public 
men on this subject, we cite the following : 

" Promote, as an object of primary import- 
ance, institutions for the general diffusion of 
knowledge. In proportion as the structure 
of a government gives force to public opin- 
ion, it is essential that public opinion should 
be enlightened." George Washington. 

" The wisdom and generosity of the legis- 
lature in making liberal appropriations in 
money for the benefit of schools, academies 
and colleges, is an equal honor to them and 
their constituents, a proof of their veneration 
for letters and science, and a portent of great 
and lasting good to North and South Amer- 
ica, and to the world. Great is truth — great 
is liberty — great is humanity — and they must 
and will prevail." John Adams. 

" I look to the diffusion of light and edu- 
cation as the resources most to be relied on 
for ameliorating the condition, promoting 
the virtue, and advancing the happiness of 
man. And I do hope, in the present spirit 
of extending to the great mass of mankind 
the blessings of instruction, I see a prospect 
of great advancement in the happiness of the 
human race, and this may proceed to an in- 
definite, although not an infinite, degree. A 
system of general instruction, which shall 
reach every description of our citizens, from 
the richest to the poorest, as it was the ear- 
liest, so shall it be the latest of all the public 
concerns in which I shall permit myself to 
take an interest. Give it to us, in any shape, 
and receive for the inestimable boon the 
thanks of the young, and the blessings of 
the old, who are past all other services but 
prayers for the prosperity of their country, 
and blessings to those who promote it." 
Thomas Jefferson. 

" Learned institutions ought to be the fa- 
vorite objects with every free people ; they 
throw that light over the public mind which 
is the best security against crafty and dan- 
gerous encroachments on the public liberty. 
They multiply the educated individuals, from 
among whom the people may elect a due 
portion of their public agents of every de- 
scription, more especially of those who are 
to frame the laws: by the perspicuity, the 



REVOLUTIONARY AND TRANSITIONAL PERIOD. 



8G1 



consistency, and the stability, as well as by 
the justice and equal spirit of which, the great 
social purposes are to be answered." 

James Madison. 

" Moral, political and intellectual improve- 
ment, are duties assigned by the Author of 
our existence to social, no less than to indi- 
vidual man. For the fulfilment of these du- 
ties, governments are invested with power, 
and to the attainment of these ends, the ex- 
ercise of this power is a duty sacred and in- 
dispensable." John Quincy Adams. 

" For the purpose of promoting the happi- 
ness of the State, it is absolutely necessary 
that our government, which unites into one 
all the minds of the State, should possess in 
an eminent degree not only the understand- 
ing, the passions, and the will, but above all, 
the moral faculty and the conscience of an 
individual. Nothing can be politically right 
that is morally wrong; and no necessity can 
ever sanctify a law that is contrary to equity. 
Virtue is the soul of a Republic. To pro- 
mote this, laws for the suppression of vice 
and immorality wiH be as ineffectual as the 
increase and enlargement of jails. There is 
but one method of preventing crime and of 
rendering a republican form of government 
durable ; and that is, by disseminating the 
seeds of virtue and knowledge through every 
part of the State, by means of proper modes 
and places of education ; and this can be 
done effectually only by the interference and 
aid of the legislature. I am so deeply im- 
pressed with this opinion, that were this the 
last evening of my life, I would not only say to 
the asylum of my ancestors and my beloved 
native country, with the patriot of Venice, 
1 Esto perpetual but I would add, as the best 
proof of my affection for her, my parting ad- 
vice to the guardians of her liberties, establish 
and support public schools in every part of 
the State." Benjamin Rush. 

" There is one object which I earnestly re- 
commend to your notice and patronage — I 
mean our institutions for the education of 
youth. The importance of common schools 
is best estimated by the good effects of them 
where they most abound and are best regu- 
lated. Our ancestors have transmitted to us 
many excellent institutions, matured by the 
wisdom and experience of ages. Let them 
descend to posterity, accompanied with oth- 
ers, which, by promoting useful knowledge, 



and multiplying the blessings of social order, 
diffusing t he influence of moral obligations, 

may bo reputable to us, and beneficial to 
them." John Jay. 

"The first duty of government, and the 
surest evidence of good government, is the 
encouragement of education. A general dif- 
fusion of knowledge is the precursor and pro- 
tector of republican institutions, and in it we 
must confide as the conservative power that 
will watch over our liberties and guard them 
against fraud, intrigue, corruption and vio- 
lence. I consider the system of our Com- 
mon Schools as the palladium of our freedom, 
for no reasonable apprehension can be enter- 
tained of its subversion, as long as the great 
body of the people are enlightened by educa- 
tion. To increase the funds, to extend the 
benefits, and to remedy the defects of this 
excellent system, is worthy of your mosl de- 
liberate attention. I can not recommend in 
terms too strong and impressive, as munifi- 
cent appropriations as the faculties of the. 
State will authorize for all establishments 
connected with the interests of education, 
the exaltation of literature and science, and 
the improvement of the human mind." 

De Witt Clinton. 

" The parent who sends his son into the 
world uneducated, defrauds the community 
of a lawful citizen, and bequeaths to it a 
nuisance." Chancellor Kent. 

In the discussions which have taken place 
in the press and in the halls of legislation 
on the subject, the experience of the New 
England States is constantly cited as an irre- 
futable argument in favor of public Bchools 
and universal education. The character and 
value of this example are admirably set forth 
by Daniel Webster: 

"In this particular, New England may be 
allowed to claim, I think, a merit of a pecu- 
liar character. She early adopted and has 
constantly maintained the principle, that it 
is the undoubted right, and the bounden 
duty of government, to provide for the in- 
struction of all youth. That which is else- 
where left to chance, or to charity, we secure 
by law. For the purpose of public instruc- 
tion, wc hold every man Bubjecl to taxation 
in proportion to his property, and we look 
not to the question, whether he himself have, 
or have not, children to be benefited by the 
education for which he pays. We regard it 



862 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



as a wise and liberal system of police, by 
which property, and life, and the peace of 
society are secured. We seek to prevent in 
some measure the extension of the penal 
code, by inspiring a salutary and conserva- 
tive principle of virtue and of knowledge in 
an early age. We hope to excite a feeling 
of respectability, and a sense of character, by 
enlarging the capacity, and increasing the 
sphere of intellectual enjoyment. By gen- 
eral instruction, Ave seek, as far as possible, 
to purify the whole moral atmosphere; to 
keep good sentiments uppermost, and to turn 
the strong current of feeling and opinion, as 
well as the censures of the law, and the de- 
nunciations of religion, against immorality 
and crime. We hope for a security, beyond 
the law, and above the law, in the prevalence 
of enlightened and well-principled moral sen- 
timent. We hope to continue and prolong 
the time when, in the villages and farm- 
houses of New England, there may be undis- 
turbed sleep within unbarred doors. And 
knowing that our government rests directly 
on the public will, that we may preserve it, 
we endeavor to give a safe and proper direc- 
tion to that public will. We do not, indeed, 
expect all men to be philosophers or states- 
men ; but we confidently trust, and our ex- 
pectation of the duration of our system of 
government rests on that trust, that by the 
diffusion of general knowledge and good and 
virtuous sentiments, the political fabric may 
be secure, as well against open violence and 
overthrow, as against the slow but sure un- 
dermining of licentiousness." 

The action of Congress, and of the early 
constitutional conventions of the several 
states, shows how nobly the public mind 
responded to these appeals. 

On the 17th of May, 1784, Mr. Jefferson, 
as chairman of a committee for that purpose, 
introduced into the old Congress an ordin- 
ance respecting the disposition of the public 
lands ; but this contained no reference to 
schools or education. On the 4th of March, 
1785, another ordinance was introduced — by 
whom does not appear on the journal — and 
on the 16th of the same month was recom- 
mitted to a committee consisting of Pierce 
Long of New Hampshire, Rufus King of 
Massachusetts, David Howell of Rhode Is- 
land, Win. S. Johnson of Connecticut, R. R. 
Livingston of New York, Charles Stewart of 
New Jersey, Joseph Gardner of Pennsyl- 
vania, John Henry of Maryland, William 
Grayson of Virginia, Hugh Williamson of 



North Carolina, John Bull of South Caro- 
lina, and William Houston of Georgia. On 
the 14th of April following, this committee 
reported the ordinance — by whom drawn up 
no clue is given — which, after being perfect- 
ed, Avas passed the 20th of May following, 
and became the foundation of the existing 
land system of the United States. 

By one of its provisions, the sixteenth sec- 
tion of every township was reserved i( ~for the 
maintenance of public schools ;" or, in other 
words, one section out of the thirty-six 
composing each township. The same pro- 
vision was incorporated in the large land 
sale, in 1786, to the Ohio Company, and the 
following year in Judge Symmes' purchase. 
The celebrated ordinance of 1787, for the gov- 
ernment of the territory north-Avest of the 
River Ohio, and which confirmed the pro- 
visions of the land ordinance of 1785, pro- 
vides further, that, " Religion, Morality 
and Knowledge being necessary to good 
government and the happiness of mankind, 
Schools, and the means of Education, 

SHALL BE FOREVER ENCOURAGED." From 

that day to the present, this noble policy 
has been confirmed and' extended, till its 
blessings now reach even the distant shores 
of the Pacific, and fifty millions of acres 
of the public domain have been set apart and 
consecrated to the high and ennobling pur- 
poses of education, together Avith five per 
cent, of the net proceeds of the sales of all 
public lands in each of the states and terri- 
tories in which they are situated. 

During this period individual beneficence 
and associated enterprise began to be direct- 
ed to the building up, furnishing, and main- 
taining libraries, colleges, academies, and 
scientific institutions. Societies for the pro- 
motion of science and literature, and schools 
for professional training, we're founded and 
incorporated, and men of even moderate 
fortune began to feel the luxury of doing 
good, and to see that a wise endowment 
for the relief of suffering, the diffusion of 
knowledge, the discovery of the laws of 
nature, the application of the principles of 
science to the useful arts, the conservation 
of good morals, and the spread of religious 
truth, is, in the best sense of the term, 
a good investment — an investment produc- 
tive of the greatest amount of the highest 
good both to the donor and his posterity, 
and which makes the residue of the prop* 
erty from which it is taken both more se* 
cure and more valuable. 



COLLEGES, ACADEMIES, AND COMMOM SCHOOLS IN 1800. 



863 



CHAPTER III. 

STATE AND NATIONAL ACTION. 

INTRODUCTION. 

We shall not attempt to follow out in 
separate channels the action of the National 
and State governments, which together con- 
stitute the legislative power of the United 
States, both of which have been exerted on 
the education and educational institutions of 
the whole country ; but confine ourselves 
mainly to an exposition of the State systems 
of public instruction, with an incidental 
notice of such national institutions as belong 
to each department treated of. Before enter- 
ing on this exposition, we give from the most 
reliable cotemporaneous authority (A His- 
torical and Geographical Account of the 
United States. By Noah Webster, Jr., 
1804), a comprehensive survey of the state 
of learning and of educational institutions 
in the whole country at the opening of this 
century. 

I. EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS ABOUT 1800. 

NEW HAMPSHIRE. 

Of the State of Learning. — An old law of 
the colony (1719), directed every town, con- 
taining one hundred families, to provide a 
grammar school ; in which also was to be 
taught reading, writing and arithmetic. 
This law was not well executed. Since the 
revolution, a law of the state has directed 
the maintenance of schools in the several 
towns under certain penalties. There are 
also social libraries ; and newspapers circu- 
late in almost all parts of the state. 

Of the Academies. — At Exeter an acad- 
emy, founded by John Phillips, Esq., and 
called after his name, was incorporated in 
1781. At Atkinson, an academy founded 
by Nathaniel Peabody, Esq., was incor- 
porated in 1790. Academies are also 
found at Amherst, Charlestown and Concord. 

Of Dartmouth College. — At Hanover, in 
Grafton county, is a college founded by Dr. 
Wheelock in 1709, with a special view to 
the instruction of young Indians. Although 
this object has in a great measure failed, 
the institution is prosperous and highly 

useful. The number of students is seld 

less than one hundred and fifty ; its funds, 
consisting of new lands, are increasing in 
value; its library and apparatus are tolerably 
complete; its situation is pleasant and ad- 



vantageous. It takes its name from a 
principal benefactor, the Earl of Dartmouth. 

VERMONT. 

Of the State of Learning. — Learnino- re- 
ceives from the people of Vermont alfthe 
encouragement that can be expected from 
an agricultural people in a new settlement 
Schools for common education are planted 
in every part of the state; and two col- 
leges are established, one at Middlebury, 
the other at Burlington, in which are 
taught classical learning, and the higher 
branches of mathematics, philosophy, and 
other sciences. 

MASSACHUSETTS. 

Of the Slate of Learning. — In Massachu- 
setts the principal institutions for science 
are the University of Cambridge, and the 
college at Williamstown. The university 
of Cambridge was founded in 1638 — it is 
well endowed — is furnished with professors 
of the several sciences — a large library 
and apparatus — and contains usually from 
one hundred and forty to two hundred 
students. Williams college, in Williams- 
town, founded in 1793, is in a thriving 
state. Academies are established in various 
parts of the state, in which are taught the 
liberal sciences, as well as the languages. 
The laws of the state require a school to 
be kept in every town, having fiftv house- 
holders, and a grammar school in every 
town having two hundred families. And 
although the laws are not rigidly obeyed, 
still most of the children in the state 
have access to a school. 

MAINE — PART OP MASSACHUSETTS TILL 1822. 

Of the State of Learning and Religion. — 
The laws of Massachusetts direct ' that a 
school shall be kept in each town, and lands 
are retained, as public lots, for the support 
of schools and the gospel ministry. These 
beneficial institutions are enjoyed in the 
old settlements ; but a great part of the 
district, being lately settled, is not well 
supplied with schools. 

RHODE ISLAND. 

Of the State of Learning. — There is a 
college at Providence, founded by the Bap- 
tists, containing forty-eight rooms for 
students, and eight rooms for public uses. 
It has a library of near three thousand 
volumes — and an apparatus for experiments 
in philosophy. It is furnished with a presi- 
dent and suitable instructors for the students 
who are usually about fifty in number. In 



864 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



the large towns, and in some others, there 
are private schools for teaching the com- 
mon branches of learning. 

CONNECTICUT. 

Of the State of Learning. — Soon after 
the settlement of Connecticut, the General 
Court passed laws directing schools to be 
kept in every village, and providing funds 
to encourage them. Every town or village 
containing a certain number of families, 
was directed to maintain a school, and em- 
powered to draw from the treasury of the 
state, a sum equal to one five-hundredth 
part of the amount of the property of the 
town, as assessed in the grand list. By 
means of this provision, common schools 
have been kept in all parts of the state, 
and every person is taught to read, write, 
and keep accounts. By the sale of the 
western reserve in 1795, still more liberal 
and permanent funds were provided for the 
support of schools. In winters the larger 
children are instructed by men ; in sum- 
mer, small children attend the schools, and 
are taught by women ; in general the in- 
structors are selected from persons of good 
families and reputation. 

Of Yale College. — Yale College, so called, 
from a principal benefactor, was founded in 
the year 1700 at Killingworth, but fixed at 
New Haven in 1716. It consists of three 
colleges, each containing thirty-two rooms, 
a chapel and museum — has a library of 
about two thousand volumes, and a philo- 
sophical apparatus. Its funds are ample, 
and from thirty to fifty students are annu- 
ally graduated at the public commencement 
in September. It is under the direction of 
trustees, consisting of eleven clergymen, 
and eight laymen. The vacancies among 
the clerical members are supplied by the 
board of trustees. The lay members are 
the governor, lieutenant-governor, and six 
senior members of the council of the 
state, or upper house. 

Of Academies and Grammar Schools. — 
By law, a grammar school may be established 
in any town in the state, by a vote of the 
inhabitants in legal meeting; and many 
academies are established and maintained 
by private funds. In these are taught not 
only the primary branches of learning, but 
geography, grammar, the languages, and 
higher branches of mathematics. There 
are also academies for young ladies, in which 
are taught the additional branches of 
needle-work, drawing, and embroidery. 



Among the academies of the first reputation 
are, one in Plainfield, and the Bacon acad- 
emy in Colchester, whose funds amount to 
about thirty-five thousand dollars. The 
most distinguished schools for young ladies 
are, Union school in New Haven, and one 
in Litchfield. 

NEW YORK. 

Of the State of Learning. — A college was 
founded in the city of New York in 1754, 
and incorporated by charter from the king. 
After the revolution, the legislature instituted 
a university consisting of a number of re- 
gents, whose powers extend to the superin- 
tendence of colleges, academies and schools, 
throughout the state. They are authorized 
to found colleges and academies, confer 
degrees, visit all seminaries of learning, 
and make regulations for their government. 

Of Columbia and Union Colleges. — By 
the act of the Legislature in 1787, found- 
ing the university of the state, the college 
in New York received the name of Columbia, 
and all the privileges and powers, derived 
from its charter, were confirmed. It is 
under the government of twenty-four 
trustees, and has considerable funds. Its 
instructors are a president and professors 
of the principal sciences. The building is 
of stone, three stories high, and contain- 
ing forty-eight apartments. The college is 
furnished with a chapel, a library, museum, 
and philosophical apparatus. Union college 
was founded at Schenectady in 1795, and 
is in a prosperous condition. 

Of Academies and Schools. — Several re- 
spectable academies are established in dif- 
ferent parts of the state, in which are taught 
the learned languages, geography, grammar, 
and mathematics. Until since the revolu- 
tion, common schools received no encour- 
agement from the public treasury, or the 
laws. But in 1795, a law of the state ap- 
propriated a large sum of money for erecting 
school-houses, and paying teachers, the bene- 
ficial effects of which are visible. Hitherto, 
however, the rudimentary instruction of the 
laboring people has not been general. 

NEW JERSEY. 

Of the State of Learning. — The education 
of youth in New Jersey depends on the 
voluntary contributions of individuals, and 
therefore is neglected by some classes of the 
people. In the more populous towns and 
villages are academies and schools of high 
reputation. The college at Princeton, called 
Nassau Hall, is a seminary of distinguished 



COLLEGES, ACADEMIES, AND COMMON SCHOOLS IN 1800. 



865 



reputation, and from thirty to forty students 
are annually graduated. 

PENNSYLVANIA. 

Of the State of Learning. — In Pennsyl- 
vania is one university, the seat of which 
is Philadelphia ; a college at Carlisle, and 
another at Lancaster. There are numerous 
academies and schools in Philadelphia and 
other large towns. The legislature have re- 
served sixty thousand acres of land as a 
fund for supporting public schools. The 
Moravian academies at Bethlehem and Naz- 
areth, are noted for strict discipline. 

DELAWARE. 

Of the Schools. — There are private schools 
in this state, and especially in Wilmington. 
In 1796, the legislature passed an act for 
creating a fund for the support of public 
schools. There is no college in the state, 
but an academy at Newark, a few miles 
from Wilmington. 

MARYLAND. 

Of the' Literary Institutions. — The prin- 
cipal institutions for the education of youth 
are, Washington academy, in Somerset 
county, instituted in 1779; Washington col- 
lege at Chester, founded in 1782 ; St. Johns 
college at Annapolis, founded in 1784; a 
college at Georgetown, instituted by the 
Catholics ; and Cokcsbury college in Har- 
ford County, instituted by the methodists 
in 1785. There are private schools in many 
places; and private tutors in families; and 
many young men are sent for their education 
either to Europe, or the northern states. 

VIRGINIA. 

Seminaries of Learning. — The college in 
Williamsburg was founded during the reign 
of William and Mary, and called by their 
names. It was endowed by them with 
twenty thousand acres of land, and the pro- 
ceeds of a duty of one penny on the pound 
of tobacco exported — with a duty on skins 
and furs exported, and liquors imported. It 
is under the government of twenty visitors, 
a president and professors in the most im- 
portant branches of science. There is also 
a college in Prince Edward, and academics 
in the principal towns, as well as numerous 
schools in other parts of the state. 

NORTH CAROLINA. 

Of the State of Learning. — In 1789 the 
legislature passed an act incorporating a 
number of persons as trustees of a univer- 
sity to be established, and funds "were sup- 
plied for the purpose of erecting buildings. 
45 



There is an academy of Warrenton, and a 

few others in the state; bul the education 
of all classes of people is nut general. In 
18U3, however, the legislature passi d an act 
for the establishment of public schools. 

SOUTH CAkol.ISA. 

Of the Seminaries of Learning, — Gentle- 
men of property have been accustomed to 
send their sons and daughters to England 
for an education. Some of them send 
their sons to one of the colleges in the 
northern states. There are Beveral institu- 
tions in the States called colleges and acade- 
mies — a college in Charleston, one at Winns- 
borough, in Camden district, one at Cam- 
bridge, and one at Beaufort, with consider- 
able funds. There are Beveral academies 
and schools in Charleston, Beaufort, and 
other parts of the state. The South Caro- 
lina College was incorporated in L801, with 
an appropriation of fifty thousand dollars 
for erecting buildings in Columbia, and six 
thousand dollars yearly for instructors. 

GEORGIA. 

Of the Literary Institutions. — The legis- 
lature of Georgia has founded and en- 
dowed a college at Louisville. There are 
also some schools in the state. A law of 
the state has incorporated a number of lite- 
rary gentlemen, for the purpose of estab- 
lishing and superintending seminaries of 
learning — fifty thousand acres of land are 
appropriated for funds, for this university — 
and a sum of money in each county for 
maintaining an academy. The funds des- 
tined by .Mr. Whitfield to maintain an or- 
phan house, and by him bequeathed to the 
countess of Huntingdon, in trust, arc vested 
in commissioners to support a college. 

KENTUCKY. 

Of the State of Learning. — Provision has 
been made by law for founding and main- 
taining a college, and schools arc established 
in different parts of the state. 

TENNi 

Of Learning. — Several schools are estab- 
lished in this state, and by law provision is 
made for three colleges. There is also a 
society for promoting useful knowledge. 

Before entering on a systematic survey of 
the development of education in its different 
departments of elementary, secondary, supe- 
rior, professional and supplementary instruc- 
tion, we give in the following table the 
gradual growth of the country from 13 to 
38 States, with their population in 1S70. 



Table I. — Historical and statistical data of the United States. 
[Compiled from Report of the Commissioner of the Land Office for 1867.] 



States and Territo- 


Act organizing Territory. 


Act admitting State. 


Area in sq. 
miles. 


Populat'n 


ries. 


U. S. Statutes. 


Vol. 


Page. 


U. S. Statutes. 


Vol. 


Page. 


in 1860.t 


Original States. 














9,280 
7,800 
1,306 
4,750 

47, 000 
8,320 

46, 000 
2,120 

11, 124 

61, 352 

50, 704 
34, 000 

58,000 

37, 680 

*10,212 
45, 600 
39, 964 

*4 1,346 
33, 809 
47,156 

*55, 410 
50, 722 

*35, 000 

*65, 350 
52, 198 

*56, 451 
59, 268 
55,045 
*274, 356 
53, 924 
*188,981 
83, 531 
95, 274 
81,318 
23,000 

112,090 

*104, 500 

75, 995 

121,201 
88, 056 
69, 994 

240, 597 

113,916 
90, 932 

143, 776 
68,991 

||10m.sq. 

577, 390 


326, 073 
















1,231,066 
















174, 620 
















460, 147 
















3, 880, 735 
















672, 035 
















2,906,115 
















112,216 
















687, 049 


Virginia — East and 
West. 














1,596,318 














992, 622 
















703, 708 
















1, 057, 286 


States admitted. 








Feb. 4, 1791 
Feb. 18, 1791 
June 1, 1796 
Apr. 30, 1602 
Apr. 8, 1812 
Dec. 11, 1814 
Dec. 10, 1817 
Dec. 3, 1818 
Dec. 14, 1819 
Mar. 3, 1820 
Mar. 2, 1821 
June 15, 1836 
Jan. 26, 1837 
Mar. 3, 1845 

do 

Dec. 29, 1845 
Mar. 3, 1847 
Sept. 9, 1850 
Feb. 26, 1857 
Feb. 14, 1859 
Jan. 29, 1861 
Dec. 31, 1862 
Mar. 21, 1864 


1 

1 
1 
2 

2 
3 
3 
3 

3 
3 
3 
5 
5 
5 
5 
9 
9 
9 
11 
11 
12 
12 
13 
13 
13 


189 
191 
491 
173 
701 
399 
672 
536 
608 
544 
645 
50 
144 
742 
742 
108 
178 
452 
166 
383 
126 
633 
30 
32 
47 


1, 155, 664 










315, 098 










1, 109, 801 


Ohio 


Ord'ceofl787 
Mar. 3, 1805 
May 7, ltOO 
Apr. 7, 1798 
Feb. 3, 1809 
Mar. 3, 1817 






2, 339, 502 


Indiana 

Mississippi 


2 
2 
1 
2 
3 


331 
58 
549 
514 
371 


708,002 
1, 350, 428 

791, 305 
1,711,951 




964, 201 




628, 279 




June 4, 1812 
Mar. 2, 1819 
Jan. 11, 1805 
Mar. 30, 1822 
June 12, 1838 


2 
3 

3 
5 


743 
493 
309 
654 
235 


1, 182, 012 




435, 450 
749. 113 




140, 425 




674, 948 




604,215 




Apr. 20, 1836 


5 


10 


775,881 




305, 439 




Mar. 3, 1849 
Aug. 14, 1848 
May 30, 1854 


9 
9 
10 


403 
323 
277 


173, 855 
52, 465 




107,206 








Mar. 2, 1861 
Feb. 28, 1861 
May 30, 1854 

Sept. 9, 1850 
do 


12 
12 
10 

9 
9 
10 
12 
12 
12 
13 


209 
172 
277 

446 
453 
172 
239 
664 
808 
85 


♦6, 857 




+34, 277 




Mar. 1, 1867 


28, 841 


Territories. 




Vtah 










Washington 


Mar. 2, 1853 
Mar. 2, 1861 
Feb. 24, 1863 
Mar. 3, 1863 
May 26, 1864 


























> §360, 000 
































Dist. of Columbia. . . 


July 16, 1790 
Mar. 3, 1791 


1 

1 


130 

214 


I 






1T126, 990 




5 






70, 0C0 



















* Area taken from geographical authorities and Dot from public surveys. 

t Total population in 1860 was 31,500,000 ; estimated in 1867 to be 38,500,000. 

{ To the white population in Nevada should be added 10,507 Indians; and in Colorado, 2,261 
Indians. § As estimated January 1, 1865. 

|| That portion of District of Columbia south of the Potomac river was retroceded to Virginia 
.July 9, 1846, (Stat, vol 6, p. 35.) Tl By censua of 1867. 



PROGRESS OF COMMON OR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 



8G7 



II. SCHOOL-HOUSES, STUDIES, BOOKS, AND TEACHERS 
AS THEY WERE. 

To understand the real progress which has 
been made in the organization, administra- 
tion, and instruction of institutions of learn- 
ing in this country, and at the same time to 
appreciate the importance of many agencies 
and means of popular education besides 
schools, books and teachers, we must, as far 
as we can, look into the schools themselves, 
as they were fifty and sixty years ago, and 
realize the circumstances under which some 
of the noblest characters of our history have 
been developed. As a contribution to our 
knowledge of the early history of education 
in the United States, we bring together the 
testimony of several eminent men who were 
pupils or teachers in these schools, and who 
assisted in various ways in achieving their 
improvement. 

LETTER FROM NOAH WEBSTER, LL.D. 

"New Haven, March 10th, 1840. 

" Mr. Barnard : Dear Sir — You desire 
me to give you some information as to the 
mode of instruction in common schools when 
I was young, or before the Revolution. I be- 
lieve you to be better acquainted with the 
methods of managing common schools, at 
the present time, than I am ; and I am not 
able to institute a very exact comparison 
between the old modes and the present. 
From what I know of the present schools in 
the country, I believe the principal difference 
between the schools of former times and at 
present consists in the books and instruments 
used in the modern schools. 

" When I was young, the books used were 
chiefly or wholly Dilworth's Spelling Books, 
the Psalter, Testament and Bible. No ge- 
ography was studied before the publication 
of Dr. Morse's small books on that subject, 
about the year 1786 or 1787. No history 
was read, as far as my knowledge extends, 
for there was no abridged history of the 
United States. Except the books above 
mentioned, no book for reading was used 
before the publication of the Third Bart of 
my Institute, in 1785. In some of the early 
editions of that book, I introduced short 
notices of the geography and history of the 
United States, and these led to more en- 
larged descriptions of the country. In 1788, 
at the request of Dr. Morse, I wrote an ac- 



count of the transactions in tin' United 
States, after the Revolution; which account 
fills nearly twenty pages in the first volume 

of his octavo editions. 

"Before the Revolution, and for some 
years after, no slates were used in common 
schools; all writing and the operations in 
arithmetic were on paper. The teacher 
wrote the copies and gave the sums in 
arithmetic; few or none of the pupils having 
any books as a guide. Such was the condi- 
tion of the schools in which I received my 
early education. 

"The introduction of my Spelling Book, 
first published in 1783, produced a great 
change in the department of spelling; and 
from the information I can gain, spelling was 
taught with more care and accuracy for 
twenty years or more after that period, than 
it has been since the introduction of multi- 
plied books and studies.* 

" No English grammar was generally 
taught in common schools when I was 
young, except that in Dilworth, and that to 
no good purpose. In short, the instruction 
in schools was very imperfect, in every 
branch; and if lam not misinformed, it is 
so to this day, in many branches. Indeed 
there is danger of running from one extreme 
to another, and instead of having too few 
books in our schools, we shall have too 
many. 

" I am, sir, with much respect, your friend 
and obedient servant, N. Wehster."' 

Dr. Webster, in an essay published in a 
New York paper in 1788, "On the Educa- 
tion of Youth in America," and in another 
essay published in Hartford, Ct., in 1790, 
"On Property, Government, Education, Re- 
ligion, Agriculture, etc., in the United 
States,"f while setting forth some of the 
cardinal doctrines of American education as 
now held, throws light on the condition of 
schools and colleges in different parts of the 
country at that date. 

"The first error that I would mention is a 



* "The penorni use of my Spelling Book in the 
United States has had a most extensive effect in 
correcting the pronunciation of words, and giving 

uniformity to the language. Of this i 

present generation can have a very imperfect idea." 

f These essays were afterwards with 

others in a volume entitled "A Collection of Rp- 
says and Fugitive Writings, etc." By Noah Webstar, 
Jr. Boston: 1790. 



868 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



too general attention to the dead languages, 
with a neglect of our own. . . . This 
neglect is so general that there is scarcely an 
institution to be found in the country where 
the English tongue is taught regularly from 
its elements to its pure and regular construc- 
tion in prose and verse. Perhaps in most 
schools boys are taught the definition of the 
parts of speech, and a few hard names which 
they do not understand, and which the 
teacher seldom attempts to explain ; this is 
called learning grammar. . . . The prin- 
ciples of any science afford pleasure to the 
student who comprehends them. In order to 
render the study of language agreeable, the 
distinctions between words should be illus- 
trated by the difference in visible objects. 
Examples should be presented to the sen- 
ses which are the inlets of all our knowledge. 
"Another error which is frequent in 
America, is that a master undertakes to 
teach many different branches in the same 
school. In new settlements, where the 
people are poor, and live in scattered situa- 
tions, the practice is often unavoidable. But 
in populous towns it must be considered as a 
defective plan of education. For suppose 
the teacher to be equally master of all the 
branches which he attempts to teach, which 
seldom happens, yet his attention must be 
distracted with a multiplicity of objects, and 
consequently painful to himself, and not use- 
ful to his pupils. Add to this the continual 
interruptions which the students of one 
branch suffer from those of another, which 
must retard the progress of the whole school. 
It is a much more eligible plan to appropri- 
ate an apartment to each branch of educa- 
tion, with a teacher who makes that branch 
his sole employment. . . . Indeed what 
is now called a liberal education disqualifies 
a man for business. Habits are formed in 
youth and by practice ; and as business is 
in some measure mechanical, every person 
should be exercised in his employment in an 
early period of life, that his habits may be 
formed by the time his apprenticeship ex- 
pires. An education in a university inter- 
feres with the forming of these habits, and 
perhaps forms opposite habits ; the mind 
may contract a fondness for ease, for plea- 
sure, or for books, which no efforts can over- 
come. An academic education, which should 
furnish the youth with some ideas of men 
and things, and leave time for an apprentice- 
ship before the age of twenty-one years, 



would be the most eligible for young men 
who are designed for active employments. 
* * * * * * 

" But the principal defect in our plan of 
education in America is the want of good 
teachers in the academies and common 
schools. By good teachers I mean men of 
unblemished reputation, and possessed of 
abilities competent to their station. That a 
man should be master of what he undertakes 
to teach is a point that will not be disputed ; 
and yet it is certain that abilities are often 
dispensed with, either through inattention 
or fear of expense. To those who em- 
ploy ignorant men to instruct their children, 
let me say, it is better for youth to have no 
education than to have a bad one ; for it is 
more difficult to eradicate habits than to im- 
press new ideas. The tender shrub is easily 
bent to any figure ; but the tree which has 
acquired its full growth resists all impres- 
sions. Yet abilities are not the sole requi- 
sites. The instructors of youth ought, of all 
men, to be the most prudent, accomplished, 
agreeable, and respectable. What avail a 
man's parts, if, while he is 'the wisest and 
brightest,' he is the 'meanest of mankind?' 
The pernicious effects of bad example on the 
minds of youth will probably be acknowl- 
edged ; but, with a view to improvement, it 
is indispensably necessary that the teachers 
should possess good breeding and agreeable 
manners. In order to give full effect to in- 
structions it is requisite that they should pro- 
ceed from a man who is loved and respected. 
But a low-bred clown or morose tyrant can 
command neither love nor respect; and that 
pupil who has no motive for application to 
books but the fear of the rod, will not make 
a scholar." 

LETTER FROM REV. HEMAN HUMPHREY, D.D. 
"Pittsfield, Dec. 12th, 1860. 

" Hon. Henry Barnard : Dear Sir — I 
am glad to hear from you, still engaged in 
the educational cause, and that you are in- 
tending to 'give a picturesque survey of the 
progress of our common schools, their equip- 
ment, studies and character.' If my early 
recollections and experience will give you 
any little aid, I shall esteem myself happy 
in affording it. 

" The first school I remember was kept a 
few weeks by a maiden lady, called 5liss 
Faithy, in a barn. I was very young, as 
were most of the children. "What I learned 



PROGRESS OF COMMON OR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 



869 



then, if any thing, I have forgotten. This 
was in the summer, of course. The next was 
a school, so called, kept a month or two by 
a neighbor of ours, who was the best trout 
fisher, with his horse-hair line, in all those 
parts. He wrote a fair hand, as I remem- 
ber, on birch bark. What he taught us, but to 
say tue and due, has escaped my recollection. 
We had no school-house then in our dis- 
trict, and we met as much for play as any 
thing, Avhere we could find shelter. The 
next winter, another neighbor took us a few 
weeks into one of the rooms of his own 
house, where every thing but learning was go- 
ing on. His speech bewrayed him of Rhode 
Island origin, and whatever he knew, he cer- 
tainly could never have had much if any 
chance of being whipped in school when he 
was a boy. I remember his tremendous 
stamp when we got noisy in school-time, and 
that is all. This, however, is not a fair 
sample of school accommodations in my 
boyhood ; and I had a better chance for two 
or three winters afterward. 

" School Houses. — Most of the other 
districts in the town had school-houses, but 
not all. The first winter that I kept school 
myself, was in a room next to the kitchen in 
a small private house. Some of the school- 
houses were better than others ; but none of 
them in that or the adjoining towns were 
convenient or even comfortable. They Avere 
rather juvenile penitentiaries, than attractive 
accommodations for study. They were too 
small, and low from the ceiling to the floor, 
and the calculation of the builders seemed 
to have been, to decide into how small a 
space the children could be crowded, from 
the fire-place till the room was well packed. 
Not unfrequently sixty or seventy scholars 
were daily shut up six hours, where there 
was hardly room for thirty. The school- 
houses were square, with a very narrow en- 
try, and a large fire-place on the side near 
the door. There were no stoves then. They 
were generally roughly clapboarded, but 
never painted. They had writing-desks, or 
rather, long boards for writing, on two or 
three sides, next to the wall. The benches 
were all loose ; some of them boards, with 
slabs from the saw-mill, standing on four 
legs, two at each end. Some were a little 
lower than the rest, but many of the smaller 
children had to sit all day with their legs 
dangling between the bench ami the floor. 
Poor little things! nodding and trying to 
keep their balance on the slabs, without any 



backs to lean against, how I pity them to 
this day. In the coldest weather, it was 
hard to tell which was the most difficult, to 

keep from roasting or freezing. For those 
nearest to tin- fire it was Bweltering hot, 
while the ink was freezing in the pens on 
the back side of the room. ' Muster, I am 
too hot' — 'Master, may 1 go to the tin:' 
That was the style of address in those days, 
and we did our best to be masters, anyhow. 

"All the school-houses that I remember 
stood close by the travelled road, without 
any play-grounds or enclosures whatever. 
If there were any shade trees planted, or left 
of spontaneous growth, I have forgotten 
them. And in most cases, there were no 
outside accommodations, even the most 
necessary for a moment's occasion. I now 
marvel at it, but so it was. In that respect, 
certainly, the days of the children are better 
than the days of their fathers were. 

" For the most part, the winter schools 
were miserably supplied with wood. I kept 
school myself in three towns, and in but one 
of the schools was there any wood-shed what- 
ever; and no wood was got up and seasoned 
in summer against winter. Most of what 
we used was standing in the forests when 
the school began, and was cut and brought 
sled length by the farmers in proportion to 
the number of scholars which they sent. 
Not exactly that, either; for sometimes, 
when we went to the school-house in a cold 
morning, there was no wood there. Some- 
body had neglected to bring his load, and 
Ave Avere obliged to adjourn over to the 
next day. In many cases, the understand- 
ing Avas, that the larger boys must cut the 
wood as it was wanted. It always lay in 
the snoAV, and sometimes the boys were sent 
to dig it out in school-time, and bring it in, 
all Avet and green as it Avas, to keep us from 
freezing. That Avas the fuel to make tires 
with in the morning, when the thermometer 
Avas below zero, and Iioav the little children 
cried with the cold, when they came almost 
frozen, and found no tire burning ; nothing 
but one or two boys blowing ami keeping 
themselves warm as well as they could, by 
exercise, in trying to kindle it. Such were 
our school-houses and their disaccommocUv 
tions. 

"Branches Taught in the Schools. — 
They were reading, spelling, and writing, 
besides the A B < "s to children Bcarcelyfour 
years old, who ought to have been at home 
Avith their mothers. They Avere called up 



870 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



twice a day by the master pointing with his 
penknife ' What's that ?' 'A.' 'What's that?' 
'D.' 'No, it's' B.' 'What's that?' 'N.' 'No, 
yon careless boy, it's C ;' and so down to 
ezand. 'Go to your seat, you will never learn 
your lesson in the world, at this rate.' Our 
school-books were the Bible, ' Webster's 
Spelling Book,' and ' Third Part,' mainly. 
One or two others were found in some 
schools for the reading classes. Grammar 
was hardly taught at all in any of them, and 
that little was confined almost entirely to 
committing and reciting the rules. Parsing 
was one of the occult sciences in my day. 
We had some few lessons in geography, by 
questions and answers, but no maps, no 
globes ; and as for black-boards, such a 
thing was never thought of till long after. 
Children's reading and picture books, we 
had none ; the fables in Webster's Spelling 
Book came nearest to it. Arithmetic was 
hardly taught at all in the day schools. As a 
substitute, there were some evening schools 
in most of the districts. Spelling was one 
of the leading daily exercises in all the 
classes, and it was better, a good deal, I 
think, than it is now. 

"The winter schools were commonly kept 
about three months ; in some favored dis- 
tricts four, but rarely as long. As none of 
what are now called the higher branches 
were taught beyond the merest elements, 
parents generally thought that three or four 
months was enough. There were no winter 
select schools for the young above the age of 
sixteen or seventeen, as I remember, till af- 
ter I retired from the profession, such as it 
then was. There may have been here and 
there an academy, in some parts of the 
state ; but not one within the range of my 
acquaintance. 

"Ouk Spring Exhibitions. — At the close 
of the winter schools we had what we used 
to call our Quarter-days, when the schools 
came together in the meeting-house, with a 
large congregation of parents and friends. 
The public exercises were reading, spelling, 
and speaking single pieces, and dialogues. 
Some of the dialogues we wrote ourselves, 
for our own schools. Most of them were 
certainly very flat ; but they brought down 
the house, and answered the purpose as well 
as any we could pick up. We thought 
then, as I think now, that those quarter- 
days were of great advantage to the schools. 
The anticipation of them kept up an interest 
all winter, and stimulated both teachers and 



scholars to do their best in the way of prep- 
aration. As the, time approached, we had 
evening schools for reading and rehearsing 
the dialogues, so as to be sure not to fall be- 
hind in the exhibitions. None of our col- 
lege commencements are now looked forward 
to with greater interest than were those ver- 
nal anniversaries. 

"Another thing that helped us a good deal 
was the occasional afternoon visits of the 
parents and other friends of the schools. 
They came in by invitation, or whenever 
they chose, and their visits always did us 
good. 

" Still another practice we found to be quite 
stimulating and useful. We had a mutual 
understanding that, without giving any no- 
tice, any teacher might dismiss his own 
school for an afternoon, and, taking along 
with him some of the older boys, call in to 
see how his brother teacher got along in the 
next or some other district. The arrange- 
ment worked well. We made speeches, 
complimented one another as politely as cir- 
cumstances would allow, and went home re- 
solved not to fall behind the best of them. 

"In the school, we made up our minds to 
be masters, in fact as well as in name. 
Though of late years I have not had very 
good advantages for making the comparison, 
I believe the schools were quite as well gov- 
erned sixty years ago as they are now. 
Among other things which we did to main- 
tain our authority, was to go out now and 
then and have a snowball skirmish with the 
boys, and though we commonly got beat, 
nothing we could do was more effectual. 

" Corporal punishments, I believe, were 
sparingly resorted to in most of our schools. 
Though I myself believed in Solomon fully, 
I never flogged but one scholar in my life, 
though I shook the mischief out of a great 
many. I think Sam was of the opinion, in 
the premises, that the rod was laid on rather 
smartly, for I understood he promised, 
some day, to pay me in kind, which, how- 
ever, I suppose he never found it quite con- 
venient to undertake. 

" We schoolmasters within convenient dis- 
tances used to meet in the. winter evenings 
for mutual improvement, which, to own the 
truth, we needed a good deal. Our regular 
exercises were reading for criticisms, report- 
ing how we were getting along, and con- 
versing upon the best method of managing 
our schools. This was very profitable, as 
we thought, to us all. 



PROGRESS OF COMMON OR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 



871 



" In those ancient times, it was an almost 
universal custom in the rural towns of Con- 
necticut, for the teachers to board round, 
and upon the whole I liked it. It was a 
good school for us. By going into all the 
families we learned a great deal. We were 
looked upon as having more in our heads 
than we could fairly claim, and they always 
kept us on the best they had. It is true, 
the cooking was not always the best, nor 
sheets always so clean as to guard against 
infection ; and if, perchance, it sometimes 
broke out, we knew how to cure it. 

" Our wages were generally screwed down 
to the lowest notch by the school commit- 
tees, under the instruction of the districts. 
For my first campaign I received seven dol- 
lars a month and board ; for the next, nine ; 
for the third, ten; and I think I never went 
above thirteen till quite the last of my teach- 
ing before I went to college. As I had 
some reputation in that line, I suppose I was 
as well paid as my brethren. 

" With regard to the summer schools of 
that period, I have very little to say. They 
were kept by females upon very low wages, 
about as much a week as they could earn in 
families by spinning or weaving. They took 
good care of the little children, and taught 
them as well as they could. 

"As we had no grammar schools in which 
the languages were taught, we most of us 
fitted for college with our ministers, who, 
though not very fresh from their classics, 
did what they could to help us. 

" Finally, you ask me whether there were 
any schools for young ladies in those old 
times ? There may possibly have been in 
two or three of the largest towns, but the 
only one of which I had any knowledge was 
in Litchfield, kept by Miss Pierce, and I am 
not quite sure that her school was estab- 
lished as early as your question contem- 
plates. 

" These, dear sir, are some of my old re- 
membrances, which you may make such use 
of as you please. 

" Respectfully yours, 

" II. Humphrey." 

LETTER FROM HON. JOSEPH T. BUCKINGHAM. 

"Cambridge, Dec. 10th, 1860. 

" Henry Barnard, Esq. : My Dear Sir 
— I cheerfully comply with your request to 
give you some account of the schools and 
the educational books that were in use about 



the close of the last century. I never had 
the privilege of attending any higher insti- 
tution of learning than the common district 
schools of Connecticut, in the town of Wind- 
ham ; but I have no doubt that those of that 
town were a fair type of many others, prob- 
ably most of them, except such as were kept 
in the larger towns or thickly populated vil- 
lages. 

"According to the best of my remem- 
brance, my school-days began in the spring 
of 1783. The school to which I was admit- 
ted was kept by a lady, and, like most of the 
district schools, was kept only for the younger 
pupils, and was open for two months during 
the summer season. The upper class in the 
school was formed entirely of females — such 
as could read in the Bible. The lower classes 
read in spelling books and the New England 
Primer. The spelling books, of which there 
were not, probably, more than three or four 
in the school, I believe were all by Dilworth, 
and were much worn and defaced, having 
been a sort of heir-loom in the families of 
the pupils. The teacher of this school was 
the daughter of the minister of the parish. 
She kept a rod hanging on the wall behind 
her chair and a ferule on the table by her 
side; but I do not recollect that she used 
either of them. The girls who constituted 
the first class were required, every Monday 
morning, to repeat the text or texts of the 
preceding day's discourse, stating the book, 
chapter, and verse whence it was taken. The 
next summer, 1784, the same lady, or one of 
her sisters, kept school in the same district. 
The same books were in use, and there was 
the same routine of exercises. It was kept 
on the first floor of the steeple. The lower 
end of the bell-rope lay in a coil in the centre 
of the floor. The discipline was so strict, 
that no one, however mischievously disposed, 
I believe ever thought of taking hold of it, 
though it was something of an incumbrance. 
I was then four years and a half old, and had 
learned by heart nearly all the reading lessons 
in the Primer, and much of the Westminster 
Catechism, which was taught as the closing 
exercise every Saturday. But justice to one 
of the best of mothers requires that I should 
say that much the greater part of the im- 
provement I had made was acquired from 
her careful instruction. 

"In December, 1784, the month in which 
I was five years old, I attended, for a few 
days, the school kept by a master — 1 do not 
remember his name. When asked up for 



872 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



examination, he asked me if I could read 
without spelling; ? I said I could read in the 
Bible, lie hesitated a moment, and then 
placed me on one of the benches, opened a 
Bible at the fifth chapter of Acts, and asked 
me to read. I read ten or a dozen verses — 
being the account of Ananias and his wife 
falling dead before Peter for telling a lie. 
Whether he had any suspicion that I had 
told a falsehood, and took this method to 
reprove me, I know not ; but he dismissed 
me with approbation. He used his ferule on 
the hands of some of the elder boys ; but 
the severest punishment that he inflicted for 
any violation of order, was compelling a boy 
who had brought into the school the breast- 
bone of a chicken, (commonly called the 
wishing -bane,) and with which he had excited 
some noise among the pupils, to stand on 
one of the benches and wear the bone on 
his nose till the school Avas dismissed. I 
am strongly impressed with the belief that 
Webster's spelling book made its first ap- 
pearance in the schools during this winter. 
The following summer I attended, but very 
irregularly, a school kept as before in the 
steeple of the meeting-house,* and had a 
copy of Webster. Whether there were any 
other copies in the school or not I am not 
able to say. The next two winters, circum- 
stances which I have no desire to recall, and 
which you would not care to be acquainted 
with, prevented my attending any school. 
In the summer of 1786, these same circum- 
stances caused me to be removed to another 
district three miles distant from the central 
village. The farmer with whom I lived 
thought I could read well enough,. and as 
the district school-house was a mile or more 
distant, he considered it unnecessary to send 
me that distance in the winter, merely to 
read ; and consequently for two or three 
winters I went to school not more than eight 
or ten days in each. "At length, in 1790 or 
1791, it was thought I was old enough to 
learn to cipher, and accordingly was per- 
mitted to go to school more constantly. I 
told the master I wanted to learn to cipher. 
He set me a sum in simple addition — Jive 
columns of figures, and six figures in each 
column. All the instruction he gave me 
was — add the figures in the first column, 
carry one for every ten, and set the overplus 
down under the column. I supposed he 
meant by the first column the left hand 



* This was the last time I went to a summer school. 



column ; but what he meant by carrying one 
for every ten was as much a mystery as 
Samson's riddle was to the Philistines. 
I worried my brains an hour or two, and 
showed the master the figures I had made. 
You may judge what the amount was, when 
the columns were added from left to right. 
The master frowned and repeated his former 
instruction — add up the column on the right, 
carry one for every ten, and set down the 
remainder. Two or three afternoons (I did 
not go to school in the morning) were spent 
in this way, when I begged to be excused 
from learning to cipher, and the old gentle- 
man with whom I lived thought it was time 
wasted ; and if I attended the school any 
further at that time, reading and spelling, 
and a little writing were all that was taught. 
The next winter there was a teacher more 
communicative and better fitted for his place, 
and under him some progress was made in 
arithmetic, and I made a tolerable acquisi- 
tion in the first four rules, according to Dil- 
worth's Schoolmaster's Assistant, of w T hich 
the teacher and one of the eldest boys had 
each a copy. The two following winters, 
1794 and 1795, I mastered all the rules and 
examples in the first part of Dilworth ; that 
is, through the various chapters of Rule of 
Three, Practice, Fellowship, Interest, etc. 
etc., to Geometrical Progression and Per- 
mutation. 

" In our district, the books were of rather 
a miscellaneous character, such as had been 
in families perhaps half a century or more. 
My belief is that Webster's Spelling Book 
was not in general use before 1790 or 1791. 
The Bible was read by the first class in the 
morning, always, and generally in the after- 
noon before the closing exercise, which was 
always a lesson in spelling, and this w r as per- 
formed by all the pupils who were sufficient- 
ly advanced to pronounce distinctly words 
of more than one syllable. It was the cus- 
tom for all such pupils to stand together as 
one class, and with one voice to read a column 
or two of the tables for spelling. The mas- 
ter gave the signal to begin, and all united 
to read, letter by letter, pronouncing each 
syllable by itself, and adding it to the pre- 
ceding one till the word was complete. Thus, 
a-d ad, m-i mi, admi, r-a ra, admira, t-i-o-n 
shun, admiration. This mode of reading 
was exceedingly exciting, and, in my humble 
judgment, exceedingly useful ; as it required 
and taught deliberate and distinct articula- 
tion, and inspired the youngest with a desire 



PROGRESS OF COMMON OR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 



873 



to equal the older ones. It is true the voices 
would not all be in perfect unison ; hut after 
a little practice they began to assimilate. I 
have heard a class of thirty or more read 
column after column in this manner, with 
scarcely a perceptible variation from the 
proper pitch of voice. When the lesson had 
been thus read, the books were closed, and 
the words given out for spelling, If one was 
misspelt, it passed on to the next, and the 
next pupil in order, and so on till it was 
spelt correctly. Then the pupil who had 
spelt correctly went up in the class above the 
one who had misspelt. It was also a prac- 
tice, when one was absent from this exercise 
in spelling, that he should stand at the foot 
of the class when he returned. Another of 
our customs was to choose sides to spell once 
or twice a week. The words to be spelt went 
from side to side ; and at the conclusion, the 
side which beat (spelt the most words) were 
permitted to leave the schoolroom, preceding 
the other side, who had to sweep the room 
and build the fires the next morning. These 
customs prevalent sixty and seventy years 
ago excited emulation, and emulation pro- 
duced improvement. A revival of them, I 
have no doubt, would be advantageous in 
the common schools, especially where pupils 
are required to spell words given out indis- 
criminately from a reading book or diction- 
ary. There was not, to my knowledge, any 
reading book proper, except the Bible, till 
Webster's Third Book, so called, came out 
about 1793 or 1794. A new edition of his 
spelling book furnished some new matter for 
reading — selections from the New Testament, 
a chapter of Proverbs, and a set of Tables, 
etc.; but none of these operated to the exclu- 
sion of the Bible. 

" In the family in which I lived there were 
three or four old spelling books, which I 
presume had been used in schools before the 
period of my remembrance. One of these 
was a book of less than a hundred pages, 
printed in London, I think in 1690. The 
words were arranged in tables, according to 
syllables. The terminations tion, sion, cial, 
tial, etc., were all divided and printed as two 
distinct syllables. (And I believe this mode 
of printing is still continued in England. It 
was in the time of Lindley Murray, as may 
be seen in his spelling book, printed about 
forty years ago.) This spelling hook con- 
tained a numeration table which, from a sin- 
gular feature, early attracted my attention. 



Every figure was 9, and the whole formed a 
curious triangle. Thus : 

9 
99 
999 and so on to 
the last, 999,090,999 

"Another spelling book in >.ur farmer's 
library was by Daniel Fenning, printed in 
London. It contained a short treatise on 
grammar, on which I sometimes exei 
my memory, but understood not one of its 
principles. We had also a Dilworth, con- 
taining certain fables — such as Jnpiter and 
the Frogs, the Romish Priest and the Jester, 
Hercules and the Wagoner, etc., etc. An- 
other still we had, the author of which I 
never knew, as several pages had been lost 
from the bee-inning. It had a page of prov- 
erbs, one of which — 'a cat may look upon a 
king' — occasioned me much thoughtful ex- 
ercise. It also had an appropriate collection 
of couplets for writing-copies, of which the 
only one I recollect was this : 

" ' X things a penman should have near at hand — 
Paper, pounce, pen, ink, knife, hone, rule, plum- 
met, wax, sand.' 

But that which rendered the book so mem- 
orable as never to be forgotten, was the as- 
tonishing, if not terrific, word of fourteen 
syllables — ' Ho-no-ri-fi-ca-bi-li-tu-di-ni-tu-ti- 
hus-que' — asserted to be the longest word in 
the English language. 

"In the winter of 1793-4, we had for a 
teacher Erastus Ripley, who was an un- 
der-graduate of Yale College. I mention his 
name, because I cannot look back upon the 
time when I had the advantage of his in- 
struction without a feeling of reverence for 
the man and respect for the teacher. I 
learned more from him than all the school- 
masters 1 had been under, lie took more 
pains to instruct us in reading than all his 
predecessors within mv knowledge. He 
opened the school every morning with pray- 
er — which had not been practised in our 
district. He was preparing for the ministry, 
and was afterwards settled at Canterbury, I 
think. He was highly esteemed by all the 
people of the district, and gave such an im- 
petus to the ambition of the pupils, that a 
subscription was made to employ him an ex- 
tra month after the usual term o\' the school 
had expired. 

"Mr. Ripley was succeeded in tins winter 
of 1794-5 by a young man from Lebanon 
by the name of Tisdale, under whom my 



874 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



school days were finished ; and here I may 
bring this long and, I fear, very uninteresting 
letter to a close. Hoping this may serve the 
purpose for which you suggested the writ- 
ing of it, and wishing you all the success 
you can desire in the noble cause in which 
you are engaged, 

" 1 am, very respectfully 
" And truly yours, 

"Joseph T. Buckingham." 

LETTER FROM REV. ELIPHALET NOTT, D.D., 
DATED JAN., 1861. 

" When I was a boy, seventy-five or eighty 
years ago, in good old Puritan Connecticut, 
it was felt as a practical maxim ' that to 
spare the rod was to spoil the child ;' and 
on this maxim the pedagogue acted in the 
school-room, and applied it for every offence, 
real or imaginary ; and for having been 
whipped at school by the relentless master, 
the unfortunate tyro was often whipped at 
home by his no less relentless father; so 
that between the two relentless executors of 
justice among the Puritan fathers, few 
children, I believe, were spoiled by the with- 
holding of this orthodox discipline. For 
myself, I can say (and I do not think I was 
wayward beyond the average of district 
school-boys) that, in addition to warnings, 
and admonitions daily, if I was not whipped 
more than three times a week, I considered 
myself for the time peculiarly fortunate. 

" Being of a contemplative and forbearing 
disposition, this discipline of the rod became 
peculiarly irksome to me, and, as I thought, 
unjustifiable; and I formed a resolution, if I 
lived to be a man, I would not be like other 
men in regard to their treatment of children. 

" Through the mercy of God I did live to 
be a man, and when at the age of eighteen 
I became installed as master of a district 
school in the eastern part of Franklin, Con- 
necticut — a school where rebellious spirits 
had previously asserted their rights, and 
been subdued or driven from the school 
by the use of the rod — nothing daunted, 
I made up my mind to substitute in my 
school moral motives in the place of the 
rod ; and I frankly told my assembled pu- 
pils so, and that if they would have the 
generosity to second my efforts, they would 
secure to themselves and furnish me and 
their parents the happiness which is the 
heaven-appointed reward of well-doing. 

" The school responded to my appeal, and 



thereafter, though we played and gambolled 
together as equals in play-hours, and oq 
Saturday afternoons, which were also de- 
voted to play, the moment we entered the 
school-room, a subordination and application 
to study was observable, that became matter 
of remark and admiration among the in- 
habitants of the district, the fame of which 
success extended to other districts, and even 
to adjoining towns, so that the examination 
and exhibition with which the school closed 
the ensuing spring, called together clergymen 
and other officials from places quite remote. 

" This success brought me to the knowl- 
edge of the trustees of the Plainfield Acad- 
emy, one of the most important, if not at 
the time the most important academy in the 
state, and I was by a unanimous vote ap- 
pointed principal of said academy — an in- 
stitution in which several hundred children 
of both sexes were in the same building 
successfully taught and governed, for years, 
without the use of the rod, it being at that 
time the prevailing usage, both in district 
schools and academies, for the two sexes to 
be taught in the same room, and subjected 
to the same form of government. 

u This successful experiment in the use of 
moral suasion, and other kindred and kindly 
influences, in place of the rod, led to other 
and kindred experiments, until, whether for 
the better or the worse, the rod at length 
came to occupy a very subordinate place in 
the system of school education. 

" In those days, education in common 
schools was not so diffusive as at the present 
day ; but quite as thorough, if not more so. 
The same remark may be applied to the 
higher schools or academies — the whole field 
of natural science being at that time, for the 
most part, unexplored ; but mathematics and 
classics were zealously taught. In evidence 
of this, though inferior in attainments to 
some of my classmates, I published success- 
fully myself an almanac when about twenty- 
one years of age. 

" As the rod in those days was the prin- 
cipal instrument in common school edu- 
cation, so when I was afterward called to 
Union College, fines, suspensions, and ex- 
pulsions were the principal instruments of 
collegiate government. The faculty sat in 
their robes as a court, caused offenders to be 
brought before them, examined witnesses, 
heard defences, and pronounced sentences 
with the solemnity of other courts of justice ; 
and though Union College had on its cata- 



PROGRESS OF COMMON OR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 



875 



loguc but a very diminutive number of stu- 
dents, the sitting of the faculty as a court 
occupied no inconsiderable part of the time 
of its president and professors. 

" Soon after I became connected with 
the college as its president, a case of disci- 
pline occurred which led to the trial and is- 
sued in the expulsion of a student belong- 
ing to a very respectable family in the city 
of Albany. According to the charter of 
Union College, the sentence of the faculty is 
not final. An appeal can be taken to the 
board of trustees, and in the case in ques- 
tion an appeal was taken, and, after keeping 
college in confusion for months, by the dif- 
ferent hearings of the case, the board re- 
versed the decision of the faculty, and re- 
stored the young man. On the event of this 
restoration, I informed them that they should 
never, during my administration, have occa- 
sion to review another case of discipline by 
the faculty ; and during the fifty-six years 
which have since passed away, I have kept 
my word; and though we have been less 
successful in our system of parental govern- 
ment than could be wished, we have had no 
rebellions, and it is conceded, I believe gen- 
erally, that quite as large a proportion of 
our young men have succeeded in after life 
as of any other collegiate institution in the 
Union." 

RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER PARLEY. 

The following picture of the District 
School as it was a few years later, in the 
town of Ridgefield,* one of the most ad- 
vanced agricultural communities of Connec- 



* " Nearly all the inhabitants of Ridgefield were 
farmers, with the few mechanics that were neces- 
sary to carry on society in a somewhat primeval 
state. Even the persons not professionally devoted 
to agriculture, had each his farm, or at least his gar- 
den aud home lot, with his pigs, poultry, and cattle. 
The population might have been 1200, comprising 
200 families. All could read and write, but in point 
of fact, beyond the Almanac and Watts' Psalms and 
Hymns, their literary acquirements had little scope. 
There were, I think, four newspapers, all weekly, 
published in the state: one at Hartford, one at Now 
London, one at New Haven, and ono at Litchfield. 
There were, however, not more than three sub- 
scribers to all these in our village. Wo had, how- 
ever, a public library of some 200 volumes, and 
what was of equal consequence — tho town was on 
the road which was then tho great thoroughfare, 
connecting Boston with New York, and hence it 
had means of intelligence from travellers constantly 
passing through the place, which kept it up with 
the march of events." 



ticut, is from the pen of Peter Parley, in his 
" Recollections of a Lifetime.' 1 '' 

" About three fourths of a mile from my 
father's house, on the winding road to Lower 
Salem, which bore the name of West Lane, 
was the school-house where I took my first 
lessons, and received the foundations of my 
very slender education. I have since been 
sometimes asked where I graduated : my 
reply has always been, 'At AYest Lane.' < len- 
erally speaking, this has ended the inquiry, 
whether because my interlocutors have con- 
founded this venerable institution with 'Lane 
Seminary,' or have not thought it worth while 
to risk an exposure of their ignorance as to 
the college in which I was educated, I am 
unable to say. 

"The site of the school-house was a trian- 
gular piece of land, measuring perhaps a 
rood in extent, and lying, according to the 
custom of those days, at the meeting of four 
roads. The ground hereabouts — as every- 
where else in Ridgefield — was exceedingly 
stony, and in making the pathway the stones 
had been thrown out right and left, and 
there remained in heaps on either side, from 
generation to generation. All round was 
bleak and desolate. Loose, squat stone 
walls, with innumerable breaches, inclosed 
adjacent fields. A few tufts of elder, with 
here and there a patch of briers and poke- 
weed, flourished in the gravelly soil. Not a 
tree, however, remained, save an aged chest' 
nut, at the western angle of the space. This 
certainly had not been spared for shade or 
ornament, but probably because it would 
have cost too much labor to cut it down, foe 
it was of ample girth. At all events it was 
the oasis in our desert during Bummer; and 
in autumn, as the burrs disclosed its fruit, 
it resembled a besieged city. The hoys, 
like so many catapults, hurled at it stones 
and sticks, until every nut had capitulated. 

" Two houses only were at hand : one. sur- 
rounded by an ample barn, a teeming or- 
chard, and an enormous wood-pile, belonged 
to Granther Baldwin; the other was the 
property of 'Old Chich-es-ter,' an uncouth, 
unsocial being, whom everybody tor some 
reason or other seemed to despise and shun. 
His house was of stone and of one story. 
lie had a cow, which every year had a calf. 
He had a wife — filthy, uncombed, and vague- 
ly reported to have been brought from tin- 
old country. This is about the whole his- 
tory of the man, so far as it is written in 
I the" authentic traditions of the parish. His 



876 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



premises, an acre in extent, consisted of a 
tongue of land between two of the converg- 
ing roads. No boy, that I ever heard of, 
ventured to cast a stone or to make an in- 
cursion into this territory, though it lay 
close to the school-house. I have often, in 
passing, peeped timidly over the walls, and 
caught glimpses of a stout man with a drab 
coat, drab breeches, and drab gaiters, glazed 
with ancient grease and long abrasion, prowl- 
ing about the house ; but never did I dis- 
cover him outside of his own dominion. I 
know it was darkly intimated that he had 
been a tory, and was tarred and feathered in 
the revolutionary war, but as to the rest he 
was a perfect myth. Granther Baldwin was 
a character no less marked, but I must re- 
serve his picture for a subsequent letter. 

" The school-house itself consisted of rough, 
unpainted clapboards, upon a wooden frame. 
It was plastered within, and contained two 
apartments — a little entry, taken out of a 
corner for a wardrobe, and the school-room 
proper. The chimney was of stone, and 
pointed with mortar, which, by the way, 
had been dug into a honeycomb by uneasy 
and enterprising penknives. The fireplace 
was six feet wide and four feet deep. The 
flue was so ample and so perpendicular, that 
the rain, sleet, and snow fell direct to the 
hearth. In winter, the battle for life with 
green fizzling fuel, which was brought in 
sled lengths and cut up by the scholars, was 
a stern one. Not unfrequently, the wood, 
gushing with sap as it was, chanced to be 
out, and as there was no living without fire, 
the thermometer being ten or twenty degrees 
below zero, the school was dismissed, where- 
at all the scholars rejoiced aloud, not having 
the fear of the schoolmaster before their 
eyes. 

" It was the. custom at this place to have a 
woman's school in the summer months, and 
this was attended only by young children. 
It was, in fact, what we now call a primary 
or infant school. In winter, a man was 
employed as teacher, and then the girls and 
boys of the neighborhood, up to the age of 
eighteen, or even twenty, were among the 
pupils. It was not uncommon, at this sea- 
son, to have forty scholars crowded into this 
little building. 

" I was about six years old when I first 
went to school. My teacher was Aunt De- 
light, that is, Delight Benedict, a maiden 
lady of fifty, short and bent, of sallow com- 
plexion and solemn aspect. I remember the 



first day with perfect distinctness. I went 
alone — for I was familiar with the road, it 
being that which passed by our old house. 
I carried a little basket, with bread and 
butter within, for my dinner, the same being 
covered over with a white cloth. When I 
had proceeded about half way, I lifted the 
cover, and debated whether I would not eat 
my dinner then. I believe it was a sense 
of duty only that prevented my doing so, 
for in those happy days I always had a 
keen appetite. Bread and butter were then 
infinitely superior to pate de foie gras now ; 
but still, thanks to my training, I had also a 
conscience. As my mother had given me 
the food for dinner, I did not think it right 
to convert it into lunch, even though I was 
strongly tempted. 

" I think we had seventeen scholars — boys 
and girls — mostly of my own age. Among 
them were some of my after companions. I 
have since met several of them — one at 
Savannah, and two at Mobile, respectably 
established, and with families around them. 
Some remain, and are now among the gray 
old men of the town ; the names of others I 
have seen inscribed on the tombstones of 
their native village. And the rest — where 
are they ? 

" The school being organized, we were all 
seated upon benches, made of what were 
called slabs — that is, boards having the ex- 
terior or rounded part of the log on one 
side : as they Avere useless for other purposes, 
these were converted into school-benches, 
the rounded part down. They had each 
four supports, consisting of straddling wood- 
en legs, set into anger holes. Our own legs 
swayed in the air, for they were too short to 
touch the floor. Oh, what an awe fell over 
me, when we were all seated and silence 
reigned around ! 

" The children were called up, one by one, 
to Aunt Delight, who sat on a low chair, 
and required each, as a preliminary, to make 
his manners, consisting of a small sudden 
nod or jerk of the head. She then placed 
the spelling-book — which was Dilworth's — 
before the pupil, and with a buck-handled 
penknife pointed, one by one, to the letters 
of the alphabet, saying, ' What's that ?' If 
the child knew his letters the ' What's that ?' 
very soon ran on thus : 

"'What's that?' 

" ' A.' 

" ' 'Stha-a-t V 

" ' B.' 



PROGRESS OF COMMON OR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 



877 



" < Sna-a-a-t V 

'"C 

a ' Sna-a-a-t V 

" « d; 

" ' Sna-a-a-t V 
" « E.' &c. 

" I looked upon these operations with in- 
tense curiosity and no small respect, until 
my own turn came. I went up to the school- 
mistress with some emotion, and when she 
said, rather spitefully, as I thought, ' Make 
your obeisance !' my little intellects all tied 
away, and I did nothing. Having waited a 
second, gazing at me with indignation, she 
laid her hand on the top of my head, and 
gave it a jerk which made my teeth clash. 
I believe I bit my tongue a little ; at all 
events, my sense of dignity was offended, 
and when she pointed to A, and asked what 
it was, it swam before me dim and hazy, 
and as big as a full moon. She repeated the 
question, but I was doggedly silent. Again, 
a third time, she said, ' What's that V I 
replied: 'Why don't you tell me what it 
is ? I didn't come here to learn you your 
letters !' I have not the slightest remem- 
brance of this, for my brains were all a-wool- 
gathering ; but as Aunt Delight affirmed it 
to be a fact, and it passed into tradition, I 
put it in. I may have told this story some 
years ago in one of my books, imputing it 
to a fictitious hero, yet this is its true origin, 
according to my recollection. 

"What immediately followed I do not 
clearly remember, but one result is distinct- 
ly traced in my memory. In the evening 
of this eventful day, the school-mistress paid 
my parents a visit, and recounted to their 
astonished ears this, my awful contempt of 
authority. My father, after hearing the 
story, got up and went away; but my 
mother, who was a careful disciplinarian, 
told me not to do so again ! I always had 
a suspicion that both of them smiled on one 
side of their faces, even while they seemed 
to sympathize with the old petticoat and 
penknife pedagogue, on the other ; still I 
do not affirm it, for I am bound to say, of 
both my parents, that I never knew them, 
even in trifles, say one thing while they 
meant another. 

"I believe I achieved the alphabet that 
summer, but my after progress, for a long 
time, I do not remember. Two years later 
I went to the winter-school at the same place, 
kept by Lewis Olmstcad — a man who had a 
call for plowing, mowing, carting manure, 



etc., in summer,and for teachingschool in the 

winter, with a talent tor music at all seasons, 
wherefore he became chorister upon occa- 
sion, when, peradventurc, Deacon Bawley 
could not officiate. He was a celebrity ia 
ciphering, and 'Squire Seymour declared 
that he was the greatest ' arithmeticker' in 
Fairfield count}. All I remember of his 
person is his hand, which seemed to me as 
big as G-oUah's, judging by the claps of 
thunder it made in my ears on one or two 
occasions. 

"The next step of my progress which is 
marked in my memory, is the Bpelling of 
words of two syllables. I did not go very 
regularly to school, but by the time I was 
ten years old I had learned to write, and 
had made a little progress in arithmetic. 
There was not a grammar, a geography, or 
a history of any kind in the school. Read- 
ing, writing, and arithmetic were the only 
things taught, and these very indifferently — 
not wholly from the stupidity of the teacher, 
but because he had forty scholars, and the 
standards of the age required no more than 
he performed. I did as well as the other 
scholars, certainly no better. I had excel- 
lent health and joyous spirits; in Leaping, 
running, and wrestling, I had but one su- 
perior of my age, and that was Stephen 
Olmstead, a snug-built fellow, smaller than 
myself, and who, despite our rivalry, was 
my chosen friend and companion. I seemed 
to live for play : alas ! how the world has 
changed since I have discovered that we live 
to agonize over study, work, care, ambition, 
disappointment, and then ? 

"As I shall not have occasion again, for- 
mally, to introduce this seminary into my 
narrative, I may as well close my account 
of it now. After I had left my native town 
for some twenty years, I returned and paid 
it a visit. Among the monuments that 
stood high in my memory was the Vv est 
Lane school-house. Unconsciously carrying 
with me the measures of childhood, I had 
supposed it to be at least thirty feet s.piare; 
how had it dwindled when 1 came to esti- 
mate it by the new standards 1 had form- 
ed ! It was in all things the same, yet 
wholly changed to me. What 1 had deem- 
ed a respectable edifice, as it now stood be- 
fore me was only a weather-beaten little 
shed, which, upon being measured, I found 
to be less than twenty feet square. It hap- 
pened to be a warm, summer day, and I 
ventured to enter the place. I found a girl, 



878 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



some eighteen years old, keeping ' a ma'am 
school' for about twenty scholars, some of 
■whom were studying Parley's Geography. 
The mistress was the daughter of one of my 
schoolmates, and some of the hoys and girls 
were grandchildren of the little brood which 
gathered under the wing of Aunt Delight, 
when I was an a-b-c-darian. None of them, 
not even the school-mistress, had ever heard 
of me. The name of my father, as having 
ministered unto the people of Ridgefield in 
some bygone age, was faintly traced in their 
recollection. As to Peter Parley, whose 
Geography they were learning — they sup- 
posed him some decrepit old gentleman 
hobbling about on a crutch, a long way off, 
for whom, nevertheless, they had a certain 
affection, inasmuch as he had made geogra- 
phy into a story-book. The frontispiece- 
picture of the old fellow, with his gouty foot 
in a chair, threatening the boys that if they 
touched his tender toe, he would tell them 
no more stories, secured their respect, and 
placed him among the saints in the calendar 
of their young hearts. Well, thought I, if 
this goes on I may yet rival Mother Goose ! 

" At the age of ten years I was sent to the 
up-town school, the leading seminary of the 
village, for at this period it had not ar- 
rived at the honor of an academy, the in- 
stitution being then, and many years after, 
under the charge of Master Stebbins. He 
was a man with a conciliating stoop in the 
shoulders, a long body, short legs, and a 
swaying walk. He was, at this period, some 
fifty years old, his hair being thin and sil- 
very, and always falling in well-combed rolls 
over his coat-collar. His eye was blue, 
and his dress invariably of the same color. 
Breeches and knee-buckles, blue-mixed stock- 
ings, and shoes with bright buckles, seemed 
as much a part of the man as his head and 
shoulders. On the whole, his appearance 
was that of the middle-class gentleman of 
the olden time, and he was in fact what he 
seemed. 

" This seminary of learning for the rising 
aristocracy of Ridgefield was a wooden edi- 
fice, thirty by twenty feet, covered with 
brown clapboards, and, except an entry, con- 
sisted of a single room. Around and against 
the walls ran a continuous line of seats, front- 
ed by a continuous writing-desk. Beneath, 
were depositories for books and writing mate- 
rials. The centre was occupied by slab seats, 
similar to those of West Lane. The larger 
scholars were ranged on the outer sides, at 



the desks; the smaller fry of a-b-c-darians 
were seated in the centre. The master was 
enshrined on the east side of the room, con- 
trary, be it remembered, to the law of the 
French savans, which places dominion in- 
variably in the west. Regular as the sun, 
Master Stebbins was in his seat at nine 
o'clock, and the performances of the school 
began. 

" According to the Catechism — which, by 
the way, we learned and recited on Saturday 
— the chief end of man was to glorify God 
and keep his commandments : according to 
the routine of this school, one would have 
thought it to be reading, writing, and arith- 
metic, to Avhich we may add spelling. From 
morning to night, in all weathers, through 
every season of the year, these exercises 
were carried on with the energy, patience, 
and perseverance of a manufactory. 

" Master Stebbins respected his calling : 
his heart was in his work ; and so, what he 
pretended to teach, he taught well. When 
I entered the school, I found that a huge 
stride had been achieved in the march of 
mind since I had left West Lane. Webster's 
Spelling Book had taken the place of Dil- 
worth, which was a great improvement. 
The drill in spelling was very thorough, and 
applied every day to the whole school. I 
imagine that the exercises might have 
been amusing to a stranger, especially as 
one scholar would sometimes go off in a 
voice as grum as that of a bull-frog, while 
another would follow in tones as fine and 
piping as a peet-weet. The blunders, too, 
were often ineffably ludicrous; even we 
children would sometimes have tittered, had 
not such an enormity been certain to have 
brought out the birch. As to rewards and 
punishments, the system was this : who- 
ever missed went down ; so that perfection 
mounted to the top. Here was the begin- 
ning of the up and down of life. 

" Reading was performed in classes, which 
generally plodded on without a hint from 
the master. Nevertheless, when Zeek San- 
ford — who was said to have a streak of 
lightning in him — in his haste to be smart, 
read the 37th verse of the 2d chapter of the 
Acts — ' Now when they heard this, they 
were pickled in their heart' — the birch stick 
on Master Stebbins's table seemed to quiver 
and peel at the little end, as if to give warn- 
ing of the wrath to come. When Orry 
Keeler — Orry was a girl, you know, and not 
a boy — drawled out in spelling : k — o — n, 



PROGRESS OF COMMON OR ELEMENTARY 8CHOOLS. 



879 



kon, s — h — u — n — t — s, shtmts, konshunts 
— the bristles in the master's eyebrows fidg- 
eted like Aunt Delight's knitting-needles. 
Occasionally, when the reading was insup- 
portably bad, he took a book and read him- 
self, as an example. 

"We were taught arithmetic in Daboll, 
then a new book, and which, being adapted 
to our measures of length, weight, and cur- 
rency, was a prodigious leap over the head 
of poor old Dilworth, whose rules and ex- 
amples were modelled upon English customs. 
Iu consequence of the general use of Dil- 
worth in our schools, for perhaps a century 
— pounds, shillings, and pence were classi- 
cal, and dollars and cents vulgar, for several 
succeeding generations. ' I would not give 
a pennjr for it,' was genteel ; ' I would not 
give a cent for it,' was plebeian. We have 
not yet got over this : we sometimes say red 
cent in familiar parlance, but it can hardly 
be put iu print without offence. 

" Master Stebbins was a great man with a 
slate and pencil, and I have an idea that we 
were a generation after his own heart. We 
certainly achieved wonders according to our 
own conceptions, some of us going even be- 
yond the Rule of Three, and making forays 
into the mysterious region of Vulgar Frac- 
tions. Several daring geniuses actually en- 
tered and took possession. 

" But after all, penmanship was Master 
Stebbins's great accomplishment. He had 
no magniloquent system ; no pompous les- 
sons upon single lines and bifid lines, and 
the like. The revelations of inspired copy- 
book makers had not then been vouchsafed 
to man. He could not cut an American 
eagle with a single flourish of a goose-quill. 
He was guided by good taste and native 
instinct, and wrote a smooth round hand, 
like copper-plate. His lessons from A to &, 
all written by himself, consisted of pithy 
proverbs and useful moral lessons. On every 
page of our writing-books he wrote the first 
line himself. The effect was what might 
have been expected — with such models, pa- 
tiently enforced, nearly all became good 
writers. 

" Beyond these simple elements, the Up- 
town school made few pretensions. When 
I was there, two Webster's Grammars and 
one or two Dwight's Geographies were in 
use. The latter was without maps or illus- 
trations, and was in fact little more than an 
expanded table of contents, taken from 
Morse's Universal Geography — the mam- 



moth monument of American learning and 
genius of that age and generation. The 
grammar was a clever book ; but I hare ad 

idea that neither Master Stehhins n<»r his 
pupils ever fathomed its depths. They floun- 
dered about in it, as if in a quagmire, and 
after some time came out pretty nearly where 
they went in, though perhaps a little obfus- 
cated by the dim and dusky atmosphere of 
these labyrinths. 

" The fact undoubtedly is, that the art of 
teaching, as now understood, beyond the 
simplest elements, was neither known nor 
deemed necessary in our country schools in 
their day of small things. Repetition, drill- 
ing, line upon line, and precept upon pre- 
cept, with here and there a little of the birch 
— constituted the entire system. 

" Let me here repeat an anecdote, which 
I have indeed told before, but which I had 
from the lips of its hero, G . . . II . . ., a 
clergyman of some note thirty years ago, 
and which well illustrates this part of my 
story. At a village school, not many miles 
from Ridgefield, he was put into Webster's 
Grammar. Here he read, ' A noun is the 
name of a thing — as horse, hair, justice.'' 
Now in his innocence, he read it thus : ' A 
noun is the name of a thing — as horse-hair 
justice' 

" ' What then,' said he, ruminating deeply, 
'is a noun? But first I must find out what 
a horse-hair justice is.' 

"Upon this he meditated for some days, 
but still he was as far as ever from the solu- 
tion. Now his father was a man of authority 
in those parts, and moreover he was a justice 
of the peace. Withal, he was of respectable 
ancestry, and so there had descended to him 
a somewhat stately high-backed settee, cov- 
ered with horse-hair. One day, as the youth 
came from school, pondering upon the great 
grammatical problem, he entered the front 
door of the house, and there he saw before 
him, his father, officiating in his legal capa- 
city, and seated upon the old horse-hair set- 
tee. 'I have found it!' said the boy to 
himself, as greatly delighted as was Archim- 
edes when he exclaimed Eureka — 'my fa- 
ther is a horsediair justice, and therefore a 
noun !' 

"Nevertheless, it must be admitted that 
the world got on remarkably well in >j>ite 
of this narrowness of the country schools. 

The elements of an English education were 
prettv well taught throughout the \illagc 
seminaries of Connecticut, and I may add, 



880 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



of New England. The teachers were heart- 
ily devoted to their profession : they re- 
spected their calling, and were respected 
and encouraged by the community. They 
had this merit, that while they attempted 
but little, that, at least, was thoroughly per- 
formed. 

" As to the country at large, it was a day 
of quiet, though earnest action : Franklin's 
spirit was the great ' schoolmaster abroad' — 
teaching industry, perseverance, frugality, 
and thrift, as the end and aim of ambition. 
The education of youth was suited to what was 
expected of them. With the simple lessons 
of the country schools, they moved the 
world immediately around them. Though 
I can recollect only a single case — that al- 
ready alluded to of Ezekiel Sanford — in which 
one of Master Stebbins's scholars attained 
any degree of literary distinction, still, quite 
a number of them, with no school learning 
beyond what he gave them, rose to a certain 
degree of eminence. His three sons obtain- 
ed situations in New York as accountants, 
and became distinguished in their career. 
At one period there were three graduates 
of his school, who were cashiers of banks in 
that city. My mind adverts now with great 
satisfaction to several names among the 
wealthy, honorable, and still active mer- 
chants of the great metropolis, who were 
my fellow-students of the Up-town school, 
and who there began and completed their 
education." 

To the advantages, such as they were, of 
the district school, Mr. Goodrich adds an 
account of his experience on the farm, and 
his juvenile sports, as well as his early at- 
tempts at whittling and other mechanical 
arts, and adds the following reflections : — 

" Now all these things may seem trifles, 
yet in a review of my life, I deem them of 
some significance. This homely familiarity 
with the more mechanical arts was a mate- 
rial part of my education; this communion 
with nature gave me instructive and impor- 
tant lessons from nature's open book of 
knowledge. My technical education, as will 
be seen hereafter, was extremely narrow and 
irregular. This defect was at last partially 
supplied by the commonplace incidents I 
have mentioned. The teaching, or rather 
the training of the senses, in the country — 
ear and eye, foot and hand, by running, leap- 
ing, climbing over hill and mountain, by oc- 
casional labor in the garden and on the farm, 
and by the use of tools — and all this in youth, 



is sowing seed which is repaid largely and 
readily to the hand of after cultivation, how- 
ever unskilful it may be. This is not so 
much because of the amount of knowledge 
available in after-life, which is thus obtained 
— though this is not to be despised — as it 
is that healthful, vigorous, manly habits and 
associations — physical, moral, and intellec- 
tual — are thus established and developed. 

" It is a riddle to many people that the 
emigrants from the country into the city, in 
all ages, outstrip the natives, and become 
their masters. The reason is obvious : coun- 
try education and country life are practical, 
and invigorating to body and mind, and 
hence those who are thus qualified triumph 
in the race of life. It has always been, it 
will always be so ; the rustic Goths and 
Vandals will march in and conquer Rome, 
in the future, as they have done in the past. 
I say this, by no means insisting that my 
own life furnishes any very striking proof 
of the truth of my remarks ; still, I may say 
that but for the country training and experi- 
ence I have alluded to, and which served as 
a foothold for subsequent progress, I should 
have lingered in my career far behind the 
humble advances I have actually made. 

" Let me illustrate and verify my meaning 
by specific examples. In my youth I be- 
came familiar with every bird common to . 
the country : I knew his call, his song, his 
hue, his food, his habits ; in short, his natu- 
ral history. I could detect him by his flight, 
as far as the eye could reach. I knew all 
the quadrupeds — wild as well as tame. I 
was acquainted with almost every tree, shrub, 
bush, and flower, indigenous to the country ; 
not botanically, but according to popular 
ideas. I recognized them instantly, where- 
ever I saw them ; I knew their forms, 
hues, leaves, blossoms, and fruit. I could 
tell their characteristics, their uses, the 
legends and traditions that belonged to 
them. All this I learned by familiarity with 
these objects ; meeting with them in all my 
walks and rambles, and taking note of them 
with the emphasis and vigor of early experi- 
ence and observation. In after days. I have 
never had time to make natural history a 
systematic study ; yet my knowledge as to 
these things lias constantly accumulated, 
and that without special effort. When I 
have travelled in other countries, the birds, 
the animals, the vegetation, have interested 
me as well by their resemblances as their 
differences, when compared with our own. 



PROGRESS OF COMMON OR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 



In looking over the pages of scientific works 
on natnral history, I have always read with 
eagerness and intelligence of preparation ; 
indeed, of vivid and pleasing associations. 
Every idea I had touching these matters 
was living and sympathetic, and beckoned 
other ideas to it, and these again originated 
still others. Thus it is that in the race of a 
busy life, by means of a homely, hearty start 
at the beginning, I have, as to these subjects, 
easily and naturally supplied, in some hum- 
ble degree, the defects of my irregular edu- 
cation, and that too, not by a process of re- 
pulsive toil, but with a relish superior to all 
the seductions of romance. I am therefore a 
believer in the benefits accruing from simple 
country life and simple country habits, as here 
illustrated, and am, therefore, on all occasions 
anxious to recommend them to my friends and 
countrymen. To city people, I would say, 
educate your children, at least partially, in the 
country, so as to imbue them with the love 
of nature, and that knowledge and training 
which spring from simple rustic sports, ex- 
ercises, and employments. To country peo- 
ple, I would remark, be not envious of the 
city, for in the general balance of good and 
evil, you have your full portion of the first, 
with a diminished share of the last." 

THE HOMESPUN ERA OF COMMON SCHOOLS. 
BV HORACE BUSHNELL, D.D. 

" But the schools — we must not pass by 
these, if we are to form a truthful and suffi- 
cient picture of the homespun days. The 
schoolmaster did not exactly go round the 
district to fit out the children's minds with 
learning, as the shoemaker often did to fit 
their feet with shoes, or the tailor to mea- 
sure and cut for their bodies ; but, to come 
as near it as possible, he boarded round, (a 
custom not yet gone by,) and the wood for 
the common fire was supplied in a way 
equally primitive, viz., by a contribution of 
loads from the several families, according to 
their several quantities of childhood. The 
children were all clothed alike in home- 
spun ; and the only signs of aristocracy 
were, that some were clean and some a de- 
gree less so, some in fine white and striped 
linen, some in brown tow crash ; and, in 
particular, as I remember, with a certain 
feeling of quality I do not like to express, 
the good fathers of some testified the opin- 
ion they had of their children, by bringing 
fine round loads of hickory wood to warm 
them, while some others, I regret to say, 
46 



brought only scanty, Bcraggy, ill-looking 
heaps of green oak, white birch, ;\u<\ hem- 
lock. Indeed, about all the bickerings of 
quality among the children, centered in the 
quality of the wood pile. There was do 

complaint, in those days, of the want of 
ventilation; for the large open fire-place 
held a considerable fraction of a cord of 
wood, and the windows took in jusl enough 
air to supply the combustion. Besides, the 
bigger lads were occasionally ventilated, by 
being sent out to cut wood enough to keep 
the fire in action. The seats were made of 
the outer slabs from the saw-mill, supported 
by slant legs driven into and a proper dis- 
tance through auger holes, and planed 
smooth on the top by the rather tardy 
process of friction. But the spelling went 
on bravely, and we ciphered away again 
and again, always till we got through Loss 
and Gain. The more advanced of us, too, 
made light work of Lindley Murray, and 
went on to the parsing, finally, of extracts 
from Shakspearc and Milton, till some of us 
began to think we had mastered their tough 
sentences in a more consequential sense of 
the term than was exactly true. O, I re- 
member ("about the remotest thing I can 
remember) that low seat, too high, never- 
theless, to allow the feet to touch the floor, 
and that friendly teacher who had the ad- 
dress to start a first feeling of enthusiasm 
and awaken the first sense of power. lie is 
living still, and whenever 1 think of him, he 
rises up to me in the far background of 
memory, as bright as if he bad worn the 
seven stars in his hair. (I said he is living : 
yes, he is here to-day, God bless him !) 
How many others of you that are here as- 
sembled, recall these little primitive univer- 
sities of homespun, where your mind was 
born, with a similar feeling of reverence 
and homely satisfaction. Perhaps you re- 
member, too, with a pleasure not less gem> 
ine, that you received the classic discipline 
of the university proper, under a dress of 
homespun, to be graduated, at the close, 
in the joint honors of broadcloth and the 
parchment." 

We might add other lights and shades t" 
the picture of school life as i: was down to a 
very recent period in New England and New 
York, but we must refer our readers to that 
amusing and instructive volume of Rev. War- 
ren Burton, "The District School as it was." 
We must pass to the elementary schools of 
l'ennsylvania and the Southern States. 



882 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



LETTER FROM WILLIAM DARLINGTON, M.D., 
LL.D. 

" At your request, I propose to attempt a 
brief and hasty sketch of my acquaintance 
•with, and reminiscences of the Country 
Schools, and their condition, some sixty-five 
or seventy years since, in the south-eastern 
corner of the state of Pennsylvania; more 
particularly the school at Birmingham, Ches- 
ter county, where the limited instruction of 
my youthful days was chiefly acquired. 

" My earliest recollections of the school to 
which I was sent go back to that trying pe- 
riod of loose government, rusticity, and 
scarcity experienced in the interval between 
the War of Independence and the adoption 
of the Federal Constitution; and if it were 
given me to wield the pen of Tom Brown 
of Rugby, I might peradventure furnish some 
graphic details of our rural seminaries of 
learning in those days of general destitution. 
But, under present circumstances, I can only 
offer the imperfect narrative of incidents and 
observations, as retained in an almost octo- 
genarian memory. 

"At the time when I was first sent to 
school — say in 1787-8 — school-houses were 
rare; and there was little or no organization 
for their maintenance. The country round, 
having been recently ravaged by a hostile 
army, was scantily supplied with teachers, 
who occasionally obtained schools by going 
among the principal families of the vicinage, 
and procuring subscribers for a quarter's tui- 
tion of the children on hand. Those who 
were too young to be serviceable on the 
farm were allowed to go to school in the 
summer season ; but the larger ones (exper- 
tus loquor) could only be spared for that 
purpose during winter. The extent of rural 
instruction was then considered to be prop- 
erly limited to what a worthy London alder- 
man designated as the three R^s, viz., 'Read- 
ing, Riting, and Rithmetic' To cipher 
beyond the Rule of Three was deemed a 
notable achievement and mere surplusage 
among the average of country scholars. 
The business of teaching, at that day, was 
disdainfully regarded as among the hum- 
blest and most unprofitable of callings ; and 
the teachers — often low-bred, intemperate 
adventurers from the old world — were gen- 
erally about on a par with the prevalent es- 
timate of the profession. Whenever a thrift- 
less vagabond was found to be good for 
nothing else, he would resort to school-keep- 



ing, and teaching young American ideas 
how to shoot ! It was my good fortune, 
however, to have a teacher who was a dis- 
tinguished exception to the sorry rule re- 
ferred to. John Forsythe was a native of 
the Emerald Isle, born in 1754, received a 
good English education at home, and while 
yet a young man, migrated to the county of 
Chester, in the land of Penn, where he be- 
came an excellent schoolmaster. When he 
arrived in our quakerly settlement, he was a 
gay young Presbyterian, dressed in the fash- 
ionable apparel of the world's people ; and 
being withal musical in his taste, was an ex- 
pert performer on the violin. He soon, how- 
ever, adopted the views and principles of the 
' Friends,' among whom he remained, mar- 
ried one of the society, and was ever recog- 
nized as an exemplary and valuable member. 

" As the head and master-spirit of the 
school, at Birmingham meeting-house, es- 
tablished under the auspices of the Quaker 
society, he taught for a number of years, 
and always applied himself con amore to his 
arduous duties. He accomplished more in 
exciting a taste for knowledge and develop- 
ing young intellects, than any teacher who 
had theretofore labored in that hopeful vine- 
yard. He effectually routed the lingering 
old superstitions, prejudices, and benighted 
notions of preceding generations, and ever 
took delight in introducing youthful genius 
to the bright fields of literature and science. 
The young men of his day, who have since 
figured in the world, were deeply indebted 
to John Forsythe for the aid which he af- 
forded them in their studies, as well as for 
the sound doctrines which he inculcated ; 
and some few r of them yet survive to make 
the grateful acknowledgment. 

" When the noble Quaker institution at 
West-town was erected, near the close of the 
last century, the skill and experience of John 
Forsythe were put in requisition, until it was 
fairly inaugurated ; after which he retired to 
his comfortable farm, in East Bradford, 
where he passed a venerable old age, until 
his 87th year, in superintending agricultural 
employments and in manifesting a lively in- 
terest in the progress of education among 
our people. No instructor has labored in 
this community more faithfully, nor with 
better effect. None has left a memory more 
worthy to be kindly cherished. 

"The old school-house at Birmingham was 
a one story stone building, erected by men 
who did not understand the subject ; and 



PROGRESS OF COMMON OR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 



883 



was badly lighted and ventilated. The dis- 
cipline of that day (adopted from the mother 
country) was pretty severe. The real birch 
of the botanists not being indigenous in the 
immediate vicinity of the school, an efficient 
substitute was found in young apple tree 
sprouts, as unruly boys were abundantly 
able to testify. 

"The school books of my earliest recollection 
were a cheap English spelling book, the Bi- 
ble for the reading classes, and when we got 
to ciphering, the 'Schoolmasters' Assistant.' 
The 'Spelling Book' and 'Assistant' were 
by Thomas Dilworth, an English school- 
master at Wapping. The ' Assistant' was a 
useful work, but has long since disappeared. 
The 'counterfeit presentment' of the worthy 
author faced the title-page, and was famil- 
iarly known to every schoolboy of my time. 
The Spelling Book contained a little ele- 
mentary grammar, in which the English sub- 
stantives were declined through all the cases 
(genitive, dative, etc.) of the Latin. But 
grammar was then an unknown study among 
us. Dilworth's ' Spelling Book,' however, 
was soon superseded by a greatly improved 
one, compiled by John Pierce, a respect- 
able teacher of Delaware county, Pennsyl- 
vania. This comprised a tolerable English 
grammar, for that period, and John Forsythe 
introduced the study into his school with 
much zeal and earnestness. Intelligent em- 
ployers were made to comprehend its advan- 
tages, and were pleased with the prospect 
of a hopeful advance in that direction ; but 
dull boys and illiterate parents could not ap- 
preciate the benefit. Great boobies often 
got permission, at home, to evade the study. 
but they could not get round John Forsythe 
in that way. They would come into school 
with this promised indulgence, and loudly 
announce, 'Daddy says I needn't lam gram- 
mar ; it's no use :' when the energetic re- 
sponse from the desk was, ' I don't care 
what daddy says. He knows nothing about 
it ; and I say thou shalt learn it !' and so 
some general notion of the subject was im- 
pressed upon the minds even of the stupid; 
while many of the brighter youths became 
excellent grammarians. 

" In this Friendly seminary we were all re- 
quired to use the plain language in conver- 
sation, being assured that it was wrong, both 
morally and grammatically, to say you to 
one person. Our teacher contrived a meth- 
od of his own for mending our neology, 
even while at our noonday sports. He pre- 



pared a small piece of board ot shingle* 

which he termed a paddle ; and whenever a 
boy was heard ottering bad grammar, he 

had to take the paddle, step add.', and re- 
frain from play, until he delected some other 
unlucky urchin trespassing upon svutax; 
when he was authorized to transfer the 
badge of interdiction to the last offender, 
and resume his amusements. It was really 
curious to observe how critical we soon be- 
came, and how much improvement was ef- 
fected by this whimsical and simple device. 

"Pierce's 'Spelling Book' kept its position 
in our school for several years, but was at 
length superseded, in the grammatical de- 
partment, by a useful little volume, prepared 
by John Comly, of Bucks county, Pennsyl- 
vania. Lindley Murray and others prepared 
elaborate grammars, which were successively 
introduced, as our schools improved or cre- 
ated a demand ; and so rapidly have the 
bookmaking competitors in that department 
multiplied that their name is now legion, 
and the respective value of their works is 
known only to experts in the art of teach- 
ing. 

"Excellent works \n Reading and Elocution 
are now so abundant and well known in all 
our respectable seminaries, that they need 
not to be here enumerated, (hie of the best 
and most popular of those works, some half 
century or more since, was a volume entitled 
'The Art of Speaking,' compiled, I think, 
by a Mr. Rice, in England. 

"But, as we have now reached the age of 
academies, normal institutes, and schools for 
the people, I presume you will gladly forego 
a further extension of this prosy narrative, 
so little calculated to interest a veteran in 
the great cause of education. 1 have ever 
been a sincere friend and advocate of the 
blessing; but, unfortunately, my acquaint- 
ance with it has been mainly limited to a 
humbling consciousness of my deficiencies 
in the ennobling attainment. 

■• Very respectfnlly, 

"Wh, Darlingtov. 
"West Chester, Pa.. Dec. 21, I860." 

SCHOOLS IN" PHILADELPHIA. 

The following picture of the internal econ- 
omv of one of the best Schools of Phila- 
delphia, is taken from Watson's " Annals 
of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania." 

"My facetious friend, Lang Syne, ha- pre- 
sented a lively picture of the ' schoolmas- 



884 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



ters' in those days, -when ' preceptors,' and 
* principals,' and ' professors' were yet un- 
named. What is now known as ' Friends' 
Academy,' in Fourth street, was at that time 
occupied by four different masters. The 
best room down-stairs by Robert Proud, 
Latin master; the one above him, by Wil- 
liam Waring, teacher of astronomy and math- 
ematics ; the cast room, up-stairs, by Jere- 
miah Paul, and the one below, 'last not 
least' in our remembrance, by J. Todd, and 
severe he was. The State House clock, be- 
ing at the time visible from the school pave- 
ment, gave to the eye full notice when to 
break off marble and plug top, hastily col- 
lect the 'stakes,' and bundle in, pell-mell, 
to the school-room, where, until the arrival 
of the ' master of scholars,' John Todd, 
they were busily employed, every one in 
finding his place, under the control for the 
time of a short Irishman, usher, named Jim- 
my M'Cue. On the entrance of the master, 
all shuffling of the feet, ' scrouging,' hit- 
ting of elbows, and whispering disputes, 
were hastily adjusted, leaving a silence 
which might be felt, ' not a mouse stir- 
ring.' He, Todd, dressed after the plainest 
manner of Friends, but of the richest ma- 
terial, with looped cocked hat, was at all 
times remarkably clean and nice in his per- 
son, a man of about sixty years, square 
built, and well sustained by bone and mus- 
cle. 

"After an hour, maybe, of quiet time, 
every thing going smoothly on — no sound, 
but from the master's voice, while hearing 
the one standing near him, a dead calm, 
when suddenly a brisk slap on the ear or 
face, for something or for nothing, gave 
' dreadful note' that an eruption of the 
lava was now about to take place. Next 
thing to be seen was ' strap in full play 
over the head and shoulders of Pilgarlic' 
The passion of the master 'growing by 
what it fed on,' and wanting elbow room, 
the chair would be quickly thrust on one 
side, when, with sudden gripe, he was to be 
seen dragging his struggling suppliant to 
the flogging ground, in the centre of the 
room ; having placed his left foot upon the 
end of a bench, he then, with a patent jerk, 
peculiar to himself, would have the boy com- 
pletely horsed across his knee, with his left 
elbow on the back of his neck, to keep him 
securely on. In the hurry of the moment 
he would bring his long pen with him, 
griped between his strong teeth (visible the 



while), causing both ends to descend to 
a parallel with his chin, and adding much 
to the terror of the scene. His face would 
assume a deep claret color — his little bob of 
hair would disengage itself, and stand out, 
each ' particular hair' as it were, ' up in 
arms and eager for the fray.' Having his 
victim thus completely at command, and all 
useless drapery drawn up to a bunch above 
the waistband, and the rotundity and the 
nankeen in the closest affinity possible f>r 
them to be, then once more to the ' staring 
crew' would be exhibited the dexterity of 
master and strap. By long practice he had 
arrived at such perfection in the exercise, 
that, moving in quick time, the fifteen inches 
of bridle rein [alias strap) would be seen 
after every cut, elevated to a perpendicular 
above his head ; from whence it descended 
like a flail on the stretched nankeen, leav- 
ing ' on the place beneath' a fiery red 
streak, at every slash. It was customary 
with him to address the sufferer at intervals, 
as follows : ' Does it hurt ?' ' Oh ! yes, 
master; oh! don't, master.' 'Then I'll 
make it hurt thee more. I'll make thy flesh 
creep — thou shan't want a warming pan to- 
night. Intolerable being ! Nothing in na- 
ture is able to prevail upon thee but my 
strap.' He had one boy named George 
Fudge, who usually wore leather breeches, 
with which he put strap and its master at 
defiance. He would never acknowledge 
pain — he would not ' sing out.' Todd seiz- 
ed him one day, and having gone through 
the evolutions of strapping (as useless, in 
effect, as if he had been thrashing a flour- 
bag), almost breathless with rage, he once 
more appealed to the feelings of the ' repro- 
bate,' by saying : ' Does it not hurt V The 
astonishment of the school and the mas- 
ter was completed, on hearing him sing 
out, ' No ! Hurray for leather crackers !' 
He was thrown off immediately, sprawling 
on the floor, with the benediction as follows : 
' Intolerable being ! Get out of my school. 
Nothing in nature is able to prevail upon 
thee — not even my strap !' 

" 'Twas not ' his love of learning was in 
fault,' so much as the old British system of 
introducing learning and discipline into the 
brains of boys and soldiers by dint of pun- 
ishment. The system of flogging on all 
occasions in schools, for something or for 
nothing, being protected by law, gives free 
play to the passions of the master, which 
he, for one, exercised with great severity. 



PROGRESS OF COMMON OR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 



885 



The writer has, at this moment, in his mem- 
ory, a schoolmaster then of this city, who, a 
few years ago, went deliberately out of his 
school to purchase a cow-skin, with which, 
on his return, he extinguished his hitter re- 
venge on a boy who had offended him. 
The age of chivalry preferred ignorance in 
its sons, to having them subjected to the 
fear of a pedagogue — believing that a boy 
who had quailed under the eye of the 
schoolmaster, would never face the enemy 
with boldness on the field of battle ; which 
it must be allowed is ' a swing of the pen- 
dulum' too far the other way. A good 
writer says : ' We do not harden the wax 
to receive the impression — wherefore, the 
teacher seems himself most in need of cor- 
rection — for he, unfit to teach, is making 
them unfit to be taught !'. 

" I have been told by an aged gentleman, 
that in the days of his boyhood, sixty-five 
years ago, when boys and girls were to- 
gether, it was a common practice to make 
the boys strip off their jackets, and loose 
their trowsers' band, preparatory to hoisting 
them upon a boy's back so as to get his 
whipping, with only the linen between the 
flesh and the strap. The girls too — we 
pity them — were obliged to take off their 
stays to receive their floggings with equal 
sensibility. He named one distinguished 
lady, since, who was so treated among oth- 
ers, in his school. All the teachers then 
were from England and Ireland, and brought 
with them the rigorous principles which 
had before been whipped into themselves at 
home." 

Robert Coram, in a pamphlet devoted in 
part to a " Plan for the General Establish- 
ment of Schools throughout the United 
States," printed in Wilmington, Delaware, 
in 1791, characterizes the state of education 
as follows : " The country schools, thr< >ugh 
most of the United States, whether we con- 
sider the buildings, the teachers, or the reg- 
ulations, are in every respect completely des- 
picable, wretched, and contemptible. The 
buddings are in goneral sorry hovels, neither 
wind-tight nor water-tight ; a few stools 
serving in the double capacity of bench and 
desk, and the old leaves of copy books ma- 
king a miserable substitute for glass win- 
dows. The teachers are generally foreign- 
ers, shamefully deficient in every qualifica- 
tion necessary to convey instruction to 
youth, and not seldom addicted to gross 



vices. Absolute in his own opinion, and 
proud of introducing what he calls his Euro- 
pean method, -alls the first letter of the 

alphabet, aw. The school is modified upon 
this plan, and the children who are advanced 
are beat and cuffed to forget the former 
mode they have been taught, which Irritates 
their minds and retards their progress. The 
quarter being finished, the children tie idle 
until another master offers, tew remaining in 
one place more than a quarter. When the 
next schoolmaster is introduced, he calls the 
first letter a, as in mat; the school under- 
goes another reform, and is equally vexed 
and retarded. At his removal a third Lb in- 
troduced, who calls the first letter hay. All 
these blockheads are equally absolute in 
their own notions, and will by no means 
suffer the children to pronounce the letter 
as they were first taught; but every three 
months the school goes through a reform — 
error succeeds error, and dunce the second 
reigns like dunce the first. I will venture 
to pronounce, that however seaport towns, 

from local circumstances, may have g 1 

schools, the country schools will remain in 
their present state of despicable wretched- 
ness, unless incorporated with government. 
* * * The necessity of a reformation in 
the country schools is too obvious to be in- 
sisted on ; and the first step to such a re- 
formation will be by turning private schools 
into public ones. The schools should be 
public, for several reasons — 1st. Because, as 
has been before said, every citizen has an 
equal right to subsistence, and ought to hive 
an equal opportunity of acquiring knowl- 
edge. 2d. Because public schools are 
easiest maintained, as the burthen falls upon 
all the citizens. The man who is too 
squeamish or lazy to get married, contrib- 
utes to the support of public schools, as 
well as the man who is burthened with a 
large family. But private schools are sup- 
ported only by heads of families, and by those 
only while they are interested ; for as soon 
as the children are grown Up, their support 
is withdrawn; which makes the employ- 
ment bo precarious, that men of ability and 
merit will not submit to the trifling salaries 
allowed in most country schools, and which, 
by their partial support, cannot afford a bet- 
ter." 

SCHOOL HOLIDAY IN GEORGIA. 

We have UOl been very successful in gath- 
ering the printed testimony of the dead, or 



886 



EDUCATION AMD EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



the vivid reminiscences of the living, respect- 
ing the internal economy of schools, public 
or family, in any of the Southern states prior 
to 1800. The following graphic sketch of 
" the turn out" of the schoolmaster, from 
Judge Longstreet's " Georgia Scenes," is 
said to be " literally true :" 

" In the good old days of fescues, abisself- 
as and anpersants* terms which used to be 
familiar in this country during the Revolu- 
tionary war, and which lingered in some of 
our country schools for a few years after- 
ward, I visited my friend Captain Griffen, 
who resided about seven miles to the east- 
ward of Wrightsborough, then in Richmond, 
but now in Columbia county. I reached the 
captain's hospitable home on Easter, and 
was received by him and his good lady with 
a Georgia welcome of 1790. 

"The day was consumed in the inter- 
change of news between the captain and 
myself (though, I confess, it might have 
been better employed), and the night found 
us seated round a temporary lire, which the 
captain's sons had kindled up for the pur- 
pose of dyeing eggs. It was a common cus- 
tom of those days with boys to dye and 
peck eggs on Easter Sunday, and for a few 
days afterward. They were colored accord- 
ing to the fancy of the dyer ; some yellow, 
some green, some purple, and some with a 
variety of colors, borrowed from a piece of 
calico. They were not unfrequently beauti- 
fied with a taste and skill which would have 
extorted a compliment from Hezekiah Niles, 
if he had seen them a year ago, in the hands 
of the i young operatives] in some of the 
northern manufactories. No sooner was the 
work of dyeing finished, than our ' young 
operatives' sallied forth to stake the whole 
proceeds of their ' domestic industry' upon 
a peck. Egg was struck against egg, point 
to point, and the egg that was broken was 



* The fescue was a sharpened wire or other instru- 
ment used by the preceptor to point out the letters 
to the children. 

Abisselfa is a contraction of the words " a by it- 
self, a." It was usual, when either of the vowels 
constituted a syllable of a word, to pronounce it, 
and denote its independent character by the words 
just mentioned, thus : "a by itself, a, c-o-r-n corn, 
acorn-" "e by itself, e, v-i-1, evil" etc. 

The character which stands for the word " and " 
(&) was probably pronounced with the same accom- 
paniment, but in terms borrowed from the Latin lan- 
guage, thus: u & perse" (by itself) and. Hence, "an- 
persant." 



given up as lost to the owner of the one 
which came whole from the shock. 

" While the boys were busily employed 
in the manner just mentioned, the captain's 
youngest son, George, gave us an anecdote 
highly descriptive of the Yankee and Geor- 
gia character, even in their buddings, and 
at this early date. ' What you think, pa, 5 
said he, ' Zeph Pettibone went and got his 
uncle Zach to turn him a wooden egg ; and 
he won a whole hatful o' eggs from all us 
boys 'fore we found it out ; but, when we 
found it out, maybe John Brown didn't 
smoke him for it, and took away all his 
eggs, and give 'em back to us boys ; and 
you think he didn't go then and git a guinea 
egg, and win most as many more, and John 
Brown would o' give it to him agin if all we 
boys hadn't said we thought it was fair. I 
never see such a boy as that Zeph Pettibone 
in all my life. He don't mind whipping no 
more 'an nothing at all, if he can win eggs.' 

" This anecdote, however, only fell in by 
accident, for there was an all-absorbing sub- 
ject which occupied the minds of the boys 
during the whole evening, of which I could 
occasionally catch distant hints, in under 
tones and whispers, but of which I could 
make nothing, until they were afterward ex- 
plained by the captain himself. Such as 
' I'll be bound Pete Jones and Bill Smith 
stretches him.' ' By Jockey, soon as they 
seize him, you'll see me down upon him like 
a duck upon a June-bug.' ' By the time he 
touches the ground, he'll think he's got into 
a hornet's nest,' etc. 

" ' The boys,' said the captain, as they re- 
tired, ' are going to turn out the schoolmas- 
ter to-morrow, and you can perceive they 
think of nothing else. We must go over to 
the schoolhouse and witness the contest, in 
order to prevent injury to preceptor or pu- 
pils ; for, though the master is always, upon 
such occasions, glad to be turned out, and 
only struggles long enough to present his 
patrons a fair apology for giving the child- 
ren a holiday, which he desires as much as 
they do, the boys always conceive a holiday 
gained by a ' turn out' as the sole achieve- 
ment of their valor ; and in their zeal to dis- 
tinguish themselves upon such memorable 
occasions, they sometimes become too rough, 
provoke the master to wrath, and a very se- 
rious conflict ensues. To prevent these con- 
sequences, to bear witness that the master 
was forced to yield before he would with- 
hold a day of his promised labor from his 



PROGRESS OF COMMON OR ELEMENTARY SCHOOL8. 



887 



employers, and to act as a mediator between 
him and the boys in settling the articles of 
peace, I always attend ; and you must ac- 
company me to-morrow.' I cheerfully pro- 
mised to do so. 

" The captain and I rose before the sun, 
but the boys had risen and were off to the 
school-house before the dawn. After an ear- 
ly breakfast, hurried by Mrs. G. for our ac- 
commodation, my host and myself took up 
our line of march toward the school-house. 
We reached it about half an hour before the 
master arrived, but not before the boys had 
completed its fortifications. It was a simple 
log pen, about twenty feet square, with a 
doorway cut out of the logs, to which was 
fitted a rude door, made of clapboards, and 
swung on wooden hinges. The roof was 
covered with clapboards also, and retained 
in their places by heavy logs placed on them. 
The chimney was built of logs, diminishing 
in size from the ground to the top, and over- 
spread inside and out with red clay mortar. 
The classic hut occupied a lovely spot, over- 
shadowed by majestic hickories, towering 
poplars, and strong-armed oaks. The little 
plain on which it stood was terminated, at 
the distance of about fifty paces from its 
door, by the brow of a hill, which descended 
rather abruptly to a noble spring that gush- 
ed joyously forth among the roots of a state- 
ly beech at its foot. 

" The boys had strongly fortified the school- 
house, of which they had taken possession. 
The door was barricaded with logs, which I 
should have supposed would have defied the 
combined powers of the whole school. The 
chimney, too, was nearly filled with logs of 
goodly size ; and these were the only pass- 
ways to the interior. I concluded, if a turn 
out was all that was necessary to decide the 
contest in favor of the boys, they had al- 
ready gained the victory. They had, how- 
ever, not as much confidence in their out- 
works as I had, and therefore had armed 
themselves with long sticks, not for the pur- 
pose of using them upon the master if the 
battle should come to close quarters, for this 
was considered unlawful warfare, but for the 
purpose of guarding their works from his ap- 
proaches, which it was considered perfectly 
lawful to protect by all manner of jabs and 
punches through the cracks. From the ear- 
ly assembling of the girls, it was very ob- 
vious that they had been let into the con- 
spiracy, though they took no part in the 
active operations. They would, however, 



occasionally drop a word of encouragement 

to the boys, sii'h as ' I wouldn't turn out 
the master; but if I did turn him out, I'd 
die before I'd give up.' 

"At length Mr. Michael St. John, the 
schoolmaster made his appearance. Though 
some of the girls had met him a quarter of 
a mile from the school-house, and told him 
all that had happened, he gave si^ns of sud- 
den astonishment and indignation when he 
advanced to the door, and was assailed by a 
whole platoon of sticks from the cracke : 
' Why, what does all this mean V said he, 
as he approached the captain and myself, 
with a countenance of two or threa varying 
expressions. 

" ' Why,' said the captain, ' the boys have 
turned you out, because you have refused to 
give them an Easter holiday.' 

M ' Oh,' returned Michael, * that's it, is it ? 
Well, I'll see whether their parents are to 
pay me for letting their children play when 
they please.' So saying, he advanced to 
the school-house, and demanded, in a lofty 
tone, of its inmates, an unconditional sur- 
render. 

" ' Well, give us a holiday, then,' said 
twenty little urchins within, 'and we'll let 
you in.' 

" ' Open the door of the academy — 
(Michael would allow nobody to call it a 
school-house) — 'Open the door of the acad- 
emy this instant,' said Michael, 'or I'll break 
it down.' 

" ' Break it down,' said Pete Jones and 
Bill Smith, ' and we'll break you down.' 

" During this colloquy I took a peep into 
the fortress, to see how the garrison were 
affected by the parley. The little ones were 
obviously panic-struck at the first words of 
command; but their fears were all chased 
away by the bold determined reply of Pete 
Jones and Bill Smith, and they raised a 
whoop of defiance. 

" Michael now walked round the academy 
three times, examining all its weak points 
with great care. He then paused, reflected 
for a moment, and wheeled off suddenly to- 
ward the woods, as though a bright thought 
had just struck him. He passed twenty 
things which I supposed he might be in 
quest of, such as huge stones, fence rails, 
portable logs, and the like, without bestow- 
ing the least attention upon them. He 
went to one old log, searched it thoroughly, 
then to another, then to a hollow stump, 
peeped into it with great care, then to a 



888 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



hollow log, into which he looked with equal 
caution, and so on. 

" ' What is he after V inquired I. 

" ' I'm sure I don't know,' said the cap- 
tain, ' but the hoys do. Don't you notice 
the breathless silence which prevails in the 
school-house, and the intense anxiety with 
which they are eyeing him through the 
cracks ?' 

" At this moment Michael had reached a 
little excavation at the root of a dogwood, 
and was in the act of putting his hand into 
it, when a voice from the garrison exclaimed, 
with most touching pathos, ' Lo'd o' messy, 
ke's found my eggs ! boys, let's give up.' 

" ' I won't give up,' was the reply from 
many voices at once. 

" ' Rot your cowardly skin, Zeph Petti- 
bone, you wouldn't give a wooden egg for 
all the holydays in the world.' 

" If these replies did not reconcile Zeph- 
aniah to his apprehended loss, it at least si- 
lenced his complaints. In the mean time 
Michael was employed in relieving Zeph's 
storehouse of its provisions ; and, truly, its 
contents told well for Zeph's skill in egg- 
pecking. However, Michael took out the 
eggs with great care, and brought them 
within a few paces of the schoolhouse, and 
laid them down with equal care in full view 
of the besieged. He revisited the places 
which he had searched, and to which he 
seemed to have been led by intuition ; for 
from nearly all of them did he draw eggs, 
in greater or less numbers. These he treated 
as he had done Zeph's, keeping each pile 
separate. Having arranged the eggs in 
double files before the door, he marched be- 
tween them with an air of triumph, and 
once more demanded a surrender, under 
pain of an entire destruction of the garri- 
son's provisions. 

" ' Break 'em just as quick as you please,' 
said George Griffin ; ' our mothers '11 give 
us a plenty more, won't they, pa?' 

" ' I can answer for yours, my son,' said 
the captain ; ' she would rather give up 
every egg upon the farm than to see you 
play the coward or traitor to save your prop- 
erty.' 

" Michael, finding that he could make no im- 
pression upon the fears or the avarice of the 
boys, determined to carry their fortifications 
by storm. Accordingly he procured a heavy 
fence-rail, and commenced the assault upon 
the door. It soon came to pieces, and the 
upper logs fell out, leaving a space of about 



three feet at the top. Michael boldly en- 
tered the breach, when, by the articles of 
war, sticks were thrown aside as no longer 
lawful weapons. He was resolutely met on 
the half-demolished rampart by Peter Jones 
and William Smith, supported by James 
Griffin. These were the three largest boys 
in the school ; the first about sixteen years 
of age, the second about fifteen, and the 
third just eleven. Twice was Michael re- 
pulsed by these young champions ; but the 
third effort carried him fairly into the fort- 
ress. Hostilities now ceased for a while-, 
and the captain and I, having levelled the 
remaining logs at the door, followed Michael 
into the house. A large three inch plank 
(if it deserve that name, for it was wrought 
from the half of a tree's trunk entirely with 
the axe), attached to the logs by means of 
wooden pins, served the whole school for a 
writing desk. At a convenient distance be- 
low it, and on a line with it, stretched a 
smooth log, resting upon the logs of the 
house, which answered for the writers' seat. 
Michael took his seat upon the desk, placed 
his feet on the seat, and was sitting very 
composedly, when with a simultaneous move- 
ment, Pete and Bill seized each a leg, and 
marched oft* with it in quick time. The 
consequence is obvious; Michael's head first 
took the desk, then the seat, and finally the 
ground (for the house was not floored), with 
three sonorous thumps of most doleful por- 
tent. No sooner did he touch the ground 
than he was completely buried with boys. 
The three elder laid themselves across his 
head, neck and breast, the rest arranging 
themselves ad libitum. Michael's equanim- 
ity was considerably disturbed by the first 
thump, became restive with the second, and 
took flight with the third. His first effort 
was to disengage his legs, for without them 
he could not rise, and to lie in his pres- 
ent position was extremely inconvenient and 
undignified. Accordingly he drew up his 
right, and kicked at random. This move- 
ment laid out about six in various direc- 
tions upon the floor. Two rose crying : 
'Ding his old red-headed skin,' said one 
of them, 'to go and kick me right in 
my sore belly, where I fell down and raked 
it, running after that fellow that cried " school 
butter." '* 



* " I have never been able to satisfy myself clearly 
as to the literal meaning of these terms. They were 



PROGRESS OF COMMON OR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 



889 



" ' Drot his old snaggle-tooth picture,' said 
the other, 'to go and hurt my sore toe, where 
I knocked the nail off going to the spring to 
fetch a gourd of warter for him, and not for 
myself n' other.' 

" ' Hut !' said Captain Griffin, ' young 
Washingtons mind these trifles ! At him 
again.' 

" The name of Washington cured their 
wounds and dried up their tears in an in- 
stant, and they legged him de novo. The 
left leg treated six more as unceremoniously 
as the right had those just mentioned ; hut 
the talismanic name had just fallen upon 
their ears before the kick, so they were in- 
vulnerable. They therefore returned to the 
attack without loss of time. The struggle 
seemed to wax hotter and hotter for some 
time after Michael came to the ground, and 
he threw the children about in all directions 
and postures, giving some of them thrusts 
which would have placed the ruffle-shir ted 
little darlings of the present clay under the 
discipline of paregoric and opodeldoc for a 
week ; but these hardy sons of the south 
seemed not to feel them. As Michael's head 
grew easy, his limbs, by a natural sympathy, 
became more quiet, and he offered one day's 
holiday as the price. The boys demanded 
a week ; but here the captain interposed, and 
after the common but often unjust custom 
of arbitrators, split the difference. In this 
instance the terms were equitable enough, 
and were immediately acceded to by both 
parties. Michael rose in a good humor, and 
the boys were of course. Loud was their 
talking of their deeds of valor as they re- 
tired. One little fellow about seven years 
old, and about three feet and a half high, 
jumped up, cracked his feet together, and 
exclaimed, ' By jingo, Pete Jones, Bill 
Smith and me can hold any Sinjin [St. John] 
that ever trod Georgy grit.' " 



considered an unpardonable insult to a country 
school, and always justified an attack by the whole 
fraternity upon the person who used them in their 
hearing. I have known tlio scholars pursue a trav- 
eller two miles to be revenged of the insult. Prob- 
ably they are a corruption of ' The school's better.' 
' Better 1 was the term commonly used of old to de- 
note a superior, as it sometimes is in our day: 
'Wait till your betters are served,' for example. 1 
conjecture, therefore, the expression just alluded to 
was one of challenge, contempt, and defiance, by 
which the person who used it avowed himself the 
superior in all respects of the whole school, from (lie 
preceptor down. If any one can give a better ac- 
count of it, I shall bo pleased to receive it." 



AN OLD FIELD SCHOOL, Oil &OADKMT, IN* 
VIRGINIA. 



The experience of one of that class of 
teachers, who found temporary occupation 

in teaching the children of one «»r more fam- 
ilies of planters in Virginia *nd other south- 
ern states, will be found in the "Travels of 
Four Years and a Half in the United 8t 
(in 1798, 1799, 1800, 1801 and L802), by 
John Davis." Mr. Davis was an English- 
man of more than ordinary education and 
of social address, and while in this country 

numbered a ag his friends such men as 

Aaron Burr, President Jefferson, and other 
men of high political standing, lie was a 
private tutor in New York, South Carolina 
and Virginia, and his graphic sketches of 
men and manners show some of the defi- 
ciencies in the means of education which 
even wealthy planters in the southern state. 
experienced. With letters of introduction 
from President Jefferson he proceeds to the 
plantation of a Mr. Ball, and is engaged to 
teach his and his neighbors' children ; 

" The following day every fanner came 
from the neighborhood to the house, who 
had any children to send to my Academy, 
for such they did me the honor to term the 
log-hut in which I was to teach. Each man 
brought his son, or his daughter, and re- 
joiced that the day was arrived when their 
little ones could light their tapers at the 
torch of knowledge! I was confounded at 
the encomiums they heaped upon a man 
whom they had never seen before, and was 
at a loss what construction to put upon 
their speech. No price was too great for 
the services I was to render their children; 
and they all expressed an eagerness to i \- 
change perishable coin for lasting knowl- 
edge. If I would continue with them sev< n 
years! only seven years! they would erect 
for me a brick seminary on a hill not far off; 
but for the present I was to occupy a log- 
house, which, however homely, would BOOU 
vie with the sublime college of William and 
Mary, and consign to oblivion the renowned 
academy in the vicinity of Fauquier Court- 
House. 1 thought Englishmen sanguine; 
but these Virginians were infatuated. 

" I now opened what some called an acad- 
emy,* and others an Old Field School ; 



* "It is worth the while to describe the academy 
I occupied on Mr. Hall's plantation. It had one 
room and a half. It stood on blocks about tv. 



890 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



and, however it may be thought that con- 
tent was never felt within the walls of a 
seminary, I, for my part, experienced an ex- 
emption from care, and was not such a fool 
as to measure the happiness of my condition 
by what others thought of it. 

" It was pleasurable to behold my pupils 
enter the school over which I presided ; for 
they were not composed only of truant boys, 
but some of the fairest damsels in the coun- 
try. Two sisters generally rode on one 
horse to the school-door, and I was not so 
great a pedagogue as to refuse them my as- 
sistance to dismount from their steeds. A 
running-footman of the negro tribe, who 
followed with their food in a basket, took 
care of the beast ; and after being saluted 
by the young ladies with the courtesies of 
the morning, I proceeded to instruct them, 
with gentle exhortations to diligence of 
study. 

" Common books were only designed for 
common minds. The unconnected lessons 
of Scot, the tasteless selections of Bingham, 
the florid harangues of Noah Webster, and 
the somniferous compilation of Alexander, 
were either thrown aside, or suffered to 
gather dust on the shelf; while the charm- 
ing essays of Goldsmith, and his not less 
delectable Novel, together with the impres- 
sive work of Defoe, and the mild produc- 
tions of Addison, conspired to enchant the 
fancy, and kindle a love of reading. The 
thoughts of these writers became engrafted 
on the minds, and the combinations of their 
diction on the language of the pupils. 

" Of the boys I cannot speak in very en- 
comiastic terms ; but they were perhaps like 
all other school-boys, that is, more disposed 
to play truant than enlighten their minds. 



and a half above the ground, where there was free 
access to the hogs, the dogs, and the poultry. It 
had no ceiling, nor was the roof lathed or plaster- 
ed, but covered with shingles. Hence, when it 
rained, like the nephew of old Elwes, I moved my 
bed (for I slept in my academy) to the most com- 
fortable corner. It had one window, but no glass, 
nor shutter. In the night, to remedy this, the mu- 
latto wench who waited on me, contrived very in- 
geniously to place a square board against the win- 
dow with one hand, and fix the rail of a broken 
down fence against it with the other. In the morn- 
ing, when I returned from breakfasting in the 
'great big house,' (my scholars being collected,) I 
gave the rail a forcible kick with my foot, and down 
tumbled the board with an awful roar. 'Is not my 
window,' said I to Virginia, ' of a very curious con- 
struction?' 'Indeed, indeed, sir,' replied my fair 
disciple, 'I think it is a mighty noisy one.' " 



The most important knowledge to an Amer- 
ican, after that of himself, is the geography 
of his country. I, therefore, put into the 
hands of my boys a proper book, and ini- 
tiated them by an attentive reading of the 
discoveries of the Genoese ; I was even so 
minute as to impress on their minds the 
man who first descried land on board the 
ship of Columbus. That man was Roderic 
Triana, and on my exercising the memory 
of a boy by asking him the name, he very 
gravely made answer, Roderic Random. 

" Among my male students was a New 
Jersey gentleman of thirty, whose object 
was to be initiated in the language of Cicero 
and Virgil. He had before studied the 
Latin grammar at an academy school (I use 
his own words) in his native state ; but the 
academy school being burnt down, his gram- 
mar, alas ! was lost in the conflagration, 
and he had neglected the pursuit of litera- 
ture since the destruction of his book. 
When I asked him if he did not think it 
was some Goth who had set fire to his acad- 
emy school, he made answer, ' So, it is like 
enough.' 

" Mr. Dye did not study Latin to refine 
his taste, direct his judgment, or enlarge his 
imagination ; but merely that he might be 
enabled to teach it when he opened school, 
which was his serious design. He had been 
bred a carpenter, but he panted for the hon- 
ors of literature." 

Mr. Davis accounts for his fidelity in 
teaching more hours than he was required 
to do by his contract, by his interest in the 
lessons of one of his female pupils : 

" Hence I frequently protracted the stud- 
ies of the children till one, or half past one 
o'clock ; a practice that did not fail to call 
forth the exclamations both of the white 
and the black people. Upon my word, Mr. 
Ball would say, this gentleman is diligent ; 
and Aunt Patty the negro cook would re- 
mark, ' He good cool-mossa that ; he not 
like old Hodgkinson and old Harris, who 
let the boys out before twelve. He deserve 
good wages !" 

" Having sent the young ladies to the 
family mansion, I told the boys to break 
up, and in a few minutes they who had 
even breathed with circumspection, now 
gave loose to the most riotous merriment, 
and betook themselves to the woods, follow- 
ed by all the dogs on the plantation." 

" There was a carpenter on the planta- 
tion, whom Mr. Ball had hired by the year. 



PROGRESS OF COMMON OR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 



891 



He had tools of all kinds, and the recreation 
of Mr. Dye, after the labor of study, was to 
get under the shade of an oak, and make 
tables, or benches, or stools for the acade- 
my. So true is the assertion of Horace, 
that the cask will always retain the flavor 
of the liquor with which it is first impreg- 
nated. 

" ' Well, Mr. Dye, what are you doing ?' 

" ' I am making a table for the academy 
school.' 

" ' What wood is that ?' 

" ' It is white oak, sir.' 

" ' What, then you are skilled in trees, you 
can tell oak from hickory, and ash from fir ?' 

"'Like enough, sir. (Abroad grin.) I 
ought to know those things ; I served ray 
time to it.' 

"' Carpenter. — I find, sir, Mr. Dye has done 
with his old trade ; he is above employing 
his hands ; he wants work for the brain. 
Well ! laming is a fine thing ; there's noth- 
ing like laming. I have a son only five 
years old, that, with proper laming, I should 
not despair of seeing a member of Congress. 
He is a boy of genus ; he could play on the 
Jews-harp from only seeing Sambo tune it 
once.' 

" ' Mr. Dye. — I guess that's Billy ; he is a 
right clever child.' 

" ' Carpenter. — How long, sir, will it take 
you to learn Mr. Dye Latin ?' 

" ' Schoolmaster. — How long, sir, would it 
take me to ride from Mr. Ball's plantation 
to the plantation of Mr. Wormley Carter?' 

" ' Carpenter. — Why that, sir, I suppose, 
would depend upon your horse.' 

" ' Schoolmaster. — Well, then, sir, you 
solve your own interrogation. But here 
comes Dick. What has he got in his hand ?' 

" ' Mr. Dye. — A mole like enough. Who 
are you bringing that to, Dick V 

" ' Dick. — Not to you. You never gave 
me the taste of a dram since I first know'd 
you. Worse luck to me ; you New Jersey 
men are close shavers ; I believe you would 
skin a louse. This is a mole. I have 
brought it for the gentleman who came from 
beyond sea. He never refuses Dick a dram ; 
I would walk through the wilderness of Ken- 
tucky to serve him. Lord ! how quiet he 
keeps his school. It is not now as it was ; 
the boys don't go clack, clack, clack, like 
'Squire Pendleton's mill upon Catharpin 
Run!' 

" ' Schoolmaster. — You have brought that 
mole, Dick, for me.' 



" ' Dick. — Yes, master, but first let me tell 
you the history erf it. This mole was once 
a man; see, master (Dick exhibits the mole), 

it has got hands and feet just like \<>w and 
me. It was once a man, bat so proud, so 
lofty, so puffed-up, that God, to punish his 
insolence, condemned him to crawl under 
the earth.' 

" • Schoolmaster. — A good fable, and not 
unhappily moralized. Did you ever hear or 
read of this before, Mr. Dye V 

" ' Mr. Dye. — Nay (a broad grin), I am 
right certain it does not belong to iEsop. 
I am certain sure I >ick did not find it there.' 

"' Dick.— Find it where? I would not 
wrong a man of the value of a gram of corn. 
I came across the mole as I was hoeing the 
potato-patch. Master, shall I take it to the 
school-house? If you are fond of birds, I 
know now for a mocking-bird's nest ; I am 
only afeared those young rogues, the school- 
boys, will find out the tree. They play the 
mischief with every thing, they be full of 
devilment. I saw Jack Lockhart throw a 
stone at the old bird, as she was returning 
to feed her young ; and if I had not coaxed 
him away to look at my young puppies, he 
would have found out the nest.' 

"I had been three months invested in 
the first executive office of pedagogue, 
when a cunning old fox of a Sew Jersey 
planter (a Mr. Lee) discovered that his eld- 
est boy wrote a better hand than I. Fame 
is swift-footed; vires arquirit eundo ; the 
discovery spread far and wide; and whither- 
soever I went, I was an object for the hand 
of scorn to point his slow unmoving finger 
at, as a schoolmaster that could not write. 
Virginia gave me for the persecutions I 
underwent a world of sighs, her swelling 
heavens rose and fell with indignation at old 
Lee and his abettors. But the boy9 caught 
spirit from the discovery. I could perceive 
a mutiny breaking out among them ; and 
had I not in time broke down a few branches 
from an apple tree before my door, it is 
probable they would have displayed their 
gratitude for my instructions by throwing 
me out of my school-window. l'>ut by argu- 
ing with one over the shoulders, and another 
over the back, I maintained with dignity the 
first executive office of pedagogue. 

"I revenged myself amply on old Lee. 

It was the custom i>\' his son (a lengthy fel- 
low of about twenty) to come to the acade- 
my with a couple of huge mastitis at his 
heels. Attached to their master (par nobile 



892 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



f rat rum) they entered without ceremony 
Pohoke Academy, bringing with them myr- 
iads of fleas, wood-lice, and ticks. Nay, 
they would often annoy Virginia, by throw- 
ing themselves at her 'feet, and inflaming the 
choler of a little lap-dog, which I had bought 
because of his diminutive size, and which 
Virginia delighted to nurse for me. I could 
perceive the eye of Virginia rebuke me for 
suffering the dogs to annoy her ; and there 
lay more peril in her eye than in the jaws 
of all the mastiffs in Prince William County. 
" ' Mr. Lee,' said I, ' this is the third time 
I have told you not to convert the academy 
into a kennel, and bring your dogs to school.' 
Lee was mending his pen 'judgmatically.' 
He made no reply, but smiled. 

" I knew old Dick the negro had a bitch, 
and that his bitch was proud. I walked 
down to Dick's log-house'. Dick was beat- 
ing flax. 

" ' Dick,' said I, ' old Farmer Lee has 
done me much evil — (I don't like the old 
man myself, master, said Dick) — and his 
son, repugnant to my express commands, 
has brought his father's two plantation dogs 
to the academy. Revenge is sweet — ' 

" ' Right, master,' said Dick. ' I never 
felt so happy as when I bit off Cuffey's 
great toe and swallowed it — 

" ' Do you, Dick,' said I, ' walk past the 
school-house with your bitch. Lee's dogs 
will come out after her. Go round with 
them to your log-house; and when you have 
once secured them, hang both of them up by 
the neck.' 

" ' Leave it to me, master,' said Dick. 
' I'll fix the business for you in a few min- 
utes. I have a few fadoms of rope in my 
house — that will do it.' 

" I returned to the academy. The dogs 
were stretched at their ease on the floor. 
' Oh ! I am glad you are come,' exclaimed 
Virginia ; ' those great big dogs have quite 
scared me.' 

" In a few minutes Dick passed the door 
with his slut. Quick from the floor rose 
Mr. Lee's two dogs, and followed the female. 
The rest may be supplied by the imagina- 
tion of the reader. Dick hung up both 
the dogs to the branch of a pine-tree ; old 
Lee lost the guards to his plantation ; the 
negroes broke open his barn, pilfered his 
sacks of Indian corn, rode his horses in the 
night — and thus was I revenged on Alexan- 
der the coppersmith. 

" Three months had now elapsed, and I 



was commanded officially to resign my sove- 
reign authority to Mr. Dye, who was in 
every respect better qualified to discharge 
its sacred functions. He understood tare 
and tret, wrote a copper-plate hand, and, 
balancing himself upon one leg, could flour- 
ish angels and corkscrews. I, therefore, 
gave up the ' academy school' to Mr. Dye, 
to the joy of the boys, but the sorrow of 
Virginia." 

Whilst schools were thus poorly equipped 
and the instruction given was thus defective 
in its methods and meagre in its extent, it 
becomes of interest to inquire whence such 
a measure of general intelligence and so 
many individual cases of attaining to an emi- 
nent position in society. This was the re- 
sult of no single cause alone, but of a variety 
in combination. 

The first of these that may be named, both 
in its influence upon childhood and upon 
manhood, was the necessity of a hard fought 
battle for existence, but relieved by the as- 
surance that victory would be the reward of 
persistent exertion. Its results were robust- 
ness, patience of toil, resoluteness and per- 
severance in encountering difficulties, and 
fertility of resources. The rustic lad, — and 
making the necessary variations, we include 
the female sex with the representative male, 
— the rustic lad who had been trained to 
help his parents from the moment he had 
acquired strength to steady his steps, to toil 
on all the same whether the bright sun 
cheered him or the chill air benumbed his 
limbs ; whether his tasks were varied, pleas- 
ant and light, or, on the contrary, he had 
learned patience, marching beside the patient 
ox all the long hours of a long spring day, 
the animals only alternating with others 
which served as relays ; and had been no 
stranger to such discipline as picking stones 
in the stubble whilst the sad heavens distil- 
led a drizzly rain, they condensing all their 
gloom in his soul, but withheld those large 
and frequent drops which would have been 
the signal of his release; and among the 
least severe of whose lessons in acquiring 
hardihood had been, in gathering the fruits 
of autumn, to face its frosts without mittens 
or shoes ; this lad found nothing in the diffi- 
culties of the school-room to appall him, and 
storms and deep drifts rather added zest to 
his daily walks. No unintelligible jargon of 
the spelling book, no abstruse section in his 
reader, was an overmatch for his industry. 



PROGRESS OF COMMON OR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 



893 



True, he did not understand all he studied, 

but he learned to spell and to read and to 
commit to memory what was assigned him. 
And when he took his arithmetic, which con- 
tained only definitions, rules and examples, 
although his teacher vouchsafed him little 
explanation, he had perseverance enough to 
ponder every dark process till light broke 
through. And there were instances of hoys 
who worked for consecutive hours and days 
at problems confessedly some of the most 
knotty that could" he found, till at last their 
unaided exertions were rewarded with suc- 
cess, which brought more exquisite joy than 
ever thrilled the finder of a rare gem. These 
exceptional cases stimulated the more dull, 
and most became possessed of at least the 
rudiments of the science, quite sufficient for 
practical life, or which under the stimulus of 
necessity became subsequently enlarged to 
that extent. In manhood no blind adherence 
to traditional methods was or could be ob- 
served. Emergencies were constantly arising 
which taxed ingenuity to the utmost in de- 
vising the fitting expedients to meet them. 
It was a daily study to make the narrowest 
means serve the same ends as the amplest. 
Hard thought was expended without stint 
upon labor-saving processes, improvements 
and inventions. Thus was gained a disci- 
pline of mind beyond what the higher col- 
lege mathematics usually imparts, and oft- 
times a readiness in applying mechani- 
cal principles, of which many an engineer 
trained in the schools is utterly devoid, how- 
ever prompt he may be in the routine to 
which he is accustomed. 

The family training, aside from the inuring 
of children to patient industry, contributed 
greatly to their profiting from their school 
privileges. To do or not to do was not then 
left so generally to the child's pleasure. He 
was made to obey before he had experienced 
the delight of carrying into effect his own 
will in opposition to that of others ; and 
thus was formed the habit of unquestioning 
compliance with the requirements of parents. 
When the child could understand the sub- 
ject, he was taught that however irksome at 
times were the tasks imposed upon him, it 
was only in virtue of the allotment that man 
was to eat bread by the sweat of his brow, 
and that only by a cheerful performance of 
what was within his power could he make a 
return for the care he was continually re- 
ceiving. Thus from a sense of religious and 
filial obligation the rigor of their early disci- 



pline was the more easily sustained. Self- 
control and a certain measure of self-reliance 
were results of the discipline of infancy 
even ; and in advancing childl d it was in- 
culcated in the house and in the field, that 
each must depend upon himself for what* 
ever he was to be and to possess in life. 
And knowledge, knowledge thai was uol the 
mere blind recipient of instruction, intelli- 
gent knowledge which perceived relations, 
and reasoning knowledge which could make 
the practical application as opportunity 
served, was set forth as the condition indis- 
pensable to render exertion successful. I tence 
it was a prized privilege to go to school, as 
well as a pleasant exchange for physical toil 
for a brief period, an exchange of work at 
home for another variety of work in the 
school-room, not of one manner of busy idle- 
ness and mischief for another. Also in many 
cases the home was itself a school, and either 
that knowledge was there gained which oth- 
ers acquired at school, or study was further 
pursued under the guidance of parent, or 
brother or sister, who by some happy gift 
of Providence had required little tuition. 
Often also, winter evenings or other hours, 
when the labor of one pair of hands might 
be spared, were passed in the social reading 
of instructive books. 

The listening every seventh day to two 
discourses, wherein were discussed the deep- 
est theories which can be proposed to man, 
may be named as an additional item in the 
answer to our inquiry. The clergymen of 
that day had received the best education 
that the country afforded, and were daily 
cultivating intimacy with the profoundest 
theologians. Thus they had ever thoughts 
which they had originated or had made their 
own to present. And these thoughts were 
inwardly digested by a goodly number of 
their hearers, and becoming a part ^>t' their 
being, they too 

" reasoned hiprh 
Of Providence, foreknowledge, will and 
Fixed fate, t'ne will, foreknowledge abso 

and if they "found no end," they were not 
" in wandering mazes lost," for, unlike the 
lost angels, they ruled their discussions by 
the infallible word of inspiration. It cannot 
be said that Berious thought then bored, ot 
that the sparkle of the unsubstantial poem 
chiefly drew, or that triviality was the char- 
acteristic of the multitude. 

The study of one book, and that the Bible, 
simple enough in parts to meet the under- 



894 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



standing of the little child, and of interest 
enough to absorb his attention, and in other 
parts of depths which no finite intellect can 
sound, and everywhere wise above the wis- 
dom of men, and without any alloy of error, 
was one of the most efficacious means of 
raising the mass of the people in intelligence, 
and in educating a few, who made it their 
constant meditation, to a nicety of discrimi- 
nation and a profundity of thought truly 
wonderful. Take as an example one silvery 
haired man whose memory is cherished with 
veneration. His school privileges had been 
less even than the scanty amount of most 
of his contemporaries, hardly amounting to 
three winter schools in all. Moreover, weak- 
ness of the eyes almost cut him off from 
reading books and papers throughout his 
life. But he was able to read daily a few 
verses, sometimes several chapters, in his 
large quarto Bible, and when he read aloud, 
all untaught as he was, he read with a natu- 
ralness and gave the sense, so that the hearer 
marvelled. Comparing scripture with scrip- 
ture, he had attained to a skill in interpret- 
ing which seldom erred. His quickness in 
detecting a fallacy or in observing a doc- 
trine which harmonized not with the living 
oracles was surpassed by very few of even 
the most highly educated of schoolmen. He 
was exceedingly retiring, but to the few who 
knew him, his life and his language seemed 
as correct as the words of that book on 
which both, with perfect naturalness, with- 
out any tinge of formality or quaintness, were 
modeled. Who will venture to say that this 
man's education was not incomparably supe- 
rior to that of him who has delved a whole 
life in conflicting systems, who has sought 
to know the thoughts of all reported as 
great, but who has settled nothing for him- 
self? 

The political principles which found their 
expression in the declaration of independ- 
ence, and which were a cherished inheri- 
tance from the fathers, leading to a general 
participation in the government of the coun- 
try, and producing the habit of earnestly 
debating every question of public concern, 
had no small share of influence in exciting 
intensity and energy of mental action. By 
the fireside, in the field, at the corners of the 
streets, in the shops and stores, those pow- 
ers were developed which had further exer- 
cise in the town meeting, and carried their 
possessor to some humble position of trust 
or authority ; and when here trained and 



shown to be capable of sustaining higher 
responsibilities, advanced him again, so that 
he who had forged iron chains, was chosen 
to fashion the more efficacious restraints of 
laws; he who had occupied the cobbler's 
seat, was promoted to the bench of justice ; 
and he who had been wont to rule oxen was 
thought worthy to govern men. 

The newspaper, and the family, and the 
village library contributed largely to the 
general intelligence. The weekly paper fur- 
nished no small part of the topics of conver- 
sation in the family and among neighbors, 
and, in particular, supplied the pabulum for 
political discussions. The few books owned 
or borrowed were carefully read again and 
again. The small proprietary libraries fur- 
nished some of the most valuable histories 
and the choicest works in belles-lettres. It 
was not of rare occurrence to find persons 
who showed familiarity with Rollin, Fergu- 
son, Gibbon, Robertson, and Hume ; and 
sometimes one might even be met, who 
could give an orderly account of an entire 
work of these authors ; and there were many 
who could repeat favorite poems, peradven- 
ture even the entire Night Thoughts of Dr. 
Young, if that was the chosen vade mecum. 
Even some children of twelve or fifteen years 
of age, — barefoot boys who had only " noon- 
ings" and the time they might gain by man- 
ual dexterity in accomplishing their " stents," 
— had perused several of the voluminous 
historians named above. How will such 
lads compare in mental strength and vigor 
with children who willingly read nothing but 
the most exciting tales or the most intellec- 
tual pap made toothsome ? 

The observation of men and of nature, 
pursued to good advantage where no un- 
bending usages restrained free development 
of character, no wrappings of conventionali- 
ties gave a uniform semblance to all, where 
the woods and the waters and the inhabi- 
tants thereof had only begun to recognize 
the dominion of man, quickened too by 
the necessity of turning to account every 
item of knowledge that could be gained, was 
an ample equivalent for the more compre- 
hensive speculations of mental philosophy 
and the scientific nomenclatures and descrip- 
tions of natural history to be learned from 
the mouth of the lecturer. 

Finally, those defective schools of the past 
generation did place the key of knowledge 
in the hands of the inquisitive ; which is 
nearly all that the schools can now do. 



COMMON SCHOOLS AND ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION. 



895 



CHAPTER IV. 

PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT OF SCHOOLS 
AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS OF PUBLIC 
INSTRUCTION. 

INTRODUCTION. 

Br common or public schools in tins 
chapter is understood that grade or class of 
educational institutions which the State 
provides or secures for all its children, in the 
rural districts as well as in the crowded city, 
wherever a human being is to be found on 
its territory capable of receiving that formal 
instruction which is essential to the healthy 
physical, moral, and intellectual growth of 
each individual, and to the attainment of 
that amount of knowledge which the per- 
formance of every day business and the 
universal duties of citizenship require. It 
is common, because it is the debt which the 
community owes to every citizen for their 
good and its security. It is public, because 
it is established by the State through 
agencies of its appointment or providing, 
conducted according to the rules of its 
prescribing or authorization, supported by 
funds protected or furnished by its legislation, 
accessible to all pupils upon terms of 
equality, and subject to such inspection as 
the law may institute. It is not necessarily 
gratuitous ; it may be free or cheap — but it 
can not be common if the cost is beyond the 
reach of the poorest. Although public, it is 
not beyond legal control. It is everywhere 
subject to such limitations as to age, attend- 
ance, studies, books, and teachers as the State 
may prescribe ; and it must exist by force 
of law, general or special, and be managed 
by agents who have their authority direct or 
indirect from legal provisions, and its privi- 
leges must be open to all children on equal 
terms. It is no longer limited in its range 
of instruction to the few elementary studies, 
or to mere children. Studies which formerly 
belonged to the academy or college are now 
parts of the curriculum in the higher classes 
or grades of the common school, especially 
in cities and large villages. 

Although originating at different times, 
and projected after different models, and 
modified by differing conditions of nation- 
ality, occupation, and religious opinions or 
practices, the American Common or Public 
School, however widely separated in terri- 
tory, is now subjected to common social and 
political influences, and is fast approximating 



to a common organization, and to similar, 
and almost identical systems of administra- 
tion, instruction and discipline. It is doubt- 
ful if the institution attains its highest effi- 
ciency and broadest usefulness, bj this legal 
uniformity. Large bodies of children will 
be thrown out of its influence altogether ; 
bitter antagonisms between bodies of citizens 
will be engendered; and the teaching power 
of the schools will not find that field and 
stimulus for individual expansion and orig- 
inal methods and special adaptations, which 
greater liberty of instruction, and m< »re diver- 
sified preparation and administration would 
create. It is not impossible that the recent 
rapid approach to uniformity in organization, 
administration, instruction and discipline, will 
be arrested and modified by the independent 
action of State and city systems, as soon as 
each becomes again more subject to peculiar 
local influences. 

The constitutional provision of any State 
is indicative only of the policy of a com- 
paratively few men on the subject of schools 
and education, and is mainly serviceable in 
protecting funds specially appropriated to 
these purposes from being devoted to other 
objects, and in giving the friends of these 
interests a firm ground to stand on in their 
advocacy of the same. The constitutions 
and school acts since 1865 in the States re- 
cently engaged in the rebellion, and pros- 
trated in its suppression, have been adopted 
for the protection of the enfranchised col- 
ored population, and are not in harmony 
with the former habits and present convic- 
tions of a large majority of the old voters. 
It will take years before this great interest 
of schools and education can get adjusted to 
the new relations of parties, and firmly es- 
tablished in the habits of Bociety. 

We shall now proceed to give a compre- 
hensive survey of the progressive develop 
ment of Common or Public schools in each 
State, and at the same time indicate at least 
statistically, the condition of the State in re- 
spect to other educational institutions and 
agencies. For convenience of reference w« 
shall present the States in their alphabetical 
order and not in the more logical order of 
the chronological establishment and de- 
velopment of schools in the same. To ap- 
preciate the greater or less rapidity and 
efficiency ot' the movement we shall indicate 
the date of settlement, the organization of 
the government, the growth of population, 
and the resources of each State, and the 
latest statistical results. 



896 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



I. ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION. 

ALABAMA. 

Alabama belonged to the State of 
Georgia till 1802, when by cession it be- 
came part of the Territory of Mississippi 
until 1817, when it was organized as an in- 
dependent Territory, and admitted a State 
in 1819, with a population in 1820, 127,- 
901 ; which had increased in 1870 to 996,- 
992, (475,510 colored); on an area of 
50,722 square miles ; and taxable property 
to the value of $157,770,387. 

The earliest constitution of Alabama 
(1819) ordains that 'schools and the means 
of education shall forever be encouraged,' 
and the General Assembly is directed to pro- 
tect (1,) the land grants of the United States 
for the use of schools within each township ; 
and (2,) the Seminary lands ' for a State uni- 
versity for the promotion of the arts, litera- 
ture and science.' 

The Constitution of 1867 ordains the ap- 
pointment of a Superintendent of Public In- 
struction, — elected at the same time and in 
the same manner as the Governor, and of a 
Board of Education, consisting of the Super- 
intendent and the Governor ex-officio, and 
two members elected for a term of four 
vears, for each Congressional District. The 
Board of Education is declared a body 
corporate and politic, ' with full legislative 
powers in reference to the public educational 
institutions of the State, and its acts when 
approved by the Governor, or when reenacted 
by two-thirds of the Board in case of his dis 
approval, shall have the effect of law, unless 
repealed by the General Assembly.' This 
Board of Education is constituted a Board 
of Regents for the State University, and 
when sitting as such, has power to appoint 
the president and faculty. Of the Board of 
Regents, the president of the University is, 
ex-ojficio, a member for consultation. To 
the support of public schools the constitu- 
tion continues the appropriation of all lands 
and other property donated to the State by 
the United States and individuals for educa- 
tional purposes, and one-fifth of the aggregate 
annual revenue of the State, and of any 
specific tax which the General Assembly may 
levy upon all railroad, navigation, banking 
and insurance companies, foreign or domes- 
tic, doing business in the State. 

The peculiar legislative and administrative 
school authorities provided by the State in 



the constitution of 1867, has not had thus 
far, a favorable field, or sufficient time to de- 
velop its legitimate results. The attempts 
to establish an efficient system of public 
schools, based on the original U. S. town- 
ship land grants (16th section), by ordinary 
legislation, from the first State law of 1823 
down to 1854, had entirely failed. In the 
year last named, to give efficiency to previous 
laws, a State Superintendent was appointed, 
additional resources were provided by set- 
ting aside the income of the U. S. Surplus 
Revenue fund deposited with the State, and 
the avails of certain swamp lands, and a 
direct appropriation of $100,000 out of the 
aggregate annual State tax. Under the 
active labors and legislative reports of the 
Superintendent, the holding of Teachers' 
Institutes, the meetings of a State Educa- 
tional Association, the circulation of monthly 
issues of an Educational Journal, an intelli- 
gent public opinion was being created, and 
school officers were being educated to their 
work, when the war of Secession arrested 
the work of peace. The annihilation of all 
personal property, and the revolution of the 
old social and industrial system of the South 
which followed, has left a debris to be cleared 
away before any general system of education 
adapted to the new order of society can be 
organized and put in efficient operation. 

Under the legislative authority vested by 
the constitution in the Board of Education, 
and under the administration of a Superin- 
tendent of Public Schools, elected by the 
people for four years, a system has been in- 
stituted which in most of its features cor- 
responds to that which was growing up out 
of the legislation of 1854, and for its sup- 
port the superintendent in his report for 
1871 estimates that the sum of $700,000 
will be available in 1872. 

To assist the reorganization of public 
schools in Mobile, Montgomery, Selma, 
Huntsville, La Fayette, Girard, and Colum- 
biana, aid was extended by the agent of 
the Peabody Fund to the extent of about 
$5,000 in 1871. 

The census of 1870 returned 77,139 in 
school attendance, out of 342,976 of the 
school age (5 to 18 years); and 349,771 
persons over 10 years who could not read, 
and 383,012 who could not write. Out of 
2,969 schools of all kinds, with 75,866 
pupils, 57 are returned as classical colleges 
and academies, with 3,218 pupils, and 2,812 
public schools, with 67,000 pupils. 



COMMON SCHOOLS AND ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION. 



897 



ARKANSAS. 

Population— In 1840, 97,57-1; in 1870, 484,471— race, 362,- 
115 ie. ; 133,160 c. Arka — 52,198 iq hi.; person* to s.m., 
9 30; families, 96.135; per*, to fiun, 5.01; dwellings, 
98,195; per. to dw., 5.30; persona between 5 nnd 18, 
84,645 m., 80,815/. Taxable property, 894,168,843. 

Arkansas was organized a Territory in 
March, 1819, and admitted a State in 1830. 

The constitution of 1836 ordains that the 
General Assembly, in consideration that 
' knowledge and learning generally diffused 
throughout a community are essential to the 
preservation of a free government,' shall pro- 
vide by law for the school lands, and ' en- 
courage intellectual, scientific and agricul- 
tural improvements.' The State received 
886,460 acres of land for common schools, 
and 46,080 for a university, but the legisla- 
ture did not come up to the above require- 
ments of the above fundamental ordinance, 
and no serious, or at least no successful at- 
tempt was ever made to inaugurate a system 
of public schools. In 1854 the Secretary of 
the State, who was ex-ojficio, State Commis- 
sioner of Common Schools, reported only 40 
public schools, and complains of ' the indif- 
ference that pervades the public mind on the 
subject of education.' Owing to this in- 
difference, and fraudulent and defective legis- 
lation, the munificent land grants of the gen- 
cal government have been squandered, and 
the permanent school fund from these sources 
?'n 1870 was $35,192, instead of $2,000,000 
or $3,000,000, as might have been realized 
under honest and judicious management. 

The constitution of 1 868 ordains that ' the 
General Assembly shall establish and main- 
tain a system of free schools for the gratuit- 
ous instruction of all persons in the State be- 
t iveen the ages of five and twenty-one years,' 
and for their supervision, 'a superintendent 
and such other officers as may be necessary, 
shall be appointed.' A State university, 
' with departments for instruction in teaching, 
in agriculture and the natural sciences shall 
also be established and maintained.' 'To 
support these institutions, the proceeds of all 
school lands and other property before 
donated, or which may be donated to the 
State for educational purposes, shall consti- 
tute a School Fund, the annual income of 
which, together with one dollar per capita 
annually assessed on every male inhabitant 
over the age of 21 years, and so much more 
of the ordinary annual revenue of the State 
as shall be found necessary, shall be faithfully 
appropriated to the free schools and univer- 
sities, and to no other purpose whatever.' 
47 



In view of these provisions, a school sys- 
tem was established in 1869, the authorities 
of which are: (l,) aState Superintendent, 
elected every four years ; (2,) a Circuit Super- 
intendent, appointed by die Governor for 
each judicial district, of which there are ten ; 
(3,) a State Board <>f Education, composed 
of the State and Circuit Superintendents; 
(4,) a single trustee for each school district, 
and (5,) a city Superintendent for each incor- 
porated city. The Circuit Superintendent 
gives his entire time to the interests of the 
schools, holds a Teachers' Institute in his 
district every year, examines all candidates 
for the office of public school teacher, and 
issues three grades of certificates — the first 
of which is valid in his district for 2 years, the 
second for 1 year, and the third for month-. 

The report of the Superintendent to the 
Governor at the close of 1870, made a very 
fair exhibit of schools, teachers and expen- 
ditures compared with any thing before pub- 
lished. In the two years 1869 and 1870, 
657 new school-houses have been built, mak- 
ing in all 1,289; of 182,474 children (white 
and colored) between the ages of 5 and 21, 
107,908 have attended school of some kind ; 
2,537 schools had been taught by 2,302 
teachers, of whom 944 attended the 4L 
Teachers' Institutes which had been held. 
The entire sum expended for the public 
schools was $583,844, of which $334,952 
was from direct tax. 

The Arkansas Journal of Education was 
established in 1870, ami made the organ of 
the State Board in 1871. A State Teachers' 
Association was organized in 1869, and has 
held three annual meetings. The Peabody 
Fund furnished aid in 1870 to the amount 
of $9,450. 

The National census for 1870 returns 
1,978 schools of all kinds, under 3,008 
teachers, of whom 902 were females. ( ff 
these schools 1,744 are public, with 1,966 
teachers and 72,004 pupils. Under the head 
of classical, professional and technical insti- 
tutions, there are s colleges (so-called), 46 
academies, 1 school of theology, 1 of medi- 
cine and one for the blind and deaf mutes. 

These statistics returned for some Si 
would be significant, but names are not 
things, or at least schools, in the light which 
official reports throw on their actual condi- 
tion in Arkansas, especially when the same 
census returns 111,799 persons over 10 
years old who can not read, add 133,339 
who can not write. 



898 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



CALIFORNIA. 

Population in 1850, 92,597 ; in 1870, 560,247 ; race, 499,424 
w. and 4,272 c. Are*, 198,181 sq. m. ; persons, 2.29 to sq. 
m. ; families, 128,752; persons to a /am., 4.35; dwellings, 
12(5,307; pers. to a dw., 4.44 ; persons 5 to 18, 71,085 m., 
06,043 /. Tuxable property, $209,644,068. 

California was settled by the Spanish as 
early as 1769, and became part of the terri- 
tory of the United States by treaty with 
Wisconsin in 1848, and was admitted into 
the Union in 1850. 

The constitution of 1849 provides for the 
election by the people of a superintendent 
of public instruction, and enjoins on the 
legislature ' the establishment of a system 
of common schools, by which a school shall 
be kept in each district at least three months 
in each year,' and deprives each district 
which neglects to do so, of its share in the 
interest of the public fund during such 
neglect. The proceeds of all lands donated 
by the United States Government for school 
or university purposes, including 500,000 
acres donated for internal improvements, are 
to be set aside inviolably and without dim- 
inution for such purposes and no other. 
Under this injunction and wise legislative 
•counsels, a system of public schools was at 
once established, and within the last ten years 
has been developed into proportions and 
•efficiency, especially in the large towns, 
which may challenge comparison with any in 
the country. Without noticing the succes- 
sive enactments, many of them important, 
by which the system was developed, we find 
in the constitution, and revised school law 
of 1866 the following features: 

1. A State Superintendent, elected for a 
term of four years by the people. 

2. A State Board of Education, consist- 
ing of the Governor, the State Superintend- 
ent, the Principal of the State Normal School, 
the Superintendent of the city and county of 
San Francisco, and of the respective counties 
of Sacramento, Santa Clara and San Joaquin, 
and two professional teachers holding State 
certificates of competency and experience, 
nominated by the State Superintendent and 
elected by the Board. To this Board is as- 
signed the duty of ' adopting a course of 
study, and rules and regulations for all public 
schools, to prescribe a uniform system of text- 
books, and a list of books suitable for school 
libraries, to grant diplomas to teachers and 
regulate their examinations.' 

3. A County Superintendent for each 
county, elected at the general election, to 
hold office for two years, who must visit all 



the schools in his county at least once a year, 
distribute and see to the enforcement of all 
regulations and circulars of the State Board, 
hold Teachers' Institutes, keep on file the 
State Educational Journal, and all printed 
reports and documents of the Superintend- 
ent, and all reports of school officers and 
teachers, as well as an official record of his 
own doings and of the county board of ex- 
amination, on the penalty of a forfeiture of 
$100 from his official salary in case of failure. 

4. Three trustees for each school district, 
one elected each year and holding office for 
three years, to whom the local management 
of the school, as to teachers, books and 
school-houses belongs, subject to the regula- 
tions of the State and county officers. 

The law provides for a State Normal 
School, Teachers' Institutes, and State and 
County Boards of Examination composed of 
teachers, exclusively. It also deals specific- 
ally with many points which are left doubt- 
ful or discretionary in other States, such as : 
a gradation of schools into primary, gram- 
mar and high ; a limitation of school hours 
for children under eight years to four hours, 
and for all schools to six hours, a school 
month to twenty school days, or four weeks 
of five school days ; making the parents of 
pupils liable for damages to school property 
of any kind ; making profanity and vulgarity 
good cause for suspension, and continued 
willful disobedience and open defiance of the 
teacher's authority, good cause for expulsion ; 
exempting all teachers from professional em- 
ployment on days as may be declared public 
holidays, State or national ; the necessity of 
teachers attending the Institute for their 
county, and of the State Superintendent 
subscribing for a copy of an Educational 
Journal in which the official circulars, decis- 
ions and laws relating to schools are pub- 
lished, for each county and city and district 
officer. Teachers are enjoined ' to instruct 
their pupils in the principles of morality, 
justice, and patriotism, and to train them up 
to a true comprehension of the rights, duties, 
and dignity of American citizenship.' 

According to the official reports, there were 
in 1870, 1,354 public schools, under 1,687 
teachers (961 females), maintained at a 
total expenditure of $1,290,585, of which 
$847,229 was raised by tax. The productive 
capital of the school fund is $2,000,000. 

The census of 1870 returned 24,877 per- 
sons over 10 years old who could not read, 
and 312,716 who could not write. 



COMMON SCHOOLS AND ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION'. 



899 



CONNECTICUT. 

Connecticut on becoming a State con- 
tinued the educational policy commenced in 
the colonial law of 1650, and much earlier 
in the original towns, which composed both 
the colonies of Connecticut and New Haven 
— in all of which schools were instituted 
within one year after the first settlements 
were made. At the beginning of this 
century the system of public instruction 
embraced (1,) a common school in every 
neighborhood where at least twelve children 
could be gathered for elementary instruction ; 
(2,) an endowed grammar school, or incor- 
porated academy, in the county town, or 
one or more private schools for classical in- 
struction in all the large parishes of the 
State ; (3,) a college for superior instruction 
at New Haven, with special reference to the 
ministry, and the ' learned professions ' of 
law and medicine. The common school 
authorities were: (1,) a school committee 
(of three persons) for each school society 
(which corresponded to the parish — and of 
which there was one or more for each town,) 
which looked after the financial affairs ; 
(2,) a district committee, appointed by the 
society, for each district, to employ the 
teacher and look after the local matters; and 
(3,) school visitors, (of which the clergy- 
man was always a member) whose business 
it was to visit the schools and certify to the 
competency of the teachers. 

The State exercised its direct authority in 
the supervision of the common schools for 
the first time in 1838, when, under the lead 
of Henry Barnard, a member of the Legis- 
lature from Hartford, a State Board, entitled 
Commissioners of Education, was instituted, 
with a secretary as its executive officer. 
The duties of the board were mainly to 
collect and disseminate information and 
awaken public interest in behalf of the 
schools, and the means of popular education 
generally. Out of the action of that board, 
and of the Massachusetts Board of Educa- 
tion established in 1837, have been devel- 
oped the measures of educational reform and 
the systems of public instruction which now 
exist in every one of the United States. 

I. The system of Common Schools in 
Connecticut is administered by (1,) State 
Board of Education, composed of the Gov- 
ernor, Lieut. Governor, and four persons, 
one from each Congressional district, and 
charged with the general supervision and 
control of the educational interests of the 



State, with special power to prescribe what 
books shall be used, but not to require any 
book to be changed oftener than oner in 
five years; to prescribe tin- form of all 
school reports; to establish and manage a 
State Normal School, and hold conventions 
of teachers; and to appoint a secretary, 
whose business it is made to exercise a gen- 
eral supervision over the public school-, to 
visit different parts of the State for the pur- 
pose of awakening and guiding public senti- 
mcnt in relation to the practical interests of 
education, to collect school-books, apparatus, 
maps, and charts as can be obtained without 
expense to the State, and to report annually 
to the board on the condition of Normal 
schools and other public schools of the State. 

(2,) A Board of School Visitors for each 
town, of six or nine members, as the town 
may determine, who prescribe regulations 
for the management, studies, classification, 
and discipline of the public schools; exam- 
ine candidates and issue certificates of quali- 
fications to such as they find qualified. If 
authorized by the towns, this board may 
employ the teachers for the schools ; visit 
the schools through one or more of their 
members, called an acting visitor or visitors; 
and report to the town and the board an- 
nually, and when required. 

(3,) A committee of each district, charged 
with all matters of local management, unless 
the same shall have been transferred by 
the town to the school visitors. 

The law designates certain branches in 
which the teachers must be found qualified 
to teach, and which any parent may require 
his child, if properly qualified, to receive 
instruction, viz., reading, writing, arithme- 
tic, and grammar thoroughly, and the rudi- 
ments of geography, history, and drawing. 

From the year lii.50, it has been made by 
law the duty of all parents and guardians 
of children ' to bring them up in some hon- 
est and lawful calling, and to cause them 
to be instructed, 1 originally ' to read the 
Holy Word of God and other good law- of 
the colony,' but by existing statute ' in read- 
ing, writing, English grammar, geography 
ami arithmetic. 1 By the existing law, 'any 

child between the ages of B and 14 mint 
attend some school, public- or private, or be 
instructed at home, at leasl three months in 
each year, unless the physical or mental 
condition renders such instruction inexpe- 
dient. And no child under 1 t can be em- 
ployed to labor in any business, whatever, 



900 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



unless he has attended school three months 
out of the twelve preceding, under a pen- 
alty of $100 for each offense. Each city or 
town may make all needful regulations con- 
cerning habitual truants from school, or 
children under 16 years of age found loiter- 
ing during school hours, with prescribed 
modes for their arrest, penalties, and for re- 
peated convictions, their sentence to the 
State Reform School, and in case of girls, to 
the Girls' Industrial School. To carry out 
these provisions relative to children engaged 
in factory labor, the State Board appoint an 
agent who visits the localities, confers with 
employers and teachers, and thus, without 
actually appealing to penalties, secure the 
enforcement of the law. But the statistics 
Oi the Secretary's report for 1872, and the 
national census of 1870, show that the aim 
of the law — universal school attendance, 
and universal elementary instruction at 
home or at school, are not now reached. 
The census shows that there were 29,616 
persons over 10 years old, of all races, 
who were returned as illiterate — over 
19,000 who could not read, and over 
29,000 who could not write. Of the 
29,016 thus returned, 27,913 were white, 
and of these 5,678 were native born. 
Out of 131,748 persons over 4 and under 
16 years of age in January, 1872, only 
83,095 were registered as scholars in public 
schools in the summer of 1872, and 94,408 
in the winter of 1872. If to these we add 
8,754 in private schools, it leaves 11,947 
not in any school, public or private. 

In 1871, there were 166 towns; 1,535 
school districts, with 1,630 schools, classi- 
fied into 2,290 departments, under 2,420 
teachers (2,194 females), of whom 595 had 
not taught before ; the State School Fund, 
$2,048,375 ; Town Deposit Fund, $763,661 ; 
Local School Fund, $150,000; valuation 
of taxable property, $322,553,488. The 
income in 1871 was, from permanent funds, 
$183,262; from town and district taxation, 
$1,052,545; from rate-bills, $267,809,— 
total $1,503,617. 

The educational institutions of the State 
in 1872 consisted of (1,) 1,630 common 
schools; 100 academies, seminaries, and 
high schools of secondary instruction ; 3 
colleges, 8 professional and special schools, 
1 teaching, 3 theology, 1 law, 1 medicine, 
1 science applied to engineering, agriculture, 
and architecture, 1 art — industrial and 
ideal, 1 deaf mute, 1 imbecile, and 290 
private schools of every grade and aim. 



DELAWARE. 

Delaware was the first State to ratify the 
Federal Constitution (1789), and one of the 
earliest to ordain by constitution (1792) 
that ' the Legislature shall, as soon as con- 
veniently may be, provide by law for estab- 
lishing schools and promoting arts and sci- 
ences.' But the act of 1796 'to create a 
fund sufficient to establish schools,' and all 
subsequent acts of 1797, 1816, 1817, 1821, 
' to increase the fund or pay the tuition of 
poor children,' or of 1829 'to provide for 
free schools,' or of 1830 and 1832, 1833 and 
1835 supplementary and additional thereto, 
or of 1837 appropriating the income of the 
U. S. Surplus Revenue Fund for the benefit 
of the school districts, and all subsequent 
acts (1852, 1857, 1858, 1861) have failed to 
go to the root of the matter by making it 
obligatory on the towns or hundreds to estab- 
lish and maintain public schools, not for the 
poor, but for all classes, and to raise by tax 
on the taxable property of such town or 
hundred, a minimum sum for the support of 
such schools, and then subjecting teachers 
to an examination, and the schools to regular 
visitation, by a committee responsible to the 
State and to the local community for the 
performance of their duties. From this 
general remark should be excepted the city 
of Wilmington, in which a system of public 
schools has been maintained under a special 
act of the Legislature, by which the school 
interest is committed to a board elected by 
the citizens, with power to establish schools 
and provide money for their support, by 
requisition on the city authorities. Down to 
1872, no provision was made by the State 
for education of the colored children, but by 
the aid of citizens, and the Freedmen's 
Bureau, 29 schools were maintained with 
2,104 pupils at an expense of $11,000. 

According to the national census of 1S70, 
out of a school population (5 to 18 years of 
age) of 40,807, only 19,965 were returned 
at school in the year previous, and out of 
the total population (125,015), 19,356 per- 
sons over 10 years could not read, and 
23,100 could not write. According to the 
same census there were 326 public schools 
under 388 teachers, with 17,835 pupils; 
9 academic institutions under 63 teachers 
and 859 pupils (including 2 classed as colleges 
with 15 teachers, of whom 8 are females, 
and 137 pupils, of whom 120 are females; 
and 38 private and parochial schools, with 
59 teachers and 1,881 pupils. 



COMMON SCHOOLS AND ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION. 



003 



FLORIDA. 

Florida was admitted into the United 
States in 1845, although settled earlier than 
other portions of the Union. Although the 
Constitution adopted in 1839, and that of 
1805 throw their protection around lauds 
granted 'for the use of schools and semin- 
aries of learning,' not much seems yet to 
have come of the lands (amounting to over 
1,000,000 acres), or to have been done for 
schools, until under the act of Jan. 30, 1869, 
by which (1,) a Superintendent of Public In- 
struction is appointed for the State, and (2,) 
County Superintendents for each. 

According to the national census of 1870, 
out of a school population (5 to 18 years of 
age) of 63,807, 12,778 were returned as at- 
tending school in the year previous. Of this 
number, 8,254 were white and 4,524 colored. 
Out of the entire population (187,748), 
66,238 persons over 10 years of age could 
not read, and 71,803 could not write, with 
taxable property to the valuation of $32,- 
480,843, and school lands yet undisposed of. 
A better exhibit may be anticipated in 1880 
over 1870, when the census returned 377 
public schools, with 14,000 pupils; 10 
academics, with 580 pupils, and 141 private 
schools, with 1,500 pupils. 



Georgia was one of the earliest to assert 
in its fundamental law (Constitution of 1777), 
that • schools shall be erected in each county, 
and supported at the general expense of the 
State,' and to make liberal appropriations to 
endow seminaries of learning. In 1783 the 
legislature donated 1,000 acres of land to 
each county for the support of free schools, 
and in the year following, 40,000 acres for 
the endowment of a university, and in 1792, 
one thousand pounds for the endowment of 
an academy in each county. In the preamble 
of the charter creating the University of 
Georgia in 1785, are these words: 'as it is 
the distinguishing happiness of free govern- 
ments that civil order should be the result 
of choice, and not necessity, and that the 
common wishes of the people become the 
laws of the land, their public prosperity and 
even existence depend very much on suitably 
forming the minds and morals of their citi- 
zens. * * * It should be among the 
first objects of those who wish well to the 
national prosperity, to support the principles 
of religion and morality, and early to place 
the youth under the forming hand of society, 



that by instruction they may be molded to 
the love of virtue and good order. Sending 
them abroad to other countries for an educa- 
tion will not answer.' To give effect to the 
last suggestion, in the same year it was 
enacted that 'if any person or persons under 

the age of sixteen years, shall, after the pas- 
sage of this act, he sent abroad without the 
limits of the United States, and reside there 
three years for the purpose of receiving an 
education under a foreign power, such per- 
son or persons, after their return to this 
State, shall for three years be considered and 
treated as aliens, in so far as uol to 1 lia- 
ble to a scat in the legislature or executive 
authority, or to hold any office, civil or mili- 
tary, in the State for that term, and so in 
proportion for any greater number of years 
as he or they shall be absent as aforesaid.' 
The Legislature at this period was in earnest, 
and comprehensive in its educational policy. 
In spite of numerous laws and liberal appro- 
priations designed to provide free elementary 
instruction for the poor, to establish at least 
one endowed academy in each county, and a 
university for higher and professional learn- 
ing for the whole State, the hindrances inci- 
dent to a new country, with its productive 
resources not developed, to a population set- 
tled and settling not in villages or groups, 
but in independent and isolated plantations, 
and more than all, to a radically unrepub- 
lican constitution of society, these laws failed 
to accomplish their beneficent objects. The 
provisions of the amended Constitution of 
1798, reordained-in that of 1839, that -the 
arts and sciences shall be promoted,' and 
' the General Assembly shall provide effectual 
measures' for elementary as well as higher 
institutes, did not establish free schools, pro- 
vide competent teachers, awaken public in- 
terest, or keep the legislature informed of the 
exact state of education in different part-- of 
the State. The national census of 1840, 
while it showed the existence of li colleges 
(so designated) with 022 students, and 176 
academies with 7,878, and only 001 primary 
schools with 15,501 pupils, for a white popu- 
lation of over 400,000, of whom 30,717 
persons (increased to 12,000 in 1850,) over 
2o years of age were returned unable to read 
and write. In L 848, and again in l 85 t and 
1856, after a personal visit of the writer <>( 
this article, and correspondence with promi- 
nent citizens, a plan was devised t.> creal 
system of common schools, open alike to 
rich and poor, supported by public tax. State 



904 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



and local, and administered by district, 
county and State commissioners. The plan 
met with favor in the legislature both in 1854 
and 1856, but failed in spite of the eloquent 
appeal of Hon. W. II. Stiles, Speaker of the 
House, ' Let us, by the passage of this bill, 
inaugurate a system of common schools in 
Georgia. In the name and in behalf of 
150,000 Georgians, between 5 and 20 years 
of age, who are growing up in ignorance of 
the duties and relations of civilized life, I 
demand it. In the name of 42,000 of my 
countrymen, over the age of 20 years, who 
are daily hurrying to the grave without being 
able to read for themselves the way of eternal 
life, I demand it. In the name and in be- 
half of the whole State, which we proudly 
call the ' Empire State of the South,' I demand 
it. And in what, pray, does her empire con- 
sist? In lands and tenements, in fields and 
stocks, in railroads and copper mines, but 
not in that which exceeds them all, in culti- 
vated intellect. It is an empire of matter, 
and not of mind, of darkness and not of 
light. Enlighten this darkness, efface from 
her escutcheon that foul blot of illiteracy 
which the census discloses, or never call her 
again the Empire State.' The census of 
1870 disclosed a progressive increase of illit- 
eracy ; the events of the war, having 
added the entire black race at once to the 
number of citizens, and the ranks of the 
illiterate, making 468,593 persons over 10 
years of age who could not read. 

In 1870 a school system was established, 
with the following school authorities : 

(1,) A State Board of Education, consist- 
ing of the Governor and other State officers, 
acting through a State School Commissioner. 
To this Board is given the apportionment of 
any State appropriation, and supervision. 

(2,) A County Board of Education, consist- 
ing of a member for each militia district. 
By this Board a County School Commis- 
sioner is elected, who thus becomes a mem- 
ber, and its secretary. To this Board belongs 
the examination of teachers, the inspection 
of schools, and the imposition of a tax. 

(3,) School Trustees for each militia dis- 
trict, which has been made a school district. 
This Boai'd manages the school, and reports 
to the County Commissioner. 

(4,) The city school authorities of Augusta, 
Columbia and Savannah, instituted by special 
acts, by which graded systems of public 
schools are established for the respective cities 
and the counties of which they form part. 



Illinois became one of the United States 
Dec. 3, 1818, with a population in 1S20 of 
55,211, which had increased in 1870 to 
1,680,637. By an ordinance dated Aug. 
26, 1818, the convention which framed the 
State Constitution accepted a proposition 
contained in act of Congress passed April 
18, 1818, as a condition precedent of the 
admission of the people of the Illinois Ter- 
ritory, and to be obligatory upon the United 
States, viz., ' That section numbered 16 in 
every township shall be granted to the State 
for the use of the inhabitants of said town- 
ship for the use of schools ; that five per 
cent, of the net proceeds of public lands 
within the State and sold by Congress after 
the first day of January, 1819, shall be re- 
served for the following purposes, viz., two- 
fifths for making roads leading to the State, 
and the residue shall be appropriated by the 
Legislature of the State for the encourage- 
ment of learning, of which one-sixth part 
shall be exclusively bestowed on a college 
or university.' 'That 36 sections, or one 
entire township, to be designated by the 
President of the United States, together 
with the one heretofore reserved for that 
purpose, shall be reserved for the use of a 
seminary of learning, and vested in the 
Legislature of said State to be appropriated 
solely to the use of such seminary.' 

Much legislation has been had on the 
management of the funds growing out of 
the lease and sale of the lands thus donated, 
and the controversy over the possession of 
portions of the avails of the United States 
reservations paid over to the State has not 
ceased. The capital of these funds in 1871 
was as follows: School Fund, $613,363; 
College or University Fund, $156,613; 
Seminary Fund, $59,839 ; County School 
Fund, $348,285; Congressional Township 
Fund, $4,868,555 ; Surplus Revenue Fund, 
$335,592; — Total, September 30th, 1872, 
$6,382,248. 

The first general school law was passed in 
1825, 'to provide for the establishment of 
free schools,' with the following preamble : 
'To enjoy our rights and liberties we must 
understand them ; their security and pro- 
tection ought to be the first object of a free 
people; and it is a well established fact that 
no nation has ever continued long in the 
enjoyment of civil and political freedom, 
which Avas not both virtuous and enlight- 
ened ; and believing that the advancement 



COMMON SCHOOLS AND ELEMENTARY - INSTRUCTION. 



909 



of literature always has been, and ever will 
be, the means of developing more fully the 
rights of man ; that the mind of every citi- 
zen in the republic is the common property 
of society, and constitutes the basis of its 
strength and happiness; it is, therefore, con- 
sidered the peculiar duty of a free govern- 
ment like ours, to encourage and extend the 
improvement and cultivation of the intel- 
lectual energies of the whole.' 

The upward and onward movement of 
common schools in Illinois dates from the 
legislation of 1854, for which preparation 
had been made by long and persistent indi- 
vidual and associated labor. Among 
these should be mentioned the seven 
founders (particularly Baldwin, Turner, and 
Sturtevant,) of the Illinois College from 
1829; the Ladies' Association for Educating 
Females, founded at Jacksonville in 1833; 
the Illinois Institute of Education, founded 
at Vandal ia in the same year; the Illinois 
State Educational Society, founded at 
Springfield in 1841 ; the Northwestern Edu- 
cational Society, begun in 1845; the In- 
dustrial Education Conventions, from 1851 ; 
the Teachers Association, county-wise from 
1845, and culminating in the State Associa- 
tions in 1853; the publications of the 
Common School Advocate in 1837, the 
Illinois School Advocate in 1841, the 
Prairie Farmer, and Illinois Teacher in 1853. 

In 1854 provision was made for the elec- 
tion by the people of a Superintendent of 
Public Instruction, to hold his office for two 
years, and whose whole time should be de- 
voted to the supervision of the common 
schools, to conferences with teachers and 
school officers, to public addresses in the 
different counties, and to the advancement 
of public education generally. He was 
specifically required to make a report every 
year, and in the year following his election, 
to report to the Legislature by bill 'a system 
of free school education throughout the 
State, to be supported by a uniform ad 
valorem tax upon property to be assessed 
and collected as the state and county 
revenue is assessed and collected.' 

In 1855 a bill for the thorough organiza- 
tion of the common schools was drawn up 
by the superintendent, the basis of winch 
was the principle of state and local taxation 
for educational purposes, and a series of 
school officers for local and general adminis- 
tration to secure uniformity and efficiency 
in the schools. The bill became a law, and 



under it were: (1,) A State Superintendent 
<>f Public Instruction, elected by tli<; people* 
(2,) A School Commissioner for each county-, 

elected by the township boards of educa- 
tion in that county. (3,) A Board of Edu- 
cation for each township. Provision was 
made for County School Conventions and 
Teachers' Institutes, and an examining com- 
mittee for each county. No Bchool could 
receive any portion of the slate or local 
school moneys unless it hail been kept tor 
at least six months for the equal and free in- 
struction of all persons. The law has been 
modified and revised from time to lime, 
and the system of public instruction has 
been extended by the addition of new insti- 
tutions until it has reached a high di 
of efficiency in the School Law of 1872. 

The. State now requires and secures of- 
ficial returns from all institutions established, 
incorporated, or aided to any extent out of 
public funds, and of the school attendance 
of all its children and youth, and the causes 
of the neglect of any person growing up in 
illiteracy, either white or black. Provision 
is made to protect the public schools against 
the employment of incompetent persona as 
teachers, by providing a Normal University, 
teachers' institutes, teachers' associations, 
the advice and co-operation of school officers, 
and then the thorough examination by ex- 
perts of all applicants in a range of specified 
studies as extensive as was ever before 
inserted in the qualifications of common 
school teachers, viz., orthography, reading 
in English, penmanship, arithmetic, English 
grammar, modern geography, the elements 
of natural science, the history of" the I nited 
States, physiology, and the laws of health, 
which the law declares must be thoroughly 
and efficiently taught; vocal music and 
drawing may be insisted on when deemed 
expedient by the directors. And these 
studies may be extended at the discretion of 
the Board of Education in all large cities. 

The school authorities are : 

(1,) State Superintendent, elected by the 
people for a term of four years, who i> the 
legal adviser of all school officers and 
teachers, and who must address the county 
superintendents by circular on all points 
touching the system, and the organiz- 
ation, instruction, and discipline <'\' Bcnools, 
and report annually to the Governor on the 
condition and improvement of the educa- 
tional institutions of the State. 

(•_',) County Superintendent, elected by 



906 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



the voters of each county to hold office for 
four years, who must visit at least once in 
each year every school in his county, and to 
note the method of instruction, the branches 
taug'ht, the text-books used, and the disci- 
pline, government, and general condition of 
the schools. He shall give such directions 
in the science, art, and method of teaching 
as he may deem expedient and necessary, 
and shall be the official adviser and constant 
assistant of the school officers and teachers 
of his county, and shall faithfully carry out 
the advice and instructions of the State 
Superintendent. He shall encourage the 
formation and assist in the management of 
county teachers' institutes, and labor in 
every practicable way to elevate the stand- 
ard of teaching, and improve the condition 
of the common schools of his county. In 
all controversies arising under the school 
law, his advice shall first be sought, and all 
appeals to the State Superintendent must be 
taken up on the statement of facts certified 
by him. In case of failure of any township 
officers to provide the authorized informa- 
tion and statistics, he can employ a com- 
petent person to examine all books and 
papers, and obtain and furnish the same. 

(3.) Township Trustees for each town- 
ship (one elected each year for a term of 
three year), who must secure an efficient 
school in each legally constituted district, 
for a period of six months in each year, and 
a High School for the winter term when so 
ordered by the town. 

(4,) District Directors, one for each dis- 
trict, into which a township may be divided, 
who must, among other items, report the 
names of persons over 12 and under 21 re- 
siding in the district unable to read and 
write, and the causes of such neglect. To 
this office is committed the power of levying 
a tax on the property of the district to con- 
tinue the school for not less than 5 or more 
than 9 months, and to excuse the attendance 
of children under 12 years for more than 
four hours each day. 

In 1872 there were 11,156 common 
schools (9 high, 651 graded, and 10,414 un- 
graded,) with 672,782 pupils under 20,285 
teachers (11,459 females), in 10,979 school- 
houses (cost, with ground and apparatus, 
$18,373,880); 58 academies and colleges; 
20 professional and special schools, 4 teach- 
ing, 2 law, 2 medicine, 2 agriculture, 1 
blind, 1 deaf mute, 2 commercial, 1 art, 
and 700 private schools. 



INDIANA. 

Indiana was organized as a Territory in 
1800, and admittted as a State in 1816, 
with a population in 1820 of 145,750, which 
in 1870 had increased to 1,680,637, with a 
valuation for taxable purposes of $663,- 
455,044. 

The history of education in Indiana com- 
mences with the Act of Congress of 1804 
providing for the sale of the public lands, 
which directed that the Secretary of the 
Treasury should select a township of land 
in several portions of the northwestern terri- 
tory for the use of seminaries of learning, 
and that the section numbered sixteen in 
each and every township should be reserved 
for the use of schools. No application of 
these lands was, however, made until 1816, 
when Congress passed an ordinance to enable 
the people of the Indiana Territory to form 
a constitution * and be admitted into the 
Union. That ordinance provided that one 
township of land, in addition to the one 
heretofore reserved, should be granted to 
the State of Indiana for the use of a semi- 
nary of learning, and that the sixteenth sec- 
tion in every township, and where that had 
been otherwise disposed of, other lands in 
lieu thereof should be granted for the use 
of schools. The proposition was accepted, 
and after the admission of the State of Indi- 
ana into the Union, a State University was 
established at Bloomington in Monroe county, 
and the proceeds of the sales of the two 
townships were directed to be funded, and 
the income thereof annually applied to the 
support of the institution. 

The constitution of 1816 makes it the 
duty of the General Assembly 'to provide 
by law for a general system of education, 
ascending in regular gradation from town- 
ship schools to a State University, where tui- 
tion shall be gratis and equally open to all.' 
This duty is reaffirmed in the constitution 
of 1851, with provision for the election of a 
superintendent, and a consolidation and 
enlargement of the Common School Fund, 
which is declared to consist of : 

(1,) Congressional Township Fund and 
land ; (2,) United States Surplus Revenue 
Fund ; (3.) Saline Fund and land belonging 
thereto; (4,) Bank Tax Fund; (5,) County 
Seminaries' Fund, and fines assessed for 
breaches of the penal laws; (6,) Swamp 
Land Funds. 

The aggregate of these funds in 1870 
amounted to $7,282,639, and the income 



COMMON SCHOOLS AND ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION. 



907 



from the same to about 8400,000, which was 
increased by property and capitation tax to 
the sam of #1,810,866. 

The first school law was enacted in 1821, 
which underwent many revisions and modi- 
fications, without producing efficient schools, 
and leaving Indiana in 1840 behind most of 
the other States, and in 1840, according to 
the national census (out of a population of 
988,416), there were 70,540 persons over 20 
years of age who could not read or write, 
of whom less than 1,000 were returned as 
native born. Under the energetic appeals 
of 'One of the People' {Prof. Caleb Mills 
of Wabash College,) addressed from year to 
year, from 1840 to 1848, to the people of 
Indiana, as a sort of supplement to the Gov- 
ernor's message, the Legislature was finally 
aroused to efficient action, and in 1848 an 
act to provide a system of free schools was 
passed. It having been left with the counties 
to repeal or adopt its provisions by popular 
vote for its respective townships, many 
counties adhered to the old defective system, 
but the Constitution of 1850, and the school 
law of 1855, brought up the legal require- 
ments to a higher and a uniform state, and 
from that time the schools have been under 
agencies which have constantly improved the 
quality of the instruction given, although 
they have not prevented an alarming amount 
of illiteracy, viz., 76,634 persons over 10 
years of age who could not read, and 187,- 
124 who could not write, according to the 
census of 1870. 

The system is now administered by : 
(1,) State Superintendent; (2,) State Board 
of Education, composed of State Superin- 
tendent, president of State University and 
State Normal School, and the superintend- 
ents of the three largest cities ; (3,) County 
Commissioners, one for each of the 92 
counties, who visit the schools of their re- 
spective townships, hold institutes, and ap- 
point; (4,) District Superintendents, who 
hold office for three years, and examine all 
candidates for teaching ; Township Trustees, 
who may, among other powers, introduce 
the study of the German language into any 
school where the pareuts or guardians of 25 
children demand it. 

In 1870, out of 619,627 children between 
the ages of 5 and 21, 462,527 attended in 
the 8,759 district and high schools (includ- 
ing 34 cities), taught by 11,846 teachers 
(4,722 females), and maintained at a cost 
of 11,810,866. 



Iowa was organized as a territory in 1838 
and admitted into the Union in 1846, with 
an area of 55,045 sq.m.,and a population in 
1850 of 192,214, whirl, has increased to 
1,191,792 in 1870, with taxable property 
valued at $302,615,418. The constitution 
of 1846 provides for the inviolability of 
the school and university funds, and' the 
election by the people of a superin- 
tendent of public instruction, to hold 
his office for three years, directs the Gen- 
eral Assembly to encourage intellectual, 
scientific, moral and agricultural improve- 
ments, and provide a system of common 
schools, by which a school shall be kept up 
and supported in each school district at least 
three months in every year. The amended 
constitution of 1857 goes into much detail, 
respecting the powers of a 'Board of Edu- 
cation for the State of Iowa,' to which was 
given ' full power to legislate and make all 
needful rules and regulations in relation to 
common schools, and other educational insti- 
tutions aided from the school or university 
funds, subject to the revision ami repeal of 
the General Assembly.' Power was reserved 
to the General Assembly to abolish or reor- 
ganize the Board of Education at any time 
after 1863, and provide for the educational 
interests of the State in- such manner as shall 
seem to them best and proper. The action 
of the Board, instituted according to the 
provisions of this constitution, did not prove 
acceptable to the people, and in 1864 the 
school system as established by them was 
reorganized by the General Assembly. 

By the act of 1863 and its subsequent 
amendments the school authorities are: 
(1,) State Superintendent, elected by the 
people for two years; (2,) County Superin- 
tendents, one for each county, elected tor 
two years; (3,) Township Board of Direct- 
ors, made up of three or more sub-directors 
for each township, who have the manage- 
ment of the township school fund ; and 
(4,) Sub-directot for each Bub-district, for 
the local management of the school. 

According to the report of L 871, there 
were 1,260 district townships, 844 inde- 
pendent districts (cities and villages), and 
7. 7n; sub-districts, with 7,829 schools, of 
which 289 are graded, in which are t 1 " high 
schools; out of 460,629 school population 
(bet wen 5 and 21 years) 841,93d attended 
school during the year, under 14,070 differ- 
ent teachers, at an aggregate salary of 



908 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



$1,900,893, in 7,594 school-houses, erected 
at a cost of 86,704,551, in which was school 
apparatus to the value of $104,359. In 
1871, 7,500 teachers met in 76 teachers' 
institutes. There are two School Journals 
and a State Teachers' Association. 

According to the national census in 1870 
there were 217,554 persons of all ages in 
7,496 schools, of which there were 1 normal, 
37 high, 41 grammar, 294 graded, and 6,949 
ungraded common schools ; 1 university, 
with 23 professors, and 403 pupils; 21 
classical colleges, and 34 academies, and 
5,200 pupils ; 1 school of law, 1 of medi- 
cine, and 4 of theology, with 209 pupils ; 
10 special schools, with 850 pupils; (1 ag- 
ricultural, 5 commercial, 1 blind, 1 deaf 
mutes, 2 music); 103 private schools, with 
5,300 pupils; and 24,115 persons over 10 
could not read, and 45,671 (24,979 natives) 
could not write. 

The school fund amounts to 13,174,578. 

KANSAS. 

Kansas organized as a Territory in 1854, 
was after many tribulations, admitted as a 
State in 1859, with an area of 91,318 sq. m., 
and a population in 1860 of 107,206, which 
had increased in 1870 to 364,399, and a 
taxable property of $92,125,861. Total 
value of farms and live stock in 1870 was 
$126,992,538. 

The constitution adopted in 1858, pro- 
vides for a superintendent of public instruc- 
tion for the State, and one for each county, 
and directs the legislature to ' encourage the 
promotion of intellectual, moral, scientific 
and agricultural improvement by establishing 
a uniform system of common schools, and 
schools of higher grade, embracing normal, 
preparatory, collegiate and university depart- 
ments.' ' The proceeds of lands donated by 
the United States or the State for the support 
of schools, and the 500,000 acres granted to 
the new State in 1841, and all estates of 
persons dying without heirs or will, and such 
per cent, as may be granted by Congress on 
the sale of lands in this State are made a 
perpetual school fund, which shall not be 
diminished, the interest of which with such 
other means as the legislature may furnish by 
tax or otherwise, shall be inviolably appro- 
priated to the support of common schools.' 
' Provision shall be made by law for a State 
University for the promotion of literature 
and the arts and sciences, including a normal 
and agricultural department,' and 'no relig- 
ious sect or sects shall ever control any part 



of the common school or university funds of 
the State.' 

Schools are organized on the basis of 
cities (incorporated by general law), and of 
the congressional township distribution of 
territory. Each city by general law has a 
board of education somewhat differently 
constituted, but all with full powers to es- 
tablish and maintain public schools accord- 
ing to its population, while each con- 
gressional township, embracing an area of 
six miles square, is constituted one school 
district. Each district is divided into sub- 
districts of any convenient size, by the 
county superintendent. Each sub-district 
elects a director, and all the directors of 
sub-districts constitute a school district 
board for the township, with power to levy 
taxes, locate, and erect school-houses, em- 
ploy teachers for the schools of the town- 
ship, and with power to erect a higher 
school for the older children of all the sub- 
districts. 

The school authorities are : (1,) State 
Superintendent, elected for two years, with 
the usual powers ; (2,) County Superintend- 
ents, one for each county, elected for two 
years, with power to divide the congression- 
al townships into districts, examine (when 
associated with two competent persons ap- 
pointed by the County Commissioners, who 
together constitute a County Board of Ex- 
aminers,) teachers, hold institutes, and gen- 
erally administer the system for the county; 
(3,) Township Boards, composed of a di- 
rector from each sub-district into which the 
township district is divided ; (4,) District 
Boards, composed of the director, clerk, and 
treasurer; (5,) City Boards of Education, 
charged with full powers of local manage- 
ment of public schools in the several in- 
corporated cities. 

According to the report of the superin- 
tendent for 1872 there were 3,419 sub- 
districts, containing 165,982 persons be- 
tween the ages of 5 and 21 years. Of 
this number 106,663 were enrolled in the 
public schools, with an average daily attend- 
ance of 61,538 pupils under 3,835 different 
teachers (2,048 females), to whom was paid 
for their services $596,611, The entire ex- 
penditure on account of public schools in 
1871 was $1,701,950, of which $217,810 
was received from the State (interest from 
the permanent fund and taxes), $22,680 
from county funds, $822,644 from district 
tax, and $431,382 from tuition and other 



COMMON SCHOOLS AND ELEMENTARY IXSTIIUCTION. 



909 



sources. The total Dumber of school- 
bouses for 3,419 organized districts was 
2,437, valued, with lots and apparatus, at 
$2,845,262. Beside the public schools 
there are two State Normal Schools (at 
Emporia and Leavenworth), with buildings 
erected at a cost of $140,000, and an aver- 
age attendance in both of 300 pupils. 

Out of section 16, and 36 in each town- 
ship, and the 500,000 acres (total nearly 
3,000,000 acres), only $759,095 has yet 
been converted into a permanent school 
fund. The university received 46,000 acres, 
out of which only $10,000 has yet been 
realized as a permanent fund. The grounds 
and improvements have cost $164,000, 
mainly contributed by the city of Lawrence. 
The Agricultural College receives $90,000 
from Congressional grants, out of which 
$189,745 have been realized, leaving land 
unsold estimated at $180,797, or a total of 
$378,542. The State University was crip- 
pled at the start by the incorporation of 
two denominational institutions of higher 
education (Baker University and Washburne 
College), on which $200,000 have already 
been expended for buildings and equipments. 

The census of 1870 returns a school at- 
tendance of 63,183, out of a school popula- 
tion (between the ages of 5 and 18) of 
108,710, with 16,369 persons 10 years of 
ago who could not read, and 24,550 who 
could not write. In the table of schools 
there were 1,663 public schools (1 normal, 
4 high, 1 grammar, 118 graded, 1,539 un- 
graded), with 1,955 teachers ; 2 universities 
with 13 teachers (1 female), and 292 
students ; 5 special schools (1 agricultural, 
2 commercial, 1 blind, 1 deaf mutes), with 
277 pupils; and 11 private schools, with 
671 pupils. 

KENTUCKY. 

Kentucky was settled from Virginia, of 
which it was part until 1791, when it was 
admitted as a State, with a population of 
73,077, which in 1870 had increased to 
1,321,011. In its educational and econom- 
ical policy it followed the mother State — 
relying on colleges, academies and private 
tutors for families who could pay, and mak- 
ing no general provision for common schools 
until 1821, when a Literary Fund was estab- 
lished out of one-half of the clear profits of 
the Bank of the Commonwealth. This law 
was made slightly efficient 'by the act of 
1830, 'to establish a uniform system of pub- 
lic schools,' in which this provision occurs. 



' any widow or femme sole over 21 years of 
age, residing and owning property Bubjed to 
taxation for school purposes in any school 
district, shall have the right to vote, cither 
in person or by written proxy; also infants 
so situated may vote by proxy.' In 1 b38 an 
act to establish a system of common schools 
was passed, by which a Board of Education 
was instituted, of which the Superintendent 
of Public Instruction, appointed by the • rov- 
crnor with the consent of the senate, was 
made a member and the executive officer. 
By this law the State was divided into dis- 
tricts, and the income of the small permanent 
fund was increased by a tax of two cents 
(made three by popular vote in 1850) on 
every one hundred dollars of taxable prop- 
erty in the State, designed, according to a 
subsequent act (1845), 'to encourage and 
aid the citizens to organize and maintain 
common schools.' In 1842 the Superin- 
tendent was instructed to report on creating 
the profession of teaching, and in 1854 the 
legislature made provision for the education 
of 150 teachers in the State University at 
Lexington. But the difficulties of a sparse 
population, and the peculiar social and in- 
dustrial habits of the people render a sys- 
tem of common schools impossible, and the 
schools never got such a lodgment as to 
materially modify the habits of the State 
except in Louisville, where the graded -\ -tem 
was truly efficient, its public high school, 
teachers, and superintendence comparing 
favorably with these features in any city. 
The census of 1870, out of a school popula- 
tion (5 to 18) of 454,539, returns 181,225 
persons in attendance in the year previous, 
and out of the entire population (1,324,011), 
249,567 persons over 10 years who can not 
read, and 321,176 who can not write. 

According to the same census there were 
in 1870, 5,149 schools of all kinds in opera- 
tion ; 4,727 public schools, viz., 1 normal, 
23 high, 19 grammar, 88 graded, 1,596 un- 
graded, with an aggregate i>\' 218,440 
pupils; 137 classical academies and colleges 
(including two universities), with 12,u88 
pupils; 15 professional and special schools, 
2 law, 4 medicine, 5 theology, 1 agricul- 
tural 8 commercial, 1 blind, 1 deaf mutes, 
1 idiotic. 

According tO the report oft lie State Super- 
intendent for the year ending June ■'^k 1871, 
there were 5,117 school districts, in which 
5,06S schools were taught to 120,866 pupils, 
at an expense to the State (about $ 156,000 



910 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



income of school funds, $802,000 avails 
of State property tax,) of 8968,176, to which 
will he added next year the avails of "a rate 
bill assessed on each patron of the school, 
according to the number of children and 
length of time actually sent by each." The 
State tax is about 2 mills on each dollar of 
taxable property, which, according to the 
census in 1870, was $469,544,294. 

LOUISIANA. 

Louisiana was admitted a State in 1812, 
with a population in 1810 of 76,556, which 
had increased to 726,915 in 1870. While 
in a territorial organization, the University 
of Orleans was instituted, and provision was 
made for a college in the city of New 
Orleans, and at least one academy and one 
public library in each county, and for the 
support of the same, $50,000 was to be raised 
annually. In 1808 authority was given to 
institute elementary schools in each parish, 
which in 1819 were placed under police 
juries, and in 1821 under five trustees ap- 
pointed by the police jury of each parish, 
from the resident landowners; and the sum 
of $800 was appropriated annually to each 
parish for such schools, which could be in- 
creased by a local tax on the property of the 
parish. In 1S33 the Secretary of State was 
made Superintendent of Public Education, 
and required to submit to the Legislature 
annually a report on the condition of schools, 
academies, and colleges. In 1849 special 
authority was given to the Second Munici- 
pality of New Orleans to establish a system 
of public schools supported by a tax on the 
property, which system was organized in 
that year on a plan submitted by Henry 
Barnard of Connecticut, to whom the posi- 
tion of superintendent was tendered before 
the schools were opened, and again in 1849. 
In the constitution of 1845, it is ordained 
that a superintendent of public education 
shall be appointed, and that free public 
schools shall be established throughout the 
State supported by taxation on property, 
and that all lands donated by the United 
States shall constitute a perpetual fund, on 
which the State shall pay an annual interest 
of six per centum for the support of such 
public schools. In 1847 an act ' to establish 
Free Public Schools' for all white children 
between the ages of 6 and 16, provided for 
the appointment of a State Superintendent, 
and of a superintendent for each parish, and 
the collection of a tax of one mill on the 
dollar of the taxable property of the State, 



and establishment of a State School Fund 
out of a consolidation of all land grants 
(786,044 acres for common schools,) and in- 
dividual donations made for educational pur- 
poses. To these revenues was added in 1 855 
a capitation tax of one dollar on each free 
white male inhabitant over the age of twenty- 
one years. The almost insuperable diffi- 
culties of a sparse population, divided socially 
by race and occupation, made a system of 
common schools almost impossible out of 
New Orleans, and Baton Rouge, and the 
larger villages. 

In the constitution Of 1868 it is ordained 
that ' the General Assembly shall establish 
at least one free school in each parish, and 
provide for its support by taxation or other- 
wise.' 'All children between the years of 6 
and 21 shall be admitted to the public 
schools or other institutions of learning sus- 
tained or established by the State in com- 
mon, without distinction of race, color, or 
previous condition. There shall be no 
separate school or institution of learning 
established exclusively for any race by the 
State of Louisiana.' Provision is made for 
the election by the qualified voters of the 
State of a Superintendent of Education, to 
hold his office for four years, and to receive 
a salary of $5,000 per annum. In the spirit 
of these provisions, a system of public schools 
was inaugurated in 1870, which with 
abundant means, has encountered almost in- 
superable obstacles from the prejudices of 
race and the disturbed condition of the 
public mind. ' Colored citizens are willing 
to receive the benefits of the schools, but 
have not the knowledge or experience re- 
quired to establish and manage a system ; 
the white citizens are opposed to mixed 
schools.' 

The school authorities are: (1,) a State 
Superintendent; (2,) State Board of Educa- 
tion, composed of the State and six Division 
Superintendents; (3,) a Superintendent for 
each Judicial District, of which there are six ; 
(4,) Parish Directors, composed of one 
member for each jury board ; (5,) Town and 
City Boards. The means of support consist 
of (1,) Free School Fund, $1,193,500; (2,) 
Seminary Fund, $138,000; (3,) Amount 
levied on property, $468,035 ; amount of 
poll tax, $112,668. The State tax is 
two mills on the dollar upon all taxable 
property. 

The census of 1870 returns a school at- 
tendance of 51,259, out of a population 



COMMON SCHOOLS AND ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION. 



911 



(persons from 5 to 18 vein's) of 226,114; 
and 592 schools of all kinds, viz., 178 
public, (1 normal, 5 high, 4 grammar, 60 
graded common, and 108 ungraded com- 
mon), with a total of 25,088 pupils ; 36 
classical academies and colleges (including 2 
universities), with 4,357 pupils; 10 pro- 
fessional and special schools, viz., 1 law, 1 
medicine, 1 theology, 1 blind, 1 deaf mutes, 
and 4 commercial. 

MAINE. 

Maine was settled under the colonial juris- 
diction of Massachusetts, and acted under 
the school legislation of that commonwealth, 
until 1820, when it was admitted as a State, 
with a population of 298,335, which had in- 
creased in 1870 to 626,915. The constitu- 
tion of 1820 makes it the duty of the legis- 
lature 'to require the several towns to make 
suitable provision at their own expense, for 
the support of public schools, and to encour- 
age and suitably endow academies, colleges 
and seminaries of learning within the State ; 
■provided, that no donation, grant, or endow- 
ment shall at any time be made by the legis- 
lature to any literary institution, unless at 
the time of making such endowment the 
legislature shall have the right to grant any 
further powers to alter, limit, or restrain any 
of the powers vested in any such literary in- 
stitution as shall be judged necessary to 
promote the best interests thereof.' The 
first school law distinct from that of Massa- 
chusetts was passed in 1821, by which each 
town was required to raise by tax on the polls 
and estates of the citizens a sum of money, 
which in the aggregate would amount to at 
least 40 cents for each inhabitant. This sum, 
increasing from year to year with the popu- 
lation was apportioned among the several 
school districts into which each town was 
divided, for the support of public schools, 
equally free and accessible to all the children 
between the ages of 4 and 21 years, under the 
local care of an agent appointed by the town 
for each district, and the general supervision 
of a superintending committee for the whole 
town in the matter of teachers and studies. 
These fundamental principles were slightly 
altered in 1822 and 1825, by which the 
election of the agent was left, on the vote of 
the town, to the district, and the towns of 
Portland in 1825, Bath in 1828, Bangor in 
1832, and all other towns in 1834, were al- 
lowed to dispense with a district agent and 
put all their schools under one board. In 
1825, the selectmen of the several towns 



were required to make return-, to the Secre- 
tary of State, once in three years, as to the 
number of districts the Dumber of scholars 
of school age, and the Dumber in actual 

school attendance, the leugth of time the 
schools were kept, and the amount expended 
in each. Maine was thus the second State 
to require such returns, and which became 
henceforth the basis of all Bchool discussion. 
In 1828 a permanent State School Fund was 
commenced by setting apart the sale, of 
twenty townships of the State lands for that 
purpose;* and the principle of a graded 
school by the employment of a master and 
teachers in the same district was recognized. 
— After much discussion in local and - 
conventions, and in the legislature from ls:js 
to 1846, in the year last named a State Hoard 
of Education was instituted, and in I s47 the 
mistress was required to keep a register, and 
return the same at the close of the school to 
the town school committee, who were re- 
quired henceforth to make the statistical re- 
turn to the Board of Education. In 1835 
the first educational association was formed, 
and in 1838 the State Teachers' Association 
was organized. In 1846 the first Teachers' 
Institute was held; in 1863 a State Normal 
School was opened at Farmington, and a 
second at Castine in 1865 ; and in 1869 the 
office of County Supervisors was established, 
and $16,000 appropriated for their salaries. 
According to the revision of 1871, the 
administration and supervision of common 
schools is committed to: (1,) State Super- 
intendent, appointed by the Governor and 
council for three years, or during the pleas- 
ure of the executive, to exercise general su- 
pervision, advise and direct town commit- 
tees, obtain and disseminate information 
respecting the schools of the State and other 
States and countries, awaken and sustain a 
popular interest in school matters, hold an- 
nually a State educational convention, and 
an institute of teachers in each county, pre- 
scribe the studies that shall be taught (re- 
serving to town committees the right to pre- 



* In 1784 the legislature of Massachusetts directed the com- 
mittee charged with the snle of eastern lantli t.. jeservi . in each 

township i rayed, 9MJ0 (teres for the use of the mioistry, 280 for 

the tirst settled minister, 280 lor the grammar school and 200 for 
the future appropriation of the General Court. Thii maolvewaa 
modified in 178") so n» to require u reeerration of five lots of 390 

ncresench, in ever} township si\ miles square, one for each of 
the purposes above Specified. This resolve in the nrtieles of 

sepnrntion m lsis, became applicable to all grants and >"ie< of 
land made by Massachusetts or Maine, The present pra 

Mnine is to reserve in each township 10(H) inns for the use of 

ioho lis, which, aftei the township is settled, form a school fund 

for the town. Down to 1834 more than hull' n million aero* of 

land had heen donated by the State to incorporated academies, 
and nine townships of land to two colleges. 



912 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



scribe additional studies), act as superin- 
tendent of the State Normal School, and 
report annually to the legislature. (2,) 
County Supervisors, appointed by the Gov- 
ernor, on the recommendation of State 
Superintendent, for each county, for three 
years, an assistant of the State Superin- 
tendent, and together with him constitu- 
ting a State Board, to meet at least once a 
year during the session of the legislature 
for the purpose of conferring with the edu- 
cational committee of that body, and ma- 
turing plans for the following year to pro- 
mote and elevate the public schools. (3,) 
Town Superintending School Committee, of 
three members, elected one each year for a 
term of three years, who examine, after 
public notice of time and place, all candi- 
dates for teaching in reading, spelling, writ- 
ing, English grammar, geography, history, 
arithmetic, and other studies usually taught 
in public schools, and particularly in the 
school for which he is examined, and also 
his capacity for the government thereof; 
and employ teachers for the several districts, 
prescribe regulations for the studies, books, 
discipline, and returns of all the public 
schools. (4,) District Agents, one for each, 
where the town is divided into districts. 

The support of public schools is derived 
from (1,) State School Fund, the income of 
which, and all money received by the State 
from the tax on banks, together ' with a 
mill tax for the support of common schools, 
assessed and collected as other State taxes, 
and paid out according to the number of 
scholars in each;' (2,) Town Tax, not less 
than one dollar for each inhabitant, exclusive 
of the income of corporate school funds, or 
revenue from the State, or devise, bequest 
or forfeiture to the use of schools ; (3,) 
District Tax, for site, construction, and 
equipment of school-houses, and for main- 
taining graded schools, not exceeding the 
sum received from the town. 

In 1870 the total cost of 4,000 common 
schools was §1,077,927, to which the towns 
voted by tax 8740,321, and the school fund 
($203,596) $12,409; districts to continue 
schools, 824,000 ; balance by the State. 

According to the census of 1870 the 
whole number of schools of all kinds was 
4,723, with 6,986 teachers (2,320 males, 
4,556 females), and 162,636 pupils, out of 
a school population (5 to 18 years) of 175,- 
488; 13,486 persons over 10 years of a^e 
could not read, and 19,052 could not write. 



MARYLAND. 

Maryland was first settled in 1634, had in 
1790 a total population of 319,728, which 
had increased in. 1870 to 780,894, on an area 
of 11,124 sq. m., and with $423,834,919 of 
taxable property. The Constitutions of 1 776 
and 1851 had no provision respecting educa- 
tion ; that of 1864 prescribed even the de- 
tails of organization and the amount of taxa- 
tion (' not less than ten cents on each hundred 
dollars of taxable property, until the existing 
School Fund has been increased to 86,000,- 
000 by the accumulating avails of an annual 
tax of five cents on the taxable property, 
when the annual State tax for school purposes 
shall be reduced to five cents'). These pro- 
visions in the revision of 1868 gave way to 
three brief articles, by which it is made the 
duty of the first General Assembly ' to estab- 
lish by law a thorough and efficient system 
of free public schools, and to provide by 
taxation or otherwise for its support,' and to 
continue the system of public schools estab- 
lished by and under the Constitution of 
1864, until the end of the first session of the 
General Assembly held after 1868. 

In 1671 an act passed the upper house 
of the assembly 'to found and erect a 
school or college in the province of Mary- 
land, for the education of youth in learning 
and virtue,' which in the lower house was 
returned with a message asking that the 
place for the college might be named, and 
'that the schoolmasters of such school or 
college should be qualified according to the 
Reformed Church of England, or that there 
be two schoolmasters, one for the Catholic 
and one for the Protestant children, and the 
Protestants shall have leave to choose their 
schoolmaster ;' and ' the Lord Proprietor 
be pleased to set out his declaration as to 
what privileges and immunities shall be en- 
joyed by scholars brought up or taught at 
such schools.' 

In 1694, and again in 1696, a 'petitionary 
act for free schools ' was addressed to his 
Most Excellent Majesty asking 'for His 
Majesty's princely royal benediction and 
aid in the establishment of schools and col- 
leges of universal study ; and for the propa- 
gation of the gospel and education of youth 
within the province in good manners and 
letters,' especially for 'free school or schools 
or places for the study of Latin, Greek, 
writing, and the like,' with ' one master, one 
usher, and one writing master or scribe to a 
school of one hundred scholars, more or 



COMMON SCHOOLS AND ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION. 



913 



less, according to the ability of said free 
school,' and that ' the Most Reverend Father 
in God, Thomas, by the grace of God, Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, and Metropolitan of 
all England, may be chancellor, and to per- 
petuate the memory of your Majesty, the 
first, at Anne Arundel town, be called King 
Williams school or college, and be managed 
by certain trustees nominated and appointed 
by your Sacred Majesty,' and so on ' until 
each county of the province shall have one 
free school, and apply so much of the reve- 
nues to each school as they shall deem most 
expedient, not exceeding 120 pounds per 
annum.' Under this and subsequent acts 
in 1715, 1717, 1723, and especially of the 
last, a ' free school,' inadequately endowed, 
was established in each county, ' the trustees 
were to have perpetual succession, the 
schoolmasters were to be members of the 
Church of England, of pious, exemplary 
lives, and capable of teaching well, grammar, 
good writing, and mathematics; for which 
they were to be allowed the use of the 100 
acres of land attached to the school, and 
£20 per annum, paid out of the county 
allowance.' 

From an advertisement in the Gazette, 
February, 1774, it would appear that fam- 
ilies were supplied with private teachers 
after a peculiar fashion. ' To be sold, a 
schoolmaster, an indented servant that has 
got two years to serve. 1 John Hammond, 
near Annapolis. N. B. ' He is sold for no 
fault, any more than we are done with him. 
He can learn book-keeping, and is an excel- 
lent scholar.' 

The Revolution freed nearly all the cler- 
gymen of the English Church, who had at- 
tached themselves to the side of the mother 
country, from their clerical services, and 
most of them eked out a precarious sup- 
port formany years by receiving pupils into 
their families, and setting up private schools. 

The earliest law fur general education was 
the act of 1825, 'to provide for the public 
instruction of youth in primary schools,' by 
which a State Superintendent was appointed 
to digest and report a system ; and County 
Commissioners, to divide up the counties 
into school districts, for which three trustees 
were to be elected by the qualified voters ; 
and Inspectors for the visitation of the 
schools and examination of teachers. Two 
reports were made by the superintendent, 
which were occupied with the details of the 
monitorial system and the plan of a central 
school for teachers, which at that date was 



attracting much attention, and had 1 u 

officially noticed and commended by Gov. 
Clinton to the legislature of New York. The 
office was abolished in 1827, and nol revived 
till 1865, in pursuance of a provision of 
the constitution of the year previous. 

The avails of the school fund continued 
to be distributed through the Count; Com- 
missioners, and the capital was increased by 
the amount of the U. S. Surplus Revenue 
Fund. The great result of the movement 
of 1825 was the permanent establishment 
of public schools in the city of Baltimore, 
which in 1870 included 10l' day schools 
(1 college for boys, 2 high schools for girls, 
37 grammar, 60 primary, and 2 unclassified 
schools), with 21,795 pupils, under 511 
teachers, besides 6 evening schools, and 13 
schools for colored children — a total of 121 
schools, 571 teachers, and 24,673 scholars. 

The act ' to establish a uniform system of 
public instruction' of 1865, vested its super- 
vision and control in a State Board of Edu- 
cation, and in a board of school commission- 
ers for the city of Baltimore and each count v, 
embraced a series of schools from the neigh- 
borhood or primary, and township grammar, 
to a county high school and a State normal 
school, and directed that ' every child in the 
State between the ages of 8 and 14 years, 
without fixed employment, shall attend 
school at least six months in each year, and 
that no child under the age of 1 1 years 
shall be employed in any business, onless 
such child has attended some school six- 
months of the year preceding.' 

In 1868 the impulse which had been 
given to school agencies was arrested, and a 
reaction, both in legislative and administra- 
tive activity, followed from which the State 
has not yet recovered. Under the judicious 
management of the superintendent (Prof. 
Newell, principal of the State Normal 
School), further reaction has ceased. 

By the census of 1870, out of a school 
population of 244,454, there was a school 
attendance of 105,435, and 114. loo persons 
over id years of age who could nol read. 
and 135,499 who could not write. Of the 
whole number of schools (1,779) returned, 
there were: 1,487 public (3 normal, 1" 
high, 49 grammar, 159 graded, and 1,266 
ungraded); 53 classical academies and col- 
leges, including two universities; 19 pro- 
fessional and special Bchools (1 law. 2 medi- 
cine, 4 theology, 1 agricultural, :: com- 
mercial, 1 blind, 1 deaf mutes, 6 art and 
music) ; and 220 private schools. 



914 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



MASSACHUSETTS. 

Massachusetts had by the first national 
census in 1790, a population of 3*78,717, 
which had increased in 1870 to 1,450,350, 
on an area of 7,800 square miles, with taxa- 
ble property to the valuation of $1,417,- 
127,376 — second only to the Empire State 
in this particular. 

Massachusetts in its constitution of 1780, 
was the earliest State to throw the protec- 
tion of a fundamental ordinance around 
funds appropriated to educational purposes, 
and partic ilarly of Harvard College, ' in 
which many persons of great eminence 
have, by the blessing of God, been initiated 
into those arts and sciences which qual- 
ified them for public employment both 
in church and State ; and whereas the encour- 
agement of the arts and sciences, and all 
good literature, tends to the honor of 
God, the advantage of the christian re- 
ligion, and the great benefit of this and 
the other United States of America,' it is 
declared that all powers, rights, privileges, 
immunities, and facilities shall be continued, 
and all gifts, legacies, &c, are confirmed ; 
and then follows a section drawn up by 
John Adams, and adopted by the conven- 
tion unanimously. 

Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, dif- 
fused generally among the body of the people, being 
necessary for the preservation of their rights and 
liberties, and as these depend on spreading- the op- 
portunities and advantages of education in various 
parts of the country, and among the different or- 
ders of the people, it shall be the duty of the legis- 
latures and magistrates, in all future periods of this 
commonwealth, to cherish the interest of literature 
and the sciences and all seminaries of them, espe- 
cially the university at Cambridge, public schools, 
and grammar schools in the towns; to encourage 
private societies and public institutions, by rewards 
and immunities for the promotion of agriculture, 
art, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and 
a natural history of the country ; to countenance 
and inculcate the principles of humanity and 
general benevolence, public and private charity, 
industry and frugality, honesty and punctuality in 
all their dealings; sincerity, good humor, and all 
social affections and generous sentiments among the 
people. 

Among the articles of amendments rat- 
ified by the people in 1 857, are the following : 
' No person shall have the right to vote, or be 
eligible to office under the constitution of 
this commonwealth, who shall not be able 
to read the constitution in the English 
language and write his name,' unless pre- 
vented by physical disability from comply- 
ing with the requirement, and unless he 



already enjoys the right to vote. 'All 
moneys raised by taxation in town and 
cities for the support of public schools, and 
all moneys appropriated by the State for 
the support of common schools' 'shall 
never be appropriated to any religious sect 
for the maintenance exclusively of its own 
schools.' 

The earliest legislation of Massachusetts 
respecting schools, and ' the good education 
of children,' bears date 1642, which, with 
various modifications as to details, kept the 
following objects steadily in view, viz. : the 
exclusion of ' barbarism ' from any family, 
by making it the duty of the selectmen of 
every town, in the several precincts and 
quarters where they dwell, to have a vigi- 
lant eye over their brethren and neighbors,' 
' to see that they teach their children and 
apprentices by themselves and others so 
much learning as may enable them to read 
the English tongue, and the capital laws, 
upon penalty of twenty shillings for each 
neglect therein,' 'to learn some short ortho- 
dox catechism without book,' and ' to breed 
and bring them up in some honest lawful 
calling, labor, or employment, either in hus- 
bandry, or some other trade profitable for 
themselves and the commonwealth, if they 
will not, or can not train them up in learning 
to fit them for higher employments ;' and, 
should parents 'continue negligent of their 
duty in the particulars above mentioned, 
whereby children and servants become rude, 
stubborn and unruly, the selectmen, with 
the help of two magistrates, shall take such 
children or apprentices from them, and place 
them with some masters for years, boys till 
they come to twenty-one, and girls to 
eighteen years of age complete, who will 
more strictly look into and force them to 
submit unto government, according to the 
rules of this order, if by fair means and 
former instruction they will not be drawn 
into it.' To enable parents to have places 
where their children and apprentices may be 
sent to be taught, it was enacted the same 
year (1642) 'that every township within 
this jurisdiction of fifty householders, shall 
appoint one within their town to teach all 
such children as shall resort to him, to write 
and read, ivhose wages shall be ■paid either 
by the parents or masters of such children, 
or by the inhabitants in general, by way of 
supply, as the major part of those who order 
the prudentials of the town shall appoint ; 
provided those who send their children be 




INTERIOR VIEW OF A SCH00L-H0U8E IN 1770. 




INTERIOR VIEW OF A SCHOO^-HOCSE IN L870, 



COMMON SCHOOLS AND ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION. 



917 



not oppressed by paying much more than 
they can have them taught in other towns.' 
In addition to this elementary school, every 
town of one hundred families, ' shall set up 
a grammar school, the masters thereof being 
able to instruct youths so far as they may 
be fitted for the university,' and the towns 
which neglect to set up such school any 
one year, must pay five pounds per annum to 
the next nearest school. In Plymouth 
Colony, the provision for schools was not 
so early, and the requirements for a gram- 
mar school were extended in 1677 to towns 
of fifty families, and impose on ' those who 
have the more immediate benefit thereof 
by their children's good and general good, 
shall make up the residue (over the twelve 
pounds in current merchantable pay to be 
raised on all the inhabitants of such town) 
necessary to maintain the same,' and every 
town of seventy families which neglected 
to maintain a grammar schools shall ' allow 
unto the next town which does, the sum of 
five pounds collectable by constable on the 
warrant of any magistrate in this jurisdic- 
tion.' 

On this basis of the duty of parents to 
give their children at least an elementary 
education, and of every town, large or small, 
to provide the place and teacher where their 
children could be taught; and of every 
large town to maintain a teacher competent 
to fit the same for the university ; and of 
the State to encourage such university, ' that 
learning might not be buried in the graves 
of the fathers,' and that some of their sons 
might be fitted every year for higher em- 
ployment in church and state, the system of 
public instruction in Massachusetts has been 
built up and extended to meet the wants of 
successive generations. The town grammar 
school feature, occasionally suspended in 
some towns, and superseded by the academy 
and private school in others, has kept the 
common school up to the requirements of 
the rich and the educated, and saved the 
district schools from becoming common in 
the worse sense, or being regarded as the 
schools exclusively of the poor, or of those 
only who knew what constituted the con- 
ditions of a good education in respect to 
house, studies and teachers, but of all, rich 
and poor, the more or the less intelligent, 
in the city as well as in the country. 

The first revision of the school laws after 
the revolution was in 1789, by which it is 
provided ' that towns of fifty families are re- 
48 



quired to sustain Bchools wherein children 
are taught to read and write, and instri 
in the English language, arithmetic, orthog- 
raphy, and decent behavior, for a term equal 
to one school of six months in each year; 
''.very town of one hundred families, twelve 
months; every town of one hundred and 
fifty families, eighteen months; and every 
town of two hundred families,' twelve 
months, and in addition thereto BUStain a 
school wherein is taught the Latin, Greek, 
and English languages for twelve months in 
each year.' It is also 'made the duty of 
the president, professors and tutors of the 
University at Cambridge, preceptors and 
teachers of academies, and all other in- 
structors of youth, to take diligent care, 
and to exert their best endeavors to impress 
on the minds of children and youth com- 
mitted to their care and instruction, the 
principles of piety, justice and a sacred re- 
gard to truth, love to their country, human- 
ity and universal benevolence, sobriety, in- 
dustry and frugality, chastity, moderation 
and temperance, and those other virtues 
which are the ornament of human society, 
and the basis upon which the republican 
constitution is structured ; and it shall be 
the duty of such instructors to endeavor to 
lead those under their care into a particular 
understanding of the tendency of the before- 
mentioned virtues to preserve and pen 
republican constitution, and to secure the 
blessings of liberty as well as to promote 
their future happiness, and the tendency of 
the opposite vices to slavery and ruin.' 

By the act of 1789, 'in consequence of 
the dispersed situation of the inhabitants 
of several towns,' the children and youth 
can not be collected in any one place fot 
their instruction,' such towns were author- 
ized 'in town meeting called for that pur- 
pose to determine and define the limit- of 
school districts.' In this provision and the 
supplementary law of 1S00 authorizing dis- 
trict taxation for school-houses, originated 
the district system, which Mr. Mann pro- 
nounced the most 'disastrous feature' of 
the school legislation of Massachusetts; and 
from the deteriorating influence of which 
the State has only quite recently escaped 
into a graded system for the whole town. 
The act of 1789 excludes from the town 
grammar school all children ' who have not 
in some other way learned to read 1 1 * • - Eng- 
lish language by spelling the same,' and 
admits as teachers only those who are 



918 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



university graduates, or have a certificate of 
qualification from a learned minister of the 
town, and give satisfactory evidence of 
good moral character.' * Ministers and se- 
lectmen are required to see that the youth 
regularly attend the school, and once at 
least, every six months, visit and inspect the 
schools, inquire into the regulations and 
discipline thereof, and the proficiency of 
the scholars therein.' 'That the greatest 
attention may be given to children in the 
early stages of life, to the establishing of 
just principles in their tender minds,' and 
right habits of reading ; ' no person shall 
keep school without a proper certificate from 
the selectmen, or a committee duly ap- 
pointed by each town or district, and the 
minister, if there be one in the place, on the 
forfeiture of twenty shillings to the informer 
and the poor of the place.' Whether under 
master or mistress, ' a sense of piety and 
virtue, and decent behavior,' as well as read- 
ing, and writing if contracted for, were made 
the staple of primary instruction. 

In 1825 the legislature appointed com- 
missioners ' to digest and prepare a system 
for the establishment of one or more institu- 
tions for instruction in the practical arts and 
sciences for that class of persons who do not 
desire, or are unable to obtain, a collegiate 
education.' This proposition grew out of 
the discussions which followed the establish- 
ment of Mechanics' Institutes in England, 
Fellenberg's Schools at Hofwyl, and the Ren- 
sellaer School at Troy — and the want, long 
and widely felt, of some essential modifica- 
tion of the studies of the academies and 
colleges of the country. The report of the 
commissioners in 1826, and the supplement- 
ary report of 1827, anticipates by a quarter 
of a century the whole movement for the 
'new education,' 'the agricultural and 
mechanical art colleges,' and ' the scientific 
•schools.' 

In 1826 towns were authorized to choose 
a school committee to superintend the 
schools, to visit and inspect the town and 
district schools, to examine and approve 
teachers, to determine class books, and pro- 
vide the same for such whose parents may be 
unable to pay for the same ; and for the first 
time to make returns thereafter each year to 
the Secretary of State (whose duty it is 
made to furnish appropriate blanks) of the 
number, state, and cost of each school. 

In 1827 a select committee of the House, 
to whom was referred a memorial of James 



G. Carter, praying for aid to enable him to 
establish a ' Seminary for the instruction of 
School Teachers,' reported favorably ; but 
the bill not becoming a law by the want of 
one vote in the Senate, Mr. Carter estab- 
lished such a seminary in Lancaster, as a 
private enterprise, in the same year ; and in 
1830 a similar seminary was established at 
Andover, with the expectation that Mr. Gal- 
laudet, of Hartford, would become its prin- 
cipal, but was opened under the direction 
of Rev. S. S. Hall, who had been a teacher 
of teachers in a private seminary in Con- 
cord, Vermont, from 1822, and whose lec- 
tures read to his pupil-teachers were pub- 
lished in 1829, under the title of ' Lectures 
on School-Keejnngl almost the first contri- 
bution to this department of American 
literature. 

In 1827 the school laws were thoroughly 
revised, by which, among other modifica- 
tions, ' in each town of fifty families the 
teacher or teachers must be employed, must 
be of good morals, and competent to in- 
struct children in orthography, reading, 
writing, English grammar, geography, arith- 
metic, and good behavior, for at least six 
months in the year ;' and in towns of one 
hundred families, the following branches 
must be added, history of the United States, 
book-keeping by single entry, geometry, 
surveying, and algebra ; and in every city 
or town of four thousand inhabitants the 
master shall be able to teach, in addition, 
the Latin and Greek languages, history, 
rhetoric, and logic' All towns are author- 
ized to raise by tax any amount of money 
they may think necessary for the support of 
schools. Each town may, in addition to 
the school committee, appoint one person 
for each district in the town, a resident of 
the district, to be called a prudential com- 
mittee, or they may authorize the districts 
to choose their own committee. The com- 
mittee are forbidden to prescribe books 
favoring any particular religious sect. 

In 1829 the first public effort to educate 
the blind was made in Boston, by the incor- 
poration of the New England Asylum for 
the Blind, and turning over to its use any 
unexpended balance of the State's appropri- 
ation for deaf mutes. 

In 1830 the American Institute of In- 
struction was formed at Boston, composed 
of members from all parts of the country, 
and incorporated by the legislature of Mas- 
sachusetts in 1831, and in 1835, through 



COMMON SCHOOLS AND ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION. 



919 



the influence of James G. Carter, (who more 
than any other one man was the mover in 
all the advanced legislation of the State 
from 1830 to 1838), was aided by an annual 
grant of $350 to meet the expense of the 
publication of the annual volumes, which 
now amount to 42. 

In 1834 provision was made for a State 
School Fund (out of the sale of lands in 
Maine, and claims of the State on the gov- 
ernment of the United States for military 
services, to which have since been added 
other sources), which was originally limited 
to $1,000,000, but from time to 'time the 
maximum was raised, until in 1872 the 
capital was $2,233,306. In the same year 
the employment of children under the age 
of fifteen years, in any manufacturing estab- 
lishment was forbidden, unless such child 
had attended some public or private school 
taught by a teacher qualified according to 
law, at least three of the twelve months next 
preceding, on a forfeiture of $50 for each 
offense, for the use of the common schools 
in the town. This provision has been modi- 
fied from time to time, until now the main 
object of school attendance, the elementary 
instruction of such children, is secured. 

In 1836 the school laws were revised, and 
appear on the statutes under the title of 
' Public Instruction.' In this revision the 
school committee are required to include in 
their annual school returns the number and 
attendance in all private schools and acade- 
mies. ' No apportionment of the income of 
the school fund can be paid to any town 
which does not make the return required by 
law, or raise by taxation, for the wages of 
teachers only, a sum equal to one dollar for 
each person belonging to such town between 
the ages of 4 and 16.' This sum has been 
increased until it now stands at $1.50 for 
each person between 5 and 15. 

In 1837 the legislature authorized the 
expenditure of $20 for each district for the 
purchase of a district school library. To 
supply the want of books suitable for this 
purpose, the State Board caused to be pre- 
pared a selection of books, entitled 'The 
School Library,' consisting of two series, 
one for children 10 and 12 years of age and 
under, and the other for advanced scholars 
and their parents. This* action of the Board, 
however, met with considerable opposition, 
as being meant to control the reading facili- 
ties of Uie public, and the enterprise, aft er 
reaching thirty volumes, was abandoned by 



them. To encourage districts in the pur- 
chase of school libraries, the State appropri- 
ated to each district of sixty children be- 
tween the ages of 4 and 15 years, the sum 
of $15 towards the purchase of the same; 
and for districts having over sixtv children, 
the sum was increased proportionately to 
the number. In 1843, any town or city in 
the commonwealth was authorized to raise 
and appropriate to school libraries a Bum 
equivalent to $15 to each grouping of sixty 
children, which in 1851 was extended t<> 
maintaining a public library for the use of 
the inhabitants of the town, and providing 
the same with suitable rooms under proper 
regulations for its government ; and to ap- 
propriate annually a sum not exceeding fifty 
cents for each of its rateable polls in the 
year next succeeding that in which such ap- 
propriation is made. 

Social libraries may be established by 
seven or more proprietors associating them- 
selves into a corporation for the purpose of 
establishing, extending, or enlarging such 
library. According to the returns of 1872, 
there were 60 city and town libraries, with 
an aggregate of 500,000 volumes, beside 
265 social libraries, with 643,866 volumes. 

In- 1837, school districts were authorized 
to raise money to establish and maintain a 
common school library and apparatus for 
the use of the children therein, to the 
amount of $50 for the first year and $10 for 
each succeeding year. This provision has 
been modified until now all towns and cities 
may establish libraries by tax. 

In the same year, in place of a State 
Superintendent, as asked for, a Board of 
Education was instituted, to consist of 
the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, and ten 
persons, holding their offices respectively 
for eight years, whose duty it was made 
'to submit to the legislature in a printed 
form annually an abstract of the annual 
school returns made by the town commit- 
tees; 'to appoint a secretary, who, under 
their direction, shall collect information of 
the actual condition and efficiency of the 

common schools, and other means of popu- 
lar education, and to diffuse as widelj as 

possible through every part of tin mmon- 

wealth information as to the most approved 
ami successful methods of arranging the 
studies and conducting the education of the 
young, to the end that all children who de- 
pend upon common schools may have the 
best education which they can be mad 



920 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



impart; and to submit annually to the legis- 
lature a detailed report of all its doings, 
with such observations as their experience 
and reflection may suggest upon the con- 
dition and efficiency of our system of popu- 
lar education, and the most practicable 
means of improving and extending it.' Of 
this board,. Horace Mann, at the time Presi- 
dent of the Senate, was made Secretary. 

In 1838 the school committee are re- 
quired ' to make annually a detailed report 
of the condition of the several public schools, 
designating particular improvements and de- 
fects in the methods or means of education, 
to be read in open town meeting, or be 
printed and distributed for the use of the 
inhabitants, deposited in the office of the 
clerk of the town, and an attested copy 
transmitted to the secretary with the official 
return required by law.' The committee 
must also select and contract with the teach- 
ers in the town and the districts,' unless the 
town shall determine otherwise in respect to 
the districts ; must enter in a record-book 
all their proceedings, and deliver over the 
same, at the expiration of the year, to their 
successors in office ; shall fill up all the 
blanks and answer the inquiries in the form 
of return prescribed by the State Board, 
and cause the school register prescribed by 
said Board to be faithfully kept in all the 
town and district schools.' The committee 
thus charged with new and important duties 
are required to be paid ' one dollar each per 
day, and such additional compensation as 
the town may allow.' In the same year the 
secretary, in addition to his other duties, is 
required ' to attend in each county a meet- 
ing of teachers, school committees, and 
friends of education generally, and diligently 
apply himself to the object of collecting in- 
formation of the condition of the public 
schools of such county, of the manner in 
which school committees fulfill the duties of 
their office, and the condition of the dis- 
tricts in respect to teachers, pupils, books, 
apparatus, and methods of education, in 
order to furnish requisite material for the 
report of the Board.' 

In the same year, the establishment of 
special institutions for qualifying teachers 
for common schools, first systematically pre- 
sented by Thomas II. Gallaudet and James G. 
Carter in periodicals in 1824-5, and issued 
in pamphlet form in the year following, and 
subsequently advocated almost every year in 
educational conventions and addresses, and 



particularly after 1835 by Rev. Charles 
Brooks, was secured by the offer of the sum 
of $10,000, by the Hon. Edmund Dwight, 
of Boston, then a member of the State 
Senate and of the Board of Education, on 
the condition that a like sum should be ap- 
propriated by the State for the same object. 
The offer was accepted, and the sum of 
$10,000 appropriated by the State, and both 
sums placed at the disposition of the Board 
of Education ; and three schools were opened 
at Lexington, Bridgewater, and Bane. 

In 1839 every school averaging 50 schol- 
ars was required to employ a female assistant, 
and contiguous districts were authorized to 
associate for the purpose of maintaining a 
Union school for the older children of such 
associating districts. This (and a similar Act 
in Connecticut of the same year) is the germ 
of the whole system of Union and Graded 
schools, which now prevails in every State. 

In 1840 a vigorous attempt was made in 
the legislature to reverse the policy of a State 
provision for educating teachers, by return- 
ing to Mr. Dvvight the gift made by him to 
the State for this purpose, and to abandon 
all State supervision of schools ; and at one 
period it was anticipated by Gov. Everett, 
and Mr. Mann, that the proposition would 
succeed by a small majority in both Houses. 

In 1841 the town of Springfield appro- 
priated the sum of $1,000 as a salary for 
the Superintendent of Public Schools, to be 
selected and appointed by the town com- 
mittee. This office was filled by the ap- 
pointment of S. S. Green, afterwards Professor 
in Brown University, and was an important 
step in the improvement of school super- 
vision in Massachusetts. Several other towns 
followed the example of Springfield. But in 
Lowell the right of the town to appoint such 
officer was contested, which led to the pas- 
sage of an Act in 1854 requiring the school 
committee to appoint a superintendent 
wherever the town or city shall so deter- 
mine, and gradually the practice of appoint- 
ing a superintendent has extended to all the 
cities and many large towns. In Boston, 
after the subject had been discussed for 
years in the School Committee and City 
Council, the office was created in 1851, and 
filled by the appointment of Nathan Bishop, 
at that time occupying the same position in 
Providence since 1839, the earliest officer 
devoting his whole time to the work, in the 
United States. 

In 1842 the sum of $6,000 annually for 



COMMON SCHOOLS AND ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION". 



921 



three years was appropriated to continue the 
Normal Schools which were for the first 
time designated State institutions, and the 
policy of district school libraries was extend- 
ed to towns and cities. 

In 1845 an important decision was made 
by the Supreme Court, by which the right 
of all the towns to vote such sums of money 
for the support of town schools, and to make 
the public schools as good, as long, and as 
numerous as in the exercise of an honest 
discretion they may deem it expedient, was 
affirmed. In this case the town of New- 
burvport had provided for the support of 
all the schools, including the town grammar 
school, required by law, and also voted 
to raise money for the support and did sup- 
port a Female High School for the purpose 
of teaching book-keeping, algebra, geometry, 
hygiene, mental, moral, and natural philoso- 
phy, the Latin and French languages, and 
other higher branches than were taught in 
the grammar schools of the town. The 
court held this to be a town school within 
the meaning of the revised statutes, and the 
money for its support could be legally raised 
by tax. 

In 1846, Teachers' Institutes which had 
been held by Mr. Mann for the first time in 
1845, by aid of $1,000 given by Hon. 
Edmund Dwight, were provided for by an 
appropriation of $2,000 from the school 
fund, since increased to $3,600. 

In 1817, cities and towns were authorized 
to appropriate money for the support of 
schools for the instruction of adults in read- 
ing, writing, English grammar, arithmetic, 
and geography ; and in the same year the 
offer of Theodore Lyman to aid in the es- 
tablishment of an institution for the instruc- 
tion, employment, and reformation of juve- 
nile offenders, was accepted, and the State 
Reform School at Westborough was begun ; 
and an annual appropriation made to fur- 
nish books to the inmates of the State 
Prison, which was afterwards extended so as 
to secure instruction in reading and writing 
to all prisons and houses of correction. 

In 1848, wherever a suitable site for a 
school-house can not be secured by volun- 
tary purchase, the same may be condemned 
for public uses, and the owner properly in- 
demnified. In the same year an appropria- 
tion was made for training and teaching 
idiotic children of indigent parents for three 
years, which resulted in the establishment 
of the institution for that class at South 
Boston in 1851. 



In 1849, all willful interruptions and dis- 
turbances of schools were punishable by tine 
and imprisonment, and provision was made 
for the preservation of all Bchool reports and 

other dorn ut- in the Bchool libraries; and 

the State Library was made the olliee of the 
Board of Education, and the secretary made 
librarian, with instructions to provide for 
the display of apparatus. &c. A copy of 
Barnard's School Architecture was furnished 
to each town, and an annual appropriation 
of $150 was made- to the State Teachers' As- 
sociation, and similar sums were afterwards 
voted to this and to the county associations. 

In 1850, physiology and hygiene were 
added to the branches to be tanght, and 
teachers were required to be examined into 
their abilities to teach the same. Towns 
were authorized to abolish school districts, 
and take possession of the property of the 
same, and provide for the erection of school- 
houses at the common expense of the town. 
In the same year, cities and towns were 
authorized ' to make all needful provision 
and arrangements concerning habitual tru- 
ants, and children not attending Bchool, 
without any regular lawful occupation, grow- 
ing up in ignorance, between the ages of <i 
and 15 years.' The Board of Education 
was authorized to furnish a copy of either 
Webster's or Worcester's large Dictionary 
of the English Language to every school dis- 
trict, and every school, except primary. In 
the same year provision was made for an 
Agricultural College, which did not take 
form and location till Congress made in 
1862 the Agricultural and Mechanical Col- 
lege land grant. 

In 1851 the Board of Education was 
authorized to employ two or more suitable 
persons to visit the towns and Bchool dis- 
tricts, for giving and receiving information 
in the manner of the secretary of the Hoard; 
and to publish for general distribution - 
tions from the reports of the Board. 

In 1858, the legislature established a sys- 
tem of State scholarship 'to aid in qualify- 
ing principal teachers for high schools,' by 
assisting to educate and train forty-eight 
young men, • of irreproachable moral char- 
acter, free from any considerable defect of 
sight and hearing, and of good health and 
constitution,'' in the different colleges of the 
State. Before the details of the system 

could be perfected by actual experience, 
particularly in the direction of practical 
training, and in the final step of inducting 



922 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



these teacher graduates into the schools, 
first as assistant, and afterwards as principal, 
the law was repealed, and the most benefi- 
cent measure was lost for a quarter of a 
century, at least. 

In 1857, towns were authorized to estab- 
lish and maintain day or evening schools 
for the education of persons over fifteen 
years of age — and thus legalized the prac- 
tice of evening schools already introduced 
in several cities (in Boston in 1836, in New 
Bedford in 1848, in Lowell in 1853). 

In 1870, after nearly fifty years of sug- 
gestion, discussion, and isolated experiments, 
drawing was included by act of the legis- 
lature (May 16) 'among the branches re- 
quired to be taught in the public schools,' 
and 'any city and town having more than 
ten thousand inhabitants were required to 
make provision for free instruction in indus- 
trial or mechanical drawing to persons over 
fifteen years of age, in day or evening 
schools, under the direction of the school 
committee.' Thus was consummated one 
of the suggestions of the commissioners ap- 
pointed by the legislature in 1825, that 
drawing should be made part of the curri- 
culum of their proposed State institution for 
instruction in the practical arts and sciences ; 
and of the slate and blackboard exercises 
presented by Josiah Holbrook and William 
A. Alcott from 1830 to 1842, and of Mary 
T. Peabody (Mrs. Horace Mann) in her 
Primer of Drawing, and of Mr. Barnard in 
his Manual of Methods for Common School 
Teachers in 1839-41 ; and of Mrs. William 
Minot in her first instructions to a class in 
the Franklin school in 1839, and to all the 
teachers of the primary schools of Boston 
in 1841-42. 

In 1871 the legislature appropriated $10,- 
000 out of the income of the school fund 
for the salaries aud expenses of special 
agents of the Board of Education, the ob- 
ject being, first, to ' secure the services of a 
competent agent to give aid and direction 
to a more systematic and thorough course 
of instruction in drawing in the Normal 
Schools; to visit the cities and towns re- 
quired by the law of 1870 to maintain 
schools or classes for instruction in mechan- 
ical drawing ; to give information and assist 
school committees in the formation of such 
classes, and in the management of suitable 
courses of instruction in them ; and to ad- 
vise and aid a practical method for the edu- 
cation of teachers in drawing for special 



schools and for the common schools in this 
branch.' The second object was the em- 
ployment of competent persons to act as 
special agents of certain designated districts 
in cooperation with the labors of the general 
agent, with the view of reaching all the 
towns in the commonwealth, annually, by a 
direct and thorough system of inspection, 
and independent of, and at the same time 
in cooperation with, that of the town com- 
mittees. It was to do, in part, in Massachu- 
setts the work of county superintendents in 
the system of Pennsylvania, Illinois, and 
several other States. This feature was part 
of the original school law prepared by Mr. 
Barnard in 1844 for Rhode Island. 

The first object was secured by the em- 
ployment of Mr. Walter Smith, art master 
in one of the prominent schools (at Leeds) 
in connection with the English department 
of art and science, as professional adviser 
and lecturer in art education, with the title 
of State Director of Art Education. 

In 1872, the fifth State Normal School 
was located at Worcester, and $60,000 ap- 
propriated for a building on a site appropri- 
ated for its use, — a sum which measures the 
progress of public opinion towards these in- 
stitutions, the first institution, in 1838, not 
receiving a dollar towards such expenditure, 
and the three only $5,000, after an experi- 
ence of four years of their utility. They are 
now regarded as indispensable in any sys- 
tem of public instruction. 

The statistics of public schools and State 
expenditures for educational purposes in 
1871 were as follows: total amount of 
taxes paid to maintain public schools, 
$5,462,852 ; and total expense, exclusive of 
collegiate and professional education $6,- 
297,010; $22.63 for each person between 
the ages of 5 and 15 years. Among the 
items are — $3,272,335 for the wages of 
teachers; $122,086 for town and city super- 
vision and printing reports ; number of 
public schools 5,076 (including 181 high 
schools), with 273,661 pupils; number of 
normal schools (State and city) 6, with 
1,100 pupils; teachers' institutes held, 7, 
with an attendance of 908 teachers. Among 
the charges on the income of the State 
School Fund were $3,400 for secretary ; 
$4,224 for agents; $10,627 for printing re- 
port and expenses of board ; $41,427, State 
Normal Schools; $3,000, Institutes; $800, 
State Teachers' Association ; $225, County 
Associations ; $500, American Institutes. 



COMMON SCHOOLS AND ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION. 



923 



MICHIGAN. 

Michigan was settled as early as 1650, 
organized as a territory in 1805, and admit- 
ted a State in 1837, with an area of 56,451 
square miles, and a population in 1830 of 
31,639, which had increased in 1870 to 
1,184,049, and taxable property to the value 
of $272,242,917. 

The constitution adopted in 1835 ordains 
the appointment of a superintendent of 
public instruction, consecrates the proceeds 
of all land grants for educational purposes, 
to such purposes and no other, provides for 
a common school in each school district for 
at least three months in the year, and the 
establishment of libraries, at least one in each 
township, and a university for the State.' 
Under these provisions, that of a State Su- 
perintendent and township libraries being in 
advance of other States, the system of public 
instruction was organized, and these cardinal 
features were not materially altered by the 
Constitution of 1850; except the legislature 
is enjoined to provide within five years for 
the establishment of a ' system of primary 
schools, in which a school shall be kept with- 
out charge for tuition, for at least three 
months in each year in every school district, 
and all instruction conducted in the English 
language.' The university is placed under 
the charge of a Board of Regents, one for 
each judicial district, elected at the same 
time, and for the same term, as the judge of 
that circuit. A State Board of Education 
is also created, of which the Superintendent 
is member and secretary, and to which the 
State Normal School is committed. To 
these State officials the law has added, 
County Superintendents, one for each 
county, elected by the people of the county ; 
Township Inspectors, three for each con- 
gressional township ; District Boards for the 
local management of the schools; and 
Boards of Education for the cities and large 
villages. 

The system of public instruction in 
Michigan started under favorable auspices — 
the early settlers having come from States 
where common schools had been the main 
reliance of the people for the education of 
their children, and having located in neigh- 
borhoods, they enjoyed the facilities of at 
once organizing schools after the old type. 
The framers of the first constitution, and of 
the early legislation, were graduates of the 
academies and colleges of New York and 
New England, and into the educational 



movement from the start, as soon as 
agitated elsewhere, were introduced the 
agencies and institutions which have proved 
useful in the older States. A School Journal 
was started in 1838; a school convention 
was called in the year following; and was 
soon followed by county teachers' associations 
and the State Tea. hers' Association in I 353 ; 
a Teachers' Institute Avas held in 1846, 
and every year since there has been several 
such brief professional courses, and a State 
Normal School has been in operation since 
1859; the permanent university was opened 
to receive pupils within two years alter the 
State had adopted a constitution, and was 
allowed, with the assistance of the State, 
and in anticipation of its special endow- 
ments, to get its foundations laid, and its 
different schools organized before denomi- 
national institutions were chartered to draw 
off the pupils and enlist the interest of 
localities in rivalry, if not in antagonism. 
Under these advantages the munificent pro- 
visions of Congress have been better cher- 
ished and applied up to that time than in 
the other Western States, and her example 
has had a powerful influence in inaugura- 
ting better methods of management. 

The system of public instruction em- 
braces: (1,) Primary schools — so extended 
and so expansive in their organization as to 
meet the wants of 5,000 rural districts, 
where the sparseness of the population ren- 
ders only one school for pupils of all ages 
possible, and at the same time, by allowing 
of gradation in 256 villages and citie>. to 
fill up all the educational demands below 
the university and special schools — doing 
away with the necessity of incorporated 
academies and college preparatory schools. 
This higher, or secondary institution is not 
yet fully developed, but the germ and ca- 
pacity is in the system, and is partially 
worked out in Detroit and other cities. 
According to the superintendent's report, 
there were 273,682 pupils, under 11,014 
teachers (8,221 females), whose « 
amounted to $1,308,828; in Bchool-hooaea 
which cost $6,234,79*7. The total school 
expenditure for the year 1870 was $8,154,- 
221. Of this $175,000 was income of the 
Primary School Funds (capital *2, 700.834, 
with 468,713 acres unsold), and the balance 
was State, town, city, and district property 
taxation, the rate bills paid by parents up 
to 1869 bavins been abolished. Of the 
teachers engaged in the schools nearly 1,000 



924 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



are graduates of State Normal Schools or 
higher educational institutions, and 2,005 
attended the 16 institutes which were held 
in as many different and widely separated 
localities in 1870. 

(2,) The Union and High Schools al- 
though belonging to secondary institutions, 
are returned under the primary schools. Of 
the semi-public schools — the incorporated 
academics, and colleges, and the private 
classical schools, no returns are made. 

(3,) The University, with its professional 
schools, is part of the system of public in- 
struction, and in 1870 reported 1,126 
students, viz., 477 in the department of 
science, literature, and the arts ; 340, of 
medicine and surgery; 309, of the law. 
The expenses of the institution for the year 
were $70,167, met by the income of the 
University Fund ($564,443, with 200 acres 
unsold), and an appropriation from the State 
treasury. The State has recently assigned 
the avails of a special tax in aid of the 
university ; all the schools of the institution 
are open to all citizens of the State without 
distinction of race or sex. 

(4,) State Agricultural College at Lansing 
— founded in 1855, in pursuance of the 
constitutional requirement of 1850, on a 
farm of 676 acres, and with a special fund, 
not yet realized, for its support, but with an 
annual appropriation of $30,000 from the 
State treasury towards its expenses, in addi- 
tion to over $100,000 paid towards its build- 
ings and equipment in 1870. There were 
129 students, of whom 10 were females. 

(5,) State Normal School at Ypsilanti, 
with 90 pupil-teachers in the training de- 
partment. This school was founded in 
1849, on an endowment of a portion of the 
salt spring lands and swamp lands, out of 
which a capitalof $67,616 has been realized, 
leaving land unsold, which it is estimated 
will increase the capital to $300,000. 

((!,) Other Special Schools are the insti- 
tutions for deaf mutes and blind at Flint, 
founded in 1854; the State Reform School 
at Lansing, opened in 1 856. 

(7,) The public library feature of the 
system of public instruction ordained in the 
constitution has not been developed satis- 
factorily in most townships. In Detroit 
alone has it become a prominent institution, 
numbering 20,000 volumes in 1872. 

The aggregate expenditure by the State, 
from funds and property taxation, in 1870 
exceeded $4,000,000. 



MINNESOTA. 

Minnesota was organized as a Territory in 
1849, and admitted as a State in 1850, with 
an area of 83,531 square miles and a popula- 
tion in 1860 of 172,413, which had increased 
in 1870 to 439,706, with taxable property 
to the value of $84,135,332. 

The Constitution of 1850 provides for a 
general and uniform system of public schools 
in each township by taxation or otherwise, 
and a university for the State. 

The State has received from Congress 
2,969,790 acres for schools, 46,080 for a 
university, and 120,000 for a college of agri- 
culture and the mechanic arts. The State 
Auditor for 1872 reports the permanent 
school fund already realized at $2,532,351, 
and the avails of other educational lands 
sold at $500,000 more. 

The authorities for administration are: 

(1,) State Superintendent appointed by 
the Governor and Senate at a salary of $2,- 
500, who must meet with the county super- 
intendents for discussions of all matters 
relating to the schools, and hold teachers' 
institutes as far as practicable in the dif- 
erent counties, and encourage county con- 
ventions of teachers. 

(2,) County Superintendents for such 
counties as elect so to do, through the Coun- 
ty Commissioners, who examine teachers 
after thirty days' notice of the time and 
place, and issue three grades of certificates 
and revoke such license for adequate cause ; 
visit all the schools in the county, and con- 
duct in each county one institute for the in- 
struction of teachers each year ; encourage 
teachers' associations, and disseminate in- 
formation respecting improved methods of 
teaching, school construction and equip- 
ment, and report annually. 

(3,) District Trustees — composed of di- 
rector, treasurer, and clerk, elected by the 
voters in districts and sub-districts created 
by the County Commissioners, to have 
charge of all school matters in such dis- 
tricts, subject to the action of the State and 
County Superintendents. 

(4,) Board of Education for independent 
school districts (cities, villages, &c., having 
over 500 inhabitants), composed of six mem- 
bers, two elected each year for a terra of 
three years, with power to appoint a district 
superintendent (to visit schools, and assist 
teachers in the classification and promotion 
of the pupils), and district examiners, to 
examine candidates for the office of teacher, 
&c. 



COMMON SCHOOLS AND ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION. 






In 1872 the State disbursed $171,881 for 
the 'State Institutions,' viz., $26,212 for 
Normal Schools; $10,000 for Insane Asy- 
lum; $20,000 for deaf mutes and blind; 
$12,009 for State Reform School ; $12,506 
for soldiers' orphans; and $331,161 for State 
Prison ;— total, $171,981. 

The national census for 1870 returns 12,- 
747 persons over 10 years of age who can 
not read, and 24,413 who could not write. 

MISSISSIPPI. 

Mississippi was organized as a Territory in 
1798, and admitted as a State in 1817, with 
an area of 47,156 square miles and a popu- 
lation in 1820 of 75,458, which had increased 
to 827,822 in 1870, with taxable property 
estimated at $177,288,892. 

By act of Congress in 1803, section 16 in 
each township is reserved for the support of 
schools, and 36 sections for the use of Jef- 
ferson College, chartered by the territorial 
legislature in 1801, and two town lots in the 
town of Natchez, and an out lot not exceed- 
ing 30 acres, for the same college. In 1819 
another township, or a quantity equivalent 
thereto, was donated to the State for the use 
of a seminary of learning. It was stated in 
a special message of Governor McRae to the 
legislature in 1856, that the total amount of 
the Seminary Fund in the treasury of the 
State, and for which the State was respon- 
sible, was nearly $1,200,000. In 1870 the 
legislature appropriated $50,000 a year for 
ten years to the support of the university. 

The Constitution of 1817 contains a clause 
from the ordinance of 1785: 'Religion, mo- 
rality and knowledge being necessary to good 
government, the promotion of liberty, and 
the happiness of mankind, schools and the 
means of education shall forever be encour- 
aged.' 

The Constitution of 1868 provides for the 
election by the people of a superintendent 
of public education, at the same time and 
manner as the governor, to hold his office for 
a term of four years and until his successor 
shall be elected, and whose duty it was to sub- 
mit to the legislature for its adoption within 
twenty days after its first session under the 
constitution, a uniform system of free public 
schools. It also provides for a Common 
School Fund out of the consolidation of the 
congressional township fund, the swamp 
lands, escheats, fines for penal offenses, and 
authorizes a poll tax, not to exceed two dol- 
lars per capita. No religious sect or sects 
shall ever control any part of the school or 
university fund. 



The system of free public Bchools adopted 
by the legislature in I860 provides for: (l.) 
State Superintendent; (2,) State Board, 

composed of the State Superintendent, the 
Secretary of state and the Attorney General, 
whose duties are confined to the investment 

of the school funds; (8 t ) County Superin- 
tendents, of which there are 70, and (4,) 
District Boards in each county, who bave 
the local management of schools. Each 
county is made a school district, which can 
be divided into sub-districts for the mai 
ment of local schools. A Stat" Normal 
School exists at Holly Springs, and a Teach- 
ers' Institute must be held annually in each 
Congressional district. In 1870 there were 
98,600 pupils enrolled out of a school popu- 
lation of 304,762, in 3,450 public schools, 
under 3,520 teachers. According to the 
census there were 291,718 person- over 10 
years of age who could not read, and 313,- 
313 who could not write. 

MISSOURI. 

Missouri was first settled in 1763 and ad- 
mitted into the Union in 1820, having an 
area of 67,380 square miles, and a popula- 
tion in 1820 of 66,586 (10,222 slaves), 
which had increased in 1870 to 1,721,295 
(118,071 colored), with a valuation of tax- 
able property of $556,129,969. 

The constitution of 1820 provides for the 
security of school lands (section 16 in each 
township, or 1,199,139 acres, and 36 sec- 
tions, or 46,080 acres, for a university), and 
enjoins 'the establishment of one or more 
schools in each township, as soon as practi- 
cable and necessary, where the poor shall be 
taught gratis.' But little progress was made 
outside of St. Louis until after the constitu- 
tion was revised in 1865. 

In St. Louis, under the Territorial legisla- 
ture, 'a Board of Trustees for schools in the 
town of St. Louis,' was organized in 1817; 
but this Board did little more than legally 
assert the claims of the city to certain 
out-lots, which were more vigorously prose- 
cuted by the new Board constituted in I 
when these claims were converted into a fund 

which already amounts to over $1,000, '. 

and yielded in 1871 an income o( •>.">:*, 000. 
The first school was 'opened in 1838, and 
the first building was erected in 1842 at a 
cost of $10,000;" and in 1871 the buildings 
owned by the city and occupied by the pub- 
lic schools were valued at $2,000,000, the 
schools having increase. 1 from two in 1841, 
with 350 pupils, to sixty-eight in 1871, with 



926 



EDUCATION ASD EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



an enrolled attendance of 31,221 pupils, 
under 559 teachers, and maintained at a 
cost of $723,362. The schools consist of one 
Normal School for female teachers ; one 
High School for boys and girls ; one inter- 
mediate school for boys and girls ; twenty- 
seven district schools in which pupils are 
classified according to age and attainments 
in the primary and grammar divisions; six 
separate schools for colored scholars ; six- 
teen evening schools culminating in a higher 
industrial school ; and a public school library 
of 10,000 volumes. 

The first general law was passed in 1820, 
but repealed in 1825 by an act 'for estab- 
lishing and governing common schools' 
through commissioners of the school land 
in each township, appointed by the county 
commissioner and trustees in each district, 
which shall be laid out and constituted by 
the same county officers. Under this act, 
in a few townships, schools were opened, but 
nothing effectual was done until 1837, when 
a State fund was instituted out of the pro- 
ceeds of the saline lands and the State's 
proportion of the United States surplus 
revenue. This fund has increased to $2,- 
253,000 in 1872. 

In 1853 the office of Superintendent, 
which had been associated with that of Sec- 
retary of State, was made independent and 
elective by the people, and commissioners 
were appointed for each county. Under 
this new act the schools were multiplied, 
but the system did not attain any efficiency 
until the revision of the constitution, and 
the school law in pursuance thereof, in 
1865. By the constitution of that year 
the Legislature must maintain ' common 
schools for the gratuitous instruction of all 
persons between the ages of 5 and 21 years, 
and establish separate schools for children 
of African descent.' Their supervision is 
vested in a Board of Education, of which 
Board the Superintendent is made Presi- 
dent.' ' No township can receive any por- 
tion of the public fund unless a free school 
shall have been kept therein for not less 
than three months during the year for which 
the distribution is made ; and every child 
of sufficient mental and physical ability can 
be required to attend the public schools be- 
tween the ages of 5 and 18 for a term 
equivalent to sixteen months, unless edu- 
cated by other means.' 'To supply any de- 
ficiency in the public school fund to sustain 
a free school, at least four months in every 



year, a property tax may be levied in each 
county, township, or school district, as the 
General Assembly shall provide. In the 
distribution of the State fund, any inequality 
in the county, town, or city local funds may 
be corrected.' 

Under the operation of the law of 1865, 
the schools have increased from 4,840 to 
7,547; the teachers from 6,262 to 7,881, 
and children in attendance from 169,270 to 
280,472. But with this increase there is 
yet a great work to be done in Missouri. 
According to the census of 1870, out of 
577,803 between the ages of 5 and 18 years, 
only 324,348 attended any school in the 
year preceding; and there were 146,771 
persons over 10 years of age who could not 
read, and 222,411 (206,827 natives and over 
130,000 whites) who could not write. 

The State Auditor's report for 1872 gives 
a few items of disbursements for educational 
purposes : Superintendent, assistant, and 
contingent expenses, $6,348 ; blind asylum, 
$27,500 ; deaf mute asylum, $29,500; State 
school moneys paid to the counties, $355,- 
427 ; Normal Schools (Teachers' Institutes, 
&c), $17,000 ; Agricultural College, $8,500 ; 
township funds (16th section), $2,271,582; 
seminary fund (university or the 36 sec- 
tions), $108,700 ; Congressional Agricultural 
College grant, 330,000 acres, with 640 acres 
given by Boone County. 

NEBRASKA. 

Nebraska was organized as a Territory in 
1854, and admitted as a State in 1867, with 
an area of 75,995 square miles, and a popu- 
lation in 1870 of 122,993, and taxable prop- 
erty of $56,584,616. The Constitution of 
1867 provides that all 'educational funds 
accruing out of the sale of all lands or other 
property granted or intrusted to the State 
for educational and religious purposes, shall 
forever be preserved inviolate and undimin- 
ished, and the income thereof shall be ap- 
plied to the specific objects of the original 
grants or appropriations, and no religious 
sect or sects shall ever have any exclusive 
right or control of any part of the school 
funds of the State.' The legislature must 
secure a thorough and efficient system of 
common schools throughout the State. 

The school lands were estimated by a 
committee of the Constitutional Convention 
to exceed 3,000,000 acres, which, if sold at 
the minimum rate recommended, would give 
a permanent fund estimated by the same 
committee at $15,000,000. 



COMMON SCHOOLS AND ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION. 



927 



The system now in operation under the 
school law of 1806 is administered (1,) by a 
State Superintendent; (2,) 40 County Super- 
intendents, one for each county, elected by 
the people, subject to the rules and instruc- 
tions of the State Superintendent ; (3,) trus- 
tees for the several districts. Teachers are 
examined by the County Examiners, and 
receive three grades of certificates run- 
ning for different periods of time, according 
to their qualifications. The law requires a 
County Institute organized under the Coun- 
ty Superintendent, and an Institute for a 
wider territory by the State Superintendent. 

In 1870 there were 1,032 organized school 
districts, with 41,063 children between the 
ages of 5 and 21 years, of whom 23,158 at- 
tended school under 1,080 teachers, whose 
wages amounted to $145,975. The cost 
of school-houses and value of school lots is 
returned at $445,538, and the total expendi- 
ture for all purposes for the year was $363,- 
524. 

NEVADA. 

Nevada was organized as a Territory in 
1861, and admitted as a State in 1864, with 
an area of 81,539 square miles, and a popu- 
lation in 1863 of 43,000, which in 1870 as 
given by the census, stood at 42,491, with 
taxable property valued at $25,740,973. 

The Constitution of 1864 enjoins the 
legislature ' to encourage, by all suitable 
means, the promotion of intellectual, literary, 
scientific, mining mechanical, agricultural 
and moral improvements, provide for the 
election of a superintendent of public instruc- 
tion, and the establishment of a uniform sys- 
tem of common schools, by which a school 
shall be established in each school district 
for at least six months in each year ; and any 
school district neglecting to establish and 
maintain such school, or which shall allow 
instruction of a sectarian character therein, 
shall be deprived of its portion of the inter- 
ests of the public school fund during such 
neglect or infraction. The legislature is au- 
thorized to pass such laws as shall secure a 
general attendance of the children at school. 
The 16th and 36th sections in every town- 
ship, the 30,000 acres for each senator and 
representative in Congress by act of 1862, 
the 500,000 acres granted to new States in 
1841, all escheats and fines for penal offenses, 
shall be held and used for educational pur- 
poses, the interest thereof only to be applied 
as directed in the laws donating the same 
'The legislature shall provide for a State 



university, which shall embrace departments 
of agriculture, mechanic arts and mining, 
and is authorized to establish normal schools 
and schools of different grades, from the 
primary school to the university, -in which 
no sectarian instruction shall be imparted 01 
tolerated.' A special tax of one half of one 
mill on the dollar of all taxable property, 
must be provided for the maintenance of the 
university and common schools. The gover- 
nor, Secretary of State and Superintendent 
are constituted a Board of Regents to 
manage the university funds and affairs. 

The school law of 1865, and amended in 
1867, makes it the duty of the State Super- 
intendent to convene an institute of teachers 
annually, and visit each county for the pur- 
pose of addressing public assemblies on sub- 
jects pertaining to common schools, and 
consulting county and other school officers. 
In 1870 there were 2,883 pupils out of 
3,952 children between the ages of 6 and 
18 years, under 53 teachers ; and 727 per- 
sons over 10 years of age who can not read, 
and 872 who can not write. 

NEW HAMPSHIRE. 

By the first national census in 1790, New 
Hampshire had a population of 141,899. 
which had increased in 1870 to 318,300, on 
an area of 8,280 square miles, and with 
taxable property to the value of 149,065,290. 

The first settlements within the present 
limits of New Hampshire were made from 
Massachusetts at Dover and Portsmouth in 
1623, and down to 1680 all the settlements 
were treated as belonging to the county of 
Norfolk ; and for brief periods afterwards it 
was united to Massachusetts, and the school 
policy of that colony prevailed generally in 
its legislation as an independent province. 
In the first constitution of New Hampshire, 
adopted in 1784, the language introduced 
by John Adams into the second Bection of 
the article on education in the constitution 
of Massachusetts, relating to the encourage- 
ment of literature, the sciences, and semi- 
naries of learning, was followed literally. 

In 1789 a general school law was passed, 
repealing all former acts on the subject, and 
providing: (1,) That the selectmen of the 
several towns and parishes shall assess an- 
nually the inhabitants of the same according 
to their polls and rateable estate, in a sum 
to be computed at the rate o( five pounds 
for every twenty shillings of their propor- 
tion for public taxes for the time being, 'to 
be applied to the sole purpose of keeping an 



928 



EDUCATION' AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



English grammar school or schools for teach- 
ing reading and writing and arithmetic with- 
in the towns and parishes for which the 
same shall be assessed ; except such town be 
a shire or half-shire town, in which case, 
the school by them kept shall be a grammar 
school for the purpose of teaching the Latin 
and Greek languages, as well as reading, 
writing and arithmetic aforesaid ; and in 
failure to assess, collect and apply this tax 
in the manner set forth, the selectmen must 
pay out of their individual estates, for the 
benefit of the town schools, a sum equal to 
that in which they may be found delin- 
quent,' on the requisition of the town clerk, 
whose duty it is made to look after this 
matter. (2,) ' No person shall be deemed 
qualified to keep a town public school, un- 
less he shall produce a certificate from some 
able and reputable schoolmaster and learned 
minister, or preceptor of some academy, or 
president of some college, that he is quali- 
fied to keep such school.' 

These simple and salutary provisions, 
coupled with another dating back to 1691, 
empowering the towns to build suitable 
school-houses by tax on the rateable estates 
of the inhabitants, rigidly enforced would 
have kept up a system of public instruction 
on a uniform basis over the state, when, un- 
fortunately, in 1805 the towns were author- 
ized to divide their territory into districts ; 
and school districts thus constituted were 
authorized to provide school accommoda- 
tion, appoint a local committee, and in gen- 
eral to manage the public school in their 
own way. The lack of intelligent, vigilant, 
and responsible town inspectors over the 
district schools in which the local manage- 
ment was left to themselves, and the estab- 
lishment of academies in the large centers 
of population and business, which met the 
wants of the educated, were followed with 
the same real or relative deterioration which 
characterized the common schools of New 
England, generally. 

The subject of school improvement at- 
tracted attention as early as 1830, in the 
lyceum movement conducted by Josiah Hol- 
brook, and was continued by county com- 
mon school conventions and associations 
begun in 1836. The first state convention 
was called in 1843 ; the first teachers' insti- 
tute held in 1845 ; the office of state com- 
missioner of common schools was instituted 
by the Legislature in June, 1846; and the 
duty of the State in respect to the super- 



vision of schools, which it makes obligatory 
on the towns, has since been recognized in 
some form, and at present by a State Board 
constituting the Governor and council, and 
the Superintendent of public instruction 
acting through county commissioners, or 
rather through a commissioner for each of 
the eight counties into which the State is 
divided. A private Normal school was in- 
stituted in 1845 at Reed's Ferry by Prof. 
Wm. Russell, and a State Normal school es- 
tablished in 1870 at Plymouth. 

To supply the want of the old town gram- 
mar school, an act was passed in 1837 giv- 
ing to the town of Portsmouth, and any 
other town which chose to adopt the pro- 
visions of the act, authority to establish two 
high schools, one for males and the other 
for females, and provide for a graded course 
of studies in connection with the district 
schools. The same authority was given to 
central districts by the Act of 1848. 

In 1872 there were 2,452 common schools 
taught in 2,284 districts, located in 232 
towns, with a registered attendance of 72,672 
pupils, under 3,826 teachers (3,241 females). 
The whole amount raised for school pur- 
poses was $468,527, of which Si 1,565 was 
paid the superintendents of town commit- 
tees for their services. The buildings and 
sites of school-houses were valued at 81,- 
870,000. According to the census of 1870 
there were 7,618 persons over ten years of 
age who could not read, and 9,926 who 
could not write. 

Various attempts have been made since 
1846 to protect children under fifteen years 
of age employed in factories and other 
manufacturing establishments from excessive 
labor, and secure to all children elementary 
instruction, which culminated in 1871 in 
' An Act to compel children to attend 
school,' which ordains that all parents, 
guardians, or masters of any child between 
the ages of eight and fourteen, residing 
within two miles of a public school, shall 
send such child at least twelve weeks in each 
year, six of which must be consecutive, un- 
less such child shall be excluded from such 
attendance on the ground of physical or 
mental inability to profit by such attend- 
ance ; or is instructed in the same period in 
a private school or at home, under penalties 
for violation, $10 for the first and $20 for 
each subsequent offense, to be recovered as 
in an action of debt. A penalty attaches to 
school officers for not executino- the law. 



COMMON SCHOOLS AND ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION. 



929 



NEW JERSEY. 

New Jersey was first settled in 1627, and 
adopted its first constitution as a State in 
1776, with an area at that time of 8,320 
square miles, and a population in 1790 of 
184,139, which in 1870 had increased to 
906,096, with a valuation of taxable proper- 
ty of $624,868,971. 

The constitution of' 1776 contains no 
allusion to schools or education ; nor prior to 
the colonial period was there any legislation 
respecting common schools. In 1816 an 
act to create a fund for the support of free 
schools was adopted, and the first distribu- 
tion of its income took place under the act 
of 1829, passed ' to establish common 
schools.' By this act towns were authorized 
to raise money to support schools by tax, 
and must raise in this way a sum sufficient 
to entitle it to any portion of the income 
of the school fund ; but it was not till ten 
years later that towns were compelled to 
raise a specified sum every year, nor till 
1871 that the schools were made free by a 
State school tax of 2 mills on the valuation. 

The first educational convention in the 
State was held in 1828, at Trenton, and 
from that time the subject of school im- 
provement was agitated in county and state 
meetings until 1838, when a large meeting 
of delegates from every part of the State 
was held at Trenton, presided over by Chief 
Justice Hornblower, and the address of 
which to the people of the State was drawn 
up by Rt. Rev. Bishop Doane. From this 
rousing address we make a brief extract : 

We address you as the sovereign people, and we 
say that it is your duty and your highest interest to 
provide and maintain, within the reach of every 
child, the means of such an education as will qualify 
him to discharge the duties of a citizen of the 
Republic; and will enable him, by subsequent exer- 
tion, in the free exercise of the unconquerable will, 
to attain the highest eminence in knowledge and 
power which God may place within his reach. We 
utterly repudiate as unworthy, not of freemen only, 
but of men, the narrow notion that there is to be an 
education for the poor as such. Has God provided 
for the poor a coarser earth, a thinner sky. a paler 
air? Does not the glorious sun pour down his 
golden Hood as cheerily upon the poor man's hovel 
as upon the rich man's palace? Have not the Cot- 
ter's children as keen a sense of all the freshness, 
verdure, fragrance, melody and beauty of luxuriant 
Nature as the pale sons of kings? Or is it on the 
mind that God has stamped the imprint of a baser 
birth, so that the poor man's child knows with an 
inborn certainty that his lot is to crawl and not to 
climb? It is not so. God has not done it. Man 
can not do it. Mind is immortal Mind is im- 
perial. It bears no mark of high or low. of rich or 
poor. It heeds no bound of time or place, of rauk 



or circumstance. It asks but freedom; it requires 
but light, it is heaven-born, and aspires to heaven. 

oess does not enfeeble it. Poverty can a 
press it. Difficulties do but stimulate its 
Ami the poor tallow-chandler's son that sits up all 
the night to read the book which an apprentice 
lends him, Lest the master's eye should mis< it in 
the morning, shall stand and treat with kings 
add new provinces to the domain I -hall 

bind the lightning with a hempen cord, and bring it 
harmless from the skies. The common school is 
common, not as inferior, not as the school for the 
poor men's children, but as the light and air and 
water are common. 

The office of State Superintendent was 
created in 1846. The first County Teachers' 
Association was formed for Esses County in 
1847, and the State Teachcr.s' Association 
was formed in 1853. The first Teachers 1 
Institute was held at Sommerville in 1851, 
and provision was made for their being held 
by the State for the first time in 1854. The 
State Normal School, after years of agita- 
tion was established in 1858. Special 
authority to the large cities to establish 
graded schools was given to the city of 
Patterson in 1836, and subsequently extend- 
ed and exercised by most of the large cities. 
The school authorities are : (1,) The State 
Board of Education, composed of the Gov- 
ernor, Attorney-General, Comptroller, Sec- 
retary of State, President of the Senate, 
Speaker of the Assembly, and the Trustees 
of the State Normal School ; (2,) the Super- 
intendent of Public Instruction, who is ap- 
pointed by the Board, of which he is secre- 
tary, and who, with the Principal of the 
Normal School, constitutes a Board of Ex- 
amination; (3,) County Superintendents, 
appointed by the Board, who, with the City 
Superintendents, elctcd by the City Boards 
of Education, constitute the State Associa- 
tion of School Superintendents; (4,) Town- 
ship Board of School Trustees. 

The means to support common schools 
in 1871 were: (1,) the income ($85,000) of 
the school fund (capital $792,190) and 5 
appropriation ($65,000 to make), $100,000; 
(2,) township school tax, $44,467 ; district 
school tax, $18,144; surplus revenue, $31,- 
654; two mill State school tax, $1,1 68,6 
appropriation for the State Normal, and Far- 
mini Schools, $1 1,200 ;— total, for all pur- 
poses, $2,268,070. Total valuation of school 
buildings and grounds, $4,966,788, 

Out of 258,227 children between the 
ages of 5 and is years, 161,688 were en- 
rolled iii public schools; of the number en- 
rolled, 15,594 attended ten months, 21,801 
eight months, 26,570 six months, 33,158 
four and 63,429 less than four months. 



930 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION'S. 



NEW YORK. 

New York, settled as early as 1609, bad 
by the first national census of 1792, on an 
area of 46,000 square miles a population of 
340,120, which bad increased in 1870 to 
4,382,759, with taxable property to the 
value of $1,967,001,185. 

In the first constitution of 1777 there is 
no reference to schools; in that of 1822, the 
proceeds of all State lands are appropriated 
to a common school fund ; and in the third 
of 1846, the capital of several educational 
funds at that time existing, are declared in- 
violate, and their revenues must be applied 
to the objects to which they are donated. 

In 1784, the first session after the term- 
ination of the war, an act was passed to 
alter the name of Kings College, in the city 
of New York, to Columbia College, and to 
erect a university. This act was superseded 
in 1787 by another, which instituted the 
Regents of the University, and provides for 
the incorporation by them of colleges and 
academies. To this board has been given 
from time to time, duties which cover the 
common schools. 

The first act for the encouragement of com- 
mon schools was drafted by Adam Comstock, 
a native of Connecticut, in 1795, by which 
$50,000 were annually appropriated for five 
years to the several cities and towns, 'in 
which the children of the inhabitants resid- 
ing in the State shall be instructed in the 
English language (taught English grammar), 
arithmetic, mathematics, and such other 
branches of knowledge as are most useful 
and necessary to complete a good English 
education.' The boards of supervisors were 
required to raise by tax a sum equal to one 
half of that appropriated by the State, to be 
applied in like manner. At the end of four 
years the appropriation was not renewed, 
and notwithstanding the efforts of Jedediah 
Peck, a native of Connecticut, and others, 
no efficient legislation took place till 1812. 

In 1811, on the recommendation of Gov. 
Tompkins, a commission, with Mr. Peck 
chairman, was appointed to report a plan 
for establishing a system of common schools, 
which was done in 1812, after the commis- 
sioners had conferred with friends of educa- 
tion in different parts of the State, and 
studied the rise and progress of similar sys- 
tems in neighboring States. The following 
are the outlines of their plan : ' That the 
several towns in the State be divided into 
school districts, by three commissioners, 



elected by the citizens qualified to vote for 
town officers ; that three trustees be elected 
in each district, to whom shall be confided 
the care and superintendence of the school 
to be established therein ; that the interest 
of the school fund be divided among the 
different counties and towns, according to 
their respective population, as ascertained 
by the successive census of the United 
States ; that the proportions received by the 
respective towns be subdivided among the 
districts into which such towns shall be 
divided, according to the number of children 
in each, between the ages of 5 and 15 years; 
that each town raise by tax annuallv as much 
money as it shall have received from the 
school fund ; that the gross amount of 
moneys received from the State and raised 
by the towns be appropriated exclusively to 
the payment of the wages of the teachers ; 
and that the whole system be placed under 
the superintendence of an officer appointed 
by the Council of Appointment.' 

These features were embodied in the act 
of 1812, and under the careful administra- 
tion of Gideon Hawley, a native of Con- 
necticut, as superintendent, the system went 
into operation, to gather strength and ex- 
pansion from year to year, and contribute 
by its beneficent results to the establishment 
and improvement of common schools in 
other States. 

In 1839, the superintendent (John C. 
Spencer) was authorized to appoint a County 
Board of School Visitors to serve gratuitous- 
ly in their several counties, and so favorably 
received were the reports of these school 
visitors, that in 1841 the legislature, by a 
nearly unanimous vote, provided for the ap- 
pointment by the Board of Supervisors for 
each county, biennially, of a County Super- 
intendent, charged with the general super- 
vision of the interests of the several schools 
under his jurisdiction. No previous act had 
imparted such general activity to school 
affairs as this; but in 1847 the office was 
abolished, and the supervision of the schools, 
examination of teachers, the appointment 
and disbursement of the school fund, were 
intrusted to a single officer in each town. 
In 1857, the operation of town supervision 
proving unsatisfactory, provision was made 
for the appointment of School Commission- 
ers in districts. There were 135 city and 
district commissioners in 1871. 

The law of 1812 provided for the support 
of schools out of the income of the school 



COMMON SCHOOLS AND ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION. 



931 



fund and a tax upon the towns equal to its 
distributive share of the school money, at 
first optional, but afterwards obligatory, 
through the county tax. In 1814, the trus- 
tees of the district were authorized to sup- 
ply any deficiency in the means to pay the 
wages of teachers, by collecting it from the 
parents or patrons of the school in propor- 
tion to the attendance of their children. In 
1849, the rate bills were abolished, leaving 
the deficiency, after applying the public 
money to the payment of teachers' wages, 
to be made up by district taxation. This 
act was submitted to the people, and ap- 
proved by a vote of 249,872 in its favor, 
and 91,151 against it. In 1850 the Free 
School Act, as it was called, was repealed ; 
but being again submitted to the people, the 
act itself was sustained. In 1851 the law 
was repealed, and the State taxation of 
$800,000 was levied, to be distributed with 
the school moneys in the support of schools, 
instead of the county tax, equal in amount to 
the annual distribution from the school fund. 
In 1856, to the State tax of $800,000, a 
levy of three-fourths of a mill upon every 
dollar of real and personal estate was made, 
which has since been increased to one and 
one-fourth of a mill, yielding in 1872 the 
net sum of $2,565,072. 

To secure the services of well qualified 
teachers, and to exclude the incompetent 
and immoral, was a primary object with the 
commissioners who reported the original 
school law of 1811. This they aimed to 
effect by the appointment of inspectors to 
whom the examination of all candidates was 
given, and without whose certificate no 
teacher could be legally employed. This 
mode tested the attainments of candidates, 
but provided no way in advance of actual 
experience of acquiring the requisite knowl- 
edge whereby better qualifications could be 
had of principles and methods of teaching. 
To remedy this, Gov. Clinton in 1825 and 
in 1826 recommended a ' seminary for the 
education of teachers in those useful branches 
of knowledge already introduced in all our 
common schools,' and in 1828 he urges the 
establishment in each county of a Monitorial 
High School (after the model of one in Liv- 
ingston County, under the charge of C. C. 
Felton — afterwards President of Harvard 
College), 'in which better methods of teach- 
ing shall be at once taught and exemplified. ' 
In 1826, Mr. John C. Spencer, from the 
Literature Committee of the Senate (to 



whom the recommendations of the Governor 
had been referred), recommended that the 
income of the Literature Fund Bhoold be 
divided among the academies, not in pro- 
portion to the number of classical Btudenta, 
but to the number of 'persons instructed in 
each, who shall have been licensed aa teach* 
ers of public schools by the proper board.' 
In 1827, Mr. Spencer, from the same com- 
mittee, reported an act by which the Litera- 
ture Fund was increased for the avowed pur- 
pose in the preamble 'of promoting the 
education of teachers,' ' the incompetency 
of the great mass of whom is radical and 
defeats the whole system, and the hopes and 
wishes of all who feel an interest in dissem- 
inating the blessings of education.' 

In 1834, a portion of the income of the 
Literature Fund was set apart 'to be dis- 
tributed by the regents to such academies, 
subject to their visitation, as will provide for 
the education of teachers for the common 
schools.' Under this provision, one academy 
was selected in each of the eight senatorial 
districts, in which was erected a department 
devoted to this particular work, known as 
the Teachers' Department; and in 1838, by 
an act appropriating the income of the 
United States Deposit Fund for the pur- 
poses of education, $28,000 was appropriated 
to the several academies on condition that 
'the academies receiving any of its distribu- 
tive share equal to $700 should establish 
and maintain a department for the instruc- 
tion of common school teachers.' Under 
this provision the number of academies with 
this special course for teachers was increased 
to fifteen; and in 1871, under a revision of 
the previous legislation on the subject in 
1855, 'the science of common school teach- 
ing' was taught to 'teachers' classes' in 87 
academies, with a total attendance of 1,494 
pupil teachers. 

In 1840, Prof. Potter, of Union College 
(afterwards Bishop Potter, of Pennsylvania), 
in a special report founded on a personal 
visit to the academics having teachers' de- 
partments, recommends 'the establishment - 
of one institution at the capital, devoted ex- 
clusively to the education of teachers.' The 
same recommendation was indorsed by the 
superintendent (JohnC. Spencer), in his re- 
port to the legislature of that year. In 
1844, the committee on colleges, academies, 
and common schools, in the House of Rep- 
resentatives, through the chairman (Mr. 
Hulburt), after visiting the Normal Schools 



932 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



of Massachusetts reported a bill to establish 
a Normal School at Albany ' for the instruc- 
tion and practice of teachers fur common 
schools in the science of education and in 
the art of teaching,' appropriating $10,000 
annually for five years for its support. This 
school, in a building furnished gratuitously 
by the city of Albany, went into operation 
in December, 1844; and, after a successful 
trial of four years, received in 1848 from 
the state a special appropriation to provide 
permanent accommodations, and an annual 
appropriation of $12,000 for its support. 
In 1863, aid was extended to the Training 
School at Oswego, which was formally recog- 
nized a State Normal School in 1866; and 
in 1864, provision was made for six other 
institutions located in different parts of the 
State; the citizens of Brockport, Fredonia, 
Cortland, Potsdam, Geneseo, and Buffalo 
having furnished suitable buildings at an ag- 
gregate expense of $500,000. The value 
of the grounds, buildings, and equipment 
of the State Normal Schools is estimated 
$829,739, and the annual expense to main- 
tain them, at $150,000. With the Normal 
pupils are large schools and classes of 
children whose exercises are made subsidiary 
to the main object of the institution. In 
1872, there were 5,807 students in attend- 
ance on the different departments of the 8 
Normal schools. 

In 1839, Francis Dwight secured the con- 
solidation of all the school districts in 
Geneva, and inaugurated the union or graded 
system in New York; and in 1840 issued 
the first number of the District School 
Journal, a copy of which the superintendent 
obtained authority to send to every school 
district. 

By the Union Free School Act of 1853, 
cities and villages divided into districts were 
enabled to consolidate for the purpose of 
maintaining graded schools, and for making 
them free in advance of the general free 
school act of 1867. Under the operation 
of this act, more than ninety academies in- 
cluded within the limits of such districts 
were absorbed into the general system, be- 
coming the High Schools of the united dis- 
tricts. The whole number of such schools in 
1870 was 694. 

In 1835, the first legislative provision for 
school libraries was made. To James Wads- 
worth of Geneseo, a native of Connecticut, 
belongs the credit of originating the system 
of district school libraries. In 1811, in a 



letter addressed to one of the commissioners 
appointed by Gov. Tompkins to report to 
the legislature a system for the organization 
and establishment of common schools, Mr. 
Wadsworth (after giving the outline of the 
system of common schools actually adopted), 
suggested that ' it should be made the duty 
of the State Commissioner to send to the 
school inspector of each town a " Lancaster 
Manual," containing observations on teach- 
ing and school government, and thus diffuse 
throughout the State the latest and most 
practical information as to approved meth- 
ods.' In 1832 he was instrumental in secur- 
ing the distribution of a copy of " Hall's 
Lectures on School Teaching," to each 
school district (9,000), and in 1833 recom- 
mended the incorporation into the school act 
of a provision authorizing a majority of the 
voters ' to raise by a tax on the property of 
each district $15 or $20 as a commence- 
ment of, and $5 or $10 annually, as a peren- 
nial spring, to purchase and sustain a school 
library,' until 1835, when the foundation of 
the district school library was laid by the 
passage of an act giving the authority as 
above suggested. To secure a beginning in 
this direction, Mr. Wadsworth offered to pay 
one-fourth of the $20 to all districts in Avon 
and Geneseo, and then offered $20 to the 
first five districts in Henrietta which should 
adopt the same, and employed the Rev. Mr. 
Page to give lectures on the subject, in all 
towns of Livingston County, and in other 
sections. In 1838 he labored to secure 
the appropriation of a portion of the income 
of the United States Deposit Fund for the 
same purpose, and through the exertions of 
the Hon. G. W. Patterson, who was then 
Speaker of the House, and the Hon. D. D. 
Barnard, chairman of the committee, this 
was accomplished, and $55,000 was annually 
appropriated for the purpose. To his labors 
in this direction should be added the publi- 
cation, at his expense, of The School and 
the Schoolmaster — the first prepared by 
Prof. Alonzo Porter, and the last by George 
B. Emerson of Boston, and the distribution 
of over 15,000 copies, one to each school 
district, and to town and county school 
officers. Mr. Wadsworth also paid the ex- 
pense of the American edition of Cousin's 
Report on the School System of Prussia 
in 1834, and aided J. Orville Taylor in the 
publication of the Common School Advocate 
from 1835 to 1838. 

The common schools arc situated in 



COMMON SCHOOLS AND ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION. 



933 



11,350 districts, taught in houses which, 
with their sites, are valued at (23,468,266, 

accommodating 1,028,147 children in attend- 
ance some portion of the year (to which 
should be added 5,807 in normal schools, 
30,370 in academies, 3,194 in colleges, 
135,433 in private schools), taught by 28,2 1 1 
teachers (21,068 females). The average 
daily attendance of children attending the 
common schools is placed at 493,648. 

The means for the support of schools for 
the year 1872 were derived from the follow- 
ing sources, viz., The Common School 
Fund ($3,004,513), $170,000 ; United States 
Deposit Fund ($4,414,520), income $165,- 
000; State school tax (If per cent, on the 
valuation), $2,610,784 ; by local tax, $6,552,- 
994, making a total of $10,874,910. Among 
the items of expenditure we rind, for the 
wages of common school teachers, $6,510,- 
164; district school libraries, $30,917; 
school apparatus, $179,156; colored schools, 
$678,582 ; school construction and furni- 
ture, $1,982,547; incidental expenses, 
$1,164,142; appropriation for academies, 
$44,646 ; teachers' classes in academies, 
$15,345; Teachers' Institutes, $16,171; 
Normal Schools, $128,723; Cornell Univer- 
sity, $25,000; Indian schools, $6,837; su- 
perintendent of public instruction, $18,127 ; 
regents of universities, $6,349 ; printing 
registers for school districts, $13,000. To 
these items should be added the following 
not included in the aggregate above given : 
deaf and dumb institution, $103,923 ; 
institution for the blind at New York, 
$39,903 ; institution for the blind at Batavia, 
$40,500; state asylum for idiots, $50,000 ; 
orphan asylums, $9,000; school commis- 
sioners' salaries, $90,187 ; state reformatory 
at Elmira, $198,000. 

The enormous sums expended for the 
common schools of New York will be real- 
ized in the fact that from 1850, when the 
school expenditure was $1,607,684, to 1872, 
when the total expenditure was $9,607,903 
— a period of 22 years — the aggregate ex- 
penditure was nearly $106,146,344. 

In 1825, orphans in special asylums were 
first recognized as entitled to the distribu- 
tion share of any money appropriated to 
common schools, which is now made the 
basis of the special appropriation in their 
behalf to the amount, in 1871, of $472,760. 

In 1866, the superintendent was charge. 1 
with providing schools for the Indian 
children, which in 1871 numbered 1,073, in 
27 schools, at a cost of $8,559. 
49 



The system of common Bcliools rests on territorial 
subdivisions of the State known .-is 8chool Die 

boundaries are defined ami altered by the 

s,,i I Commissioner, and on On School 

Districts, formed with special powers under the act 
of 1853, aud the City Districts created by Bpecial 
acts. 

The Officers intrusted with the administration of 
the system, beginning al the lowest po at, are: 

1. District Trustees — composed of one or three, as 
the district may decide. The three act 

and the sole trustee has the same power as a board 
of three. These powers and duties at 
meetings; to make out tax lists and warrai 
purchase sites, and build or hire sc 
insure district property; to have the custody and 
safe keeping of the school-house and other property ; 
to contract with and employ teachers, and pay 
them; and generally to attend to all the busin 
the district. They must make in October of every 
year, a return in form and substance as required by 
law, to the School Commissioner, as the basis of ail 
school statistics, and such other information as the 
State Superintendent may from time to time require. 
There is also a district clerk, collector, and librarian. 

2. Town Clerk for each toiv '/ 1 — is required to keep 
in his office all books, maps, papers, and records 
touching schools; to record in a book the certificate 
of apportionment of school moneys; to notify the 
trustees of the tiling of such certificate; to obtain 
from trustees their animal reports; to furnish the 
School Commissioner with the names and post -office 
address of all district officers; to distribute to trus- 
tees all hooks and blanks forwarded to him for their 
use; to file and record the final accounts of super- 
visors; to preserve the supervisor's bond; to file 
and keep the description of district boundaries; and 
when called upon, to take part in the erection or 
alteration of a school district. The supervisor for 
each town receives all moneys destined for school 
purposes in the town, and disburses according to 
law and the special direction of the State Superin- 
tendent. 

3. School Commissioners — elected for certain dis- 
tricts originally established by boards of supervisors, 
but now determined by law to the number of 112 
for the State. They have power, and it is their 
duty, to see that the boundaries of districts ai 
rectly described; to visit and examine the schools; 
to advise with and counsel the trustees; to look 
after the condition of the school-houses, and con- 
demn such as arc entirely unfit for use; to recom- 
mend studies and text-books; tO examine ami 
license teachers; to examine charges against teach- 
ers, and, on sufficient proof, annul their certificates; 
and when required by the Superintendent, to take 
and report testimony in cases of appeal. It is also 
their duty, annually, to apportion and divide among 
the districts the school moneys apportioned to their 
respective counties by the Superintendent of Public 
Instruction. 

4. Department of Pui «. — The head of 
this department is the State Superintendent, which 
office was originally independent, but in 18S 
such, was abolished and its duties assigned to the 

Secretary of State, who performed them through a 

special clerk or deputy, until 1864, when it was 
again separated and instituted into the Department 
of Public Instruction. The superintendent is elected 
by joint ballot of Senate and Assembly, lie holds 



934 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



office for three years; has general superintendence 
of the public schools, visits them, inquires into their 
management, and advises and directs in regard to 
their course of instruction and discipline. He ap- 
portions and distributes the public moneys appro- 
priated by the State for the support of schools; ex- 
amines the supplementary apportionments made to 
all the districts by the School Commissioners, and 
sees that to each district is set apart its proportion- 
ate share, and that the same is expended by the 
trustees, and paid by the supervisors of towns, ac- 
cording to law. He gives advice and direction to 
school officers, teachers, and inhabitants upon all 
questions arising under the school laws. He estab- 
lishes rules and regulations concerning appeals. 
He hears and decides all appeals, involving school 
controversies, that are brought before him, and his 
decision is final. He is charged with the general 
control and management of Teachers' Institutes in 
the several counties of the State; is authorized to 
employ teachers and lecturers for the institutes, and 
to pay them, and to certify the accounts for ex- 
penses incurred by the commissioners in conducting 
the same. He is required by the law to visit the 
institutes, and to advise and to direct concerning 
their proper management. He establishes rules and 
regulations concerning district school libraries; he 
makes appointments of State pupils to the institu- 
tions for the instruction of the deaf and dumb and 
for the blind, upon the certificate of the proper local 
officers; and he visits and examines into the con- 
dition and management of these institutions. He is 
chairman of the executive committee of the State 
Normal School at Albany, and apportions among 
the counties the number of pupils to which each is 
entitled. He is one of the board for the selection 
of the places in which to establish any additional 
Normal Schools. After the schools are established, 
he has general supervision and direction of them; 
he appoints the local board to manage them ; he 
approves the rules for their government: he directs 
the form of their reports; and all payments for 
their support are paid upon his certificate. He ap- 
proves the course of study ; the number of teachers 
and their wages are subject to his approval; he can 
cause one or more of the schools to be composed 
of males, and one or more of females, in his discre- 
tion ; and he decides upon the manner in which 
pupils shall be admitted from the several parts of 
the State. He has similar powers over the Oswego 
Normal School, and six similar schools since estab- 
lished. He has charge of all the Indian schools in 
the State, employs local agents to superintend them, 
visits them, and directs concerning the erection and 
repair of their school-houses, and determines the 
branches of instruction to be pursued in the schools. 
He is, ex-officio, a Regent of the University and 
chairman of the committee on teachers' classes in 
academies. He is also, ex-officio, a member of the 
Board of Trustees of the Idiot Asylum, and the 
Cornell University. He receives and compiles the 
abstracts of the reports from all the school districts 
in the State, setting forth their condition and pro- 
ceedings, and the account of receipts and expendi- 
tures for each year. He makes, annually, to the 
legislature a report of the condition of all the schools 
and institutions under his supervision, and recom- 
mends such measures as, in his judgment, will con- 
'tribute to their welfare and efficiency. 



NORTH CAROLINA. 

North Carolina was first settled in 1653, 
and in 1720 had on an area of 45,000 
square miles a population of 393,751 
(100,573 slaves), which in 1870 had in- 
creased to 1,071,361 (391,650 colored), 
with $624,868,971 taxable property. 

The first official allusion to the want of 
schools in North Carolina is believed to 
have been made by Governor Johnston, a 
native of Scotland, in his address to the 
Legislature, in Edenton, in 1736; and the 
first effectual act for the encouragement of 
literature was a law passed in 1762, for the 
erection of a school-house in the town of 
Newbern. A similar law applicable to the 
town of Edenton was passed next year. 

In 1770, an act for founding, establishing, 
and endowing Queens College in the town 
of Charlotte, Mecklenberg County, was re- 
pealed by royal proclamation, and its 
re-enactment in the year following met with 
the same fate. In 1776 this county, in ad- 
vance of the Continental Congress at Phila- 
delphia, declared the State forever absolved 
from allegiance to the British Crown, and in 
the year following incorporated ' the Presi- 
dent and Fellows of Liberty Hall, in the 
County of Mecklenberg,' with the following 
preamble : ' Whereas, the proper education 
of youth in this infant community is highly 
necessary, and would answer the most valu- 
able and beneficial purposes to this State 
and the good people thereof; and whereas, 
a very promising experiment hath been 
made at a seminary in the County of Meck- 
lenberg, and a number of youths there 
taught have made great advancements in 
the knowledge of the learned languages, 
and in the rudiments of the arts and 
sciences, in the course of a regular and 
finished education, which they have since 
completed at various colleges in different 
parts of America ; and whereas, the sem- 
inary aforesaid, and the several teachers 
who have successively taught and presided 
therein, have hitherto been almost wholly 
supported by private subscriptions, in order 
therefore, that said subscriptions and other 
gratuities may be legally possessed and duly 
applied, and the said seminary, by the 
name of Liberty Hall, may become more 
extensively and generally useful, for the en- 
couragement of liberal knowledge in lan- 
guages, arts, and sciences, and for diffusing 
the great advantages of education upon 
more liberal, easy, and generous terms.' &c. 



COMMON SCHOOLS AND ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION. 



935 



The institution was born in stormy times, 
and the enterprise, after the trustees made 
several ineffectual attempts to get a presi- 
dent from Princeton College, and sufficient 
funds, was abandoned. 

In the State Constitution, framed at 
Halifax in December, 1776, they provided 
'that a school or schools shall be established 
by the Legislature for the convenient in- 
struction of youth, with such salaries to the 
maters, paid by the public, as may enable 
them to instruct at low prices; and all 
useful learning shall be encouraged in one or 
more universities.' The establishment of 
public schools was thus expressly enjoined 
upon the Legislature; and the order in 
which the public school and the university 
is mentioned, shows the connection and de- 
pendence which the framers of the Consti- 
tution thought should exist between them. 
The language was mandatory, — ' schools 
shall be established by the Legislature.' 
The schools were to be fit, ' convenient,' 
accessible to all; and the salaries to 
the masters were to be ' paid by the ptiblic.' 1 
They provided, first, in the organic law, for 
the instruction of the children of the peo- 
ple at the public charge ; and secondly, for 
' one or more universities,' in which ' all 
useful learning' should be encouraged. 
In 1789, the University of North Carolina 
was established and endowed, but no pro- 
vision was made for common schools. 
Speaking of this period. Judge Murphey, in 
an address in 1827, remarks : 

'The number of our literary men has 
been small when compared with our popu- 
lation ; but this is not a matter of surprise 
when we look on the condition of the State 
since the close of the Revolutionary War. 
When the war ended, the people were in 
poverty, society in disorder, morals and 
manners almost prostrate. Order was to be 
restored to society, and energy to the laws, 
before industry could repair the fortunes of 
the people ; schools were to be established 
for the education of youth, and congrega- 
tions formed for preaching the gospel, be- 
fore the public morals could be amended. 
Time was required to effect these objects ; 
and the most important of them, the educa- 
tion of youth, was the longest neglected. 
Before this university went into operation 
in 1794, there was not more than three 
schools in the State, in which the rudiments 
of a classical education could be acquired. 
The most prominent and useful of these 



schools was kept by Dr. David Caldwell, of 
Guilford County. He instituted it shortly 

after the close of the war, and continued it 
for more than thirty years. The usefulness 
of Dr. Caldwell to the literature of North 
Carolina will never be sufficiently appre- 
ciated; but the opportunities of instruction 
in his school were very limited. There was 
no library attached to it; his students were 
supplied with a few of the Greek and Latin 
classics, Euclid's Elements of Mathematics 
and Martin's Natural Philosophy. Moral 
Philosophy was taught from a syllabus of 
lectures delivered by Dr. Witherspoon in 
Princeton College. The students had no 
books on history or miscellaneous literature. 
There were, indeed, very few in tin' State, 
except in the library of lawyers who lived 
in the commercial towns. I well remember, 
that after completing my course of studies 
under Dr. Caldwell, I spent nearly two years 
without finding any book to read except 
some old works on theological subjects. 
At length I accidentally met with Voltaire's 
history of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, 
an odd volume of Smollett's Roderick Ran- 
dom, and an abridgement of Don Quixote. 
These books gave me a taste for reading, 
which I had no opportunity of gratifying 
until I became a student in this university 
in the year 1876. Few of Dr. Caldwell's 
students had better opportunities of getting 
books than myself; and with these slender 
opportunities of instruction, it is not sur- 
prising that so few became eminent in the 
liberal professions. At this day, when 
libraries are established in all our towns, 
when every professional man, and every 
respectable gentleman has a collection of 
books, it is difficult to conceive the incon- 
veniences under which young men labored 
thirty or forty years ago.' 

The following extract from the number 
of the North Carolina Journal for the 22d 
of June, 1795, seems to present a brighter 
picture of the advance of public education, 
but it will be seen that the limited number 
of academies named, and the great im- 
portance attached to the fact that they were 
able to prepare youths for an entrance into 
college — itself at that time hardly in ad- 
vance of the high schools o( the present 
day, denote no very high degree of literary 
attainments, and would hardly in our times 
be esteemed worthy of a newspaper article. 

• We have the pleasure to announce to 
the public that the Academy at Thyatira, 



936 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



erected and conducted by Dr. McCorkle ; 
the Warren ton Academy, under the man- 
agement of the Rev. Mr. George ; and the 
Chatham and Newborn academies, are all 
in a very flourishing state. The high repu- 
tation and great experience of the gentle- 
men who have the direction of these sem- 
inaries will insure their establishment and 
success, and furnish annually a large number 
of students prepared to enter at once at the 
university upon the higher branches. 

From 1789 to 1825, though the 'old- 
field ' or English schools were multiplied, 
and a few academies and high schools were 
established, no provision was made for com- 
mon schools. In 1816, Hon. Archibald D. 
Murphey, of the county of Orange, then a 
member of the State Senate, made an able 
and highly interesting report to that body 
on the subject of public instruction, urging 
the establishment of common schools, and 
also of an institution for the deaf and 
dumb. The report concluded with a resolu- 
tion authorizing the speakers of the two 
houses to appoint three persons to digest a 
system of public instruction, and submit the 
same to the next General Assembly. The 
report and resolution were adopted ; and 
subsequently, and it is presumed under this 
resolution, Duncan Cameron and Peter 
Browne, Esqrs., and the Rev. Joseph Cald- 
well, the President of the University, were 
charged with this duty. The committee 
never met, but a report was prepared by 
their chairman, and laid before the Assem- 
bly. In 1818, Mr. Murphey made another 
report, more in detail and more practical. 

'In 1825, the Legislature passed the first 
act on the subject, — 'An Act to create 
a fund for the establishment of common 
schools.' To Bartlett Yancey, of the county 
of Caswell, is due the high distinction of 
having conceived and penned the first act 
for the establishment and promotion of com- 
mon schools. This act set apart for the pur- 
pose certain stocks, the vacant and unap- 
propriated swamp lands, the tax on auc- 
tioneers, retailers of ardent spirits, &c. — 
' the parings of the treasury,' as they were 
called by Mr. Yancey himself. But the 
funds accumulated slowly, and the friends 
of the system went to work by tongue and 
pen to increase the fund, and thus obtain 
means for starting the schools. Foremost 
among these was the Rev. Joseph Caldwell, 
a scholar, a philosopher, a statesman, and a 
christian. He wrote, and caused to be pub- 



lished at his own expense, in 1832, a series 
of 'Letters on Popular Education, addressed 
to the People of North Carolina ;' in which 
he examined the whole subject with great 
care, showed the importance of educating 
all the children of the State, and urged the 
people to instruct their representatives to 
take early and effectual steps in this, their 
highest temporal concern. 

'In 1836, another act was passed, organ- 
izing 'a Board of Literature,' — providing 
for draining the swamp lands, and still 
further increasing the school fund. The 
public mind now began to be generally 
aroused on the subject; and several able 
papers, advocating public instruction, were 
presented to the Legislature in 1838, — one 
by the president and directors of the litera- 
ry fund, and one by Mr. W. W. Cherry, of 
Bertie, being a report of his as chairman of 
the committee on education. In 1837 the 
State received on deposit from the General 
Government, under the deposit act of 1836, 
the sum of $1,433,757.39, which was in- 
vested for the benefit of common schools, 
and increased the permanent fund to about 
$1,732,000, exclusive of swamp lands. 

In 1838, a bill drawn by Mr. W. W. 
Cherry, providing for laying off the State 
into school districts, and for submitting the 
question of ' school ' or ' no school ' to the 
people of the respective counties, was passed. 
The act embraced the present plan of re- 
quiring each county to raise one dollar for 
every two dollars distributed by the literary 
board. In 1839 nearly all the counties 
adopted the system ; and in 1841 it was put 
into full operation. 

In 1852, C. II. Wiley was appointed 
State Snperintendent, and on the breaking 
out of the war of secession, in 1861, hail 
inaugurated a system of common schools 
which was adapted to the social and politi- 
cal habits of the people, but perished in the 
disturbances which followed. 

In the constitution of 1868 it is made 
the duty of the legislature ' to establish a 
general and uniform system of public 
schools, free to all the children of the State 
between the ages of 6 and 21. In 1869 a 
system was inaugurated which is yet* labor- 
ing with the difficulties of a disorganized 
society — social and industrial, and with de- 
tails of organization foreign to the general 
policy and habits of the people. Out of 
99,114 persons between 6 and 21 years, 
29,303 were estimated to be in 1,398 public 
schools. 



COMMON SCHOOLS AND ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION. 



937 



OHIO. 

Ohio remained a portion of the territory 
northwest of the River Ohio, in which the 
old Congress of the Confederation began in 
1787, its beneficent policy of incorporating 
'schools and the means of education' among 
the organic elements of civil society, and 
laid the foundation of numerous States of im- 
perial dimensions and industrial resources, in 
impartial freedom, morality, and knowledge, 
until 1799, when it was organized as a dis- 
tinct territory, and admitted into the United 
States in 1802, with an area of 39.964 
square miles, and a population in 1800 of 
45,365, which had increased in 1870 to 
2,665,260, with a taxable property returned 
to the value of $1,167,731,097. 

In the plan of settlement in 1785, the pub- 
lic lands were surveyed into townships of six 
miles square, containing 36 sections of one 
mile square of 640 acres each, one of which 
was reserved for public schools. The act of 
Congress passed April 30, 1802, 'to enable 
the people of the eastern division of the 
Territory Northwest of the river Ohio, to 
form a constitution and State government, 
and for the admission of such State into the 
union, provides that section numbered 16 in 
every township, and where such section has 
been sold, granted, or disposed of, other 
lands equivalent thereto and most contiguous 
to the same, shall be granted to the inhab- 
itants of such townships, for the use of 
schools.' Other special tracts were granted 
to the State, or reserved from ordinary pur- 
chase, were vested in the legislature in trust 
for schools. The entire land surface of Ohio 
was 25,576,969 acres, the land grants and 
reservations for schools amounted to 710,500, 
exclusive of two townships reserved for a 
university. In spite of these beneficent pro- 
visions, and of the school habits of many of 
the families among the original settlers, the 
institution of public schools in a new country, 
in sparsely populated townships, with scanty 
resources, where roads and dwellings were 
of immediate physical necessity, was slow. 
The constitution of 1802 enjoins that ' re- 
ligion, morality, and knowledge being essen- 
tially necessary to good government and the 
happiness of mankind, schools and the means 
of instruction shall forever be encouraged bj 
legislative provision, not inconsistent with 
the right of conscience.' Notwithstanding re- 
peated and urgent recommendations by suc- 
cessive governors in their annual messages, 
the visible benefits of such schools as the 



first settlers from New England established 
by voluntary subscription for theii children, 
and the labors of a few men like Bphraim 
Cutter, ( Jaleb Attwatcr and Nathan Guilford, 
it was not till L825 that a general school law 
was passed. In this, the principles of taxa- 
tion arc recognized, but no efficienl plan of 
supervision and providing good teachers was 
adopted. In 1831 the teachers and active 
friends of schools organized an association 
called the college of teachers, which began 
in their annua! gatherings the work of school 
agitation. In 1835, the legislature required 
school returns from the county auditor.-, and 
Prof. Calvin E. Stowe, of the Lane Theolog- 
ical Seminar}- at Cincinnati, who was about 
to visit Europe, was appointed to report on 
the elementary school systems of Prussia ami 
other European States, which was made, ami 
printed in 1837, and produced a profound 
impression, not only in Ohio, but in other 
States. In 1836, Samuel Lewis, of Cincin- 
nati (a native of Massachusetts) was appoint- 
ed State Superintendent with a salary of 
$500. With experience as a public speaker, 
with much study of the schools of Cincin- 
nati, and a participant in the discussions of 
the College of Teachers, Mr. Lewis made great 
pecuniary and personal sacrifices, and entered 
on the work of official exploration of schools 
and agitation of educational topics among 
the people, in the spring of 1837. lie found, 
' out of Cincinnati there were no public 
schools worthy of the name, practically open 
to rich and poor, and nearly half of the or- 
ganized school districts were without school- 
houses, and that not one-third of the whole 
number would be appraised at $50 each.' 
Mr. Lewis's report on the deficiencies of 
public schools in Ohio, and Prof. Stowe'a 
glowing picture of elementary instruction in 
Prussia, carried triumphantly through the 
legislature, in spite of bitter opposition, an 
act, which made the office of superintendent 
permanent, created a State School Fund, 
imposed a county tax of two mills for the 
support of schools, and authorized district 
taxation for school-houses, required reports 
from school teachers, and town and county 
officers, gave incorporated towns and cities 
a board of education, with power to estab- 
lish a public school of a higher grade, and 
pro\ ided county examinations for candidates 
for the office of teacher. This was the begin- 
ning of B state system with some elements 
of vitality and efficiency in its organization. 
Mr Lewis entered on its administration in 



933 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



May, 1838, by issuing the Common School 
Director, and announcing his intention to 
visit every county, and inviting school offi- 
cers, teachers, and friends of education to 
meet him, and as editor and lecturer, ' with 
his office and head-quarters in the saddle,' he 
did a work for 1838, for practical results, 
second to that of no other laborer in the 
educational field, before or since. In 1839, 
after making a third report, and a special 
report on a State university for teachers, Mr. 
Lewis resigned, with health impaired, with- 
out a dollar of compensation for three years 
hard work, his entire salary having been ex- 
hausted in travel and other expenses of his 
office, but with the consciousness that he had 
increased the number of schools reported 
from 4,336 to 7,225, and the value of school- 
houses from $61,890 to 1206,445, and had 
laid the foundations of a system, which in 
1872 reported 11,565 school-houses erected 
at a cost of $17,168,196, which accommo- 
dated 694,348 pupils in enrolled attendance, 
who employed 22,061 teachers, and required 
the expenditure for the year of $7,150,856. 

The system has been wrought up to its 
present degree of efficiency mainly through 
the teachers of the State acting through the 
State Teachers' Association. In no other 
State have the teachers engineered their 
own work so successfully as in Ohio ; and 
yet the census of 1870 shows an amount of 
illiteracy in the population over 10 years 
old sufficiently alarming, viz., 92,720 who 
can not read, and 173,172 who can not 
write. 

In January 18, 1843, in Columbus, a plan 
of school improvement was presented by 
Henry Barnard of Connecticut, to the West- 
ern College of Teachers, and to members of 
the Legislature — afterwards at Cincinnati 
and Sandusky — which resulted in the pas- 
sage of an Act to facilitate the consolida- 
tion of school districts, and the organization 
of Union Schools ; the holding of a Teach- 
ers' institute at Sandusky ; the bringing of 
Dr. A. D. Lord from Kirtland to become the 
principal of the High School and Superin- 
tendent of Public Schools of Columbus ; to 
the publication of a school journal at the 
Capital, and a series of measures which led 
finally to the employment of Lorin P. An- 
drews, as the agent of the Ohio Teachers' 
Association. The first Teachers' Institute 
was held at Sandusky, under the auspices of 
Chief Justice Lane, at the suggestion of 
Mr. Barnard, by Hon. Salem Town. 



The following items, taken from official 
documents for 1872, show the magnitude 
of the educational expenditures of Ohio ; 
State Commissioner, clerks, &c, $5,169; 
local management and county superintend- 
ents, $129,615; school sites, buildings, and 
equipment, $1,428,964 ; teachers' wages — 
primary schools, $3,898,156 ; teachers' 
wages — high schools, $321,406; total 
$4,219,563; contingent expenses, $1,639,- 
214 ; total for common school purposes, 
$7,383,856; institution for deaf and dumb, 
$63,405; institution for blind, $111,816; 
institution for idiots and feeble minded, 
$52,722 ; State home for soldiers' orphans, 
$114,009; reform farm school for boys, 
$45,000 ; industrial school for girls, $26,553. 

OREGON. 

Oregon was organized a Territory in 1848, 
and admitted a State in 1859 with an area 
of 95,274, and a population in 1860 of 52,. 
405, which had increased in 1870 to 90,923, 
with $31,798,510 of taxable property. 

By the constitution of 1857, the governor 
is made superintendent of public instruction 
for the term of five years, after which the 
legislative assembly may provide by law for 
his successor. The proceeds of all lands 
granted to the State for educational purposes, 
except the university land, all money which 
may accrue to the State by escheat or for- 
feiture, exemptions from military duty, from 
the sale of the 500,000 acres reserved by act 
of 1841, and of the five per centum of net 
proceeds of the sales of the public lands on 
the admission of the State into the Union, 
shall constitute an irreducible fund for the 
support of common schools in each school 
district, and the purchase of suitable libraries 
and apparatus therefor. The school lands 
amount to 4,475,966 acres. 

In the act of 1862, provision is made for 
the election of a school superintendent for 
each county, and for three directors for each 
district. 

According to the census of 1870 there 
were 18,096 persons, out of a school popu- 
lation of 29,400 attending school, and 
1,047 persons over 10 years of age who 
could not read, and 2,064 who could not 
write. The same census returns 637 schools 
of all kinds, of which 4 were public high 
with 502 pupils, 590 common schools with 
27,000 pupils, 16 academies with 1,600 
pupils, 2 colleges with 298 pupils, 1 school 
of medicine, 1 agricultural college and 2 
commercial schools. 



COMMON SCHOOLS AND ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION. 



939 



PENNSYLVANIA. 

Pennsylvania was first settled in 1638, 
and by the first national census of 1790, on 
an area of 46,000 square miles, had a popu- 
lation of 434,373, which in 1870 had in- 
creased to 3,521,790, with taxable property 
to the value of $1,243,367,852. 

The first constitution adopted in 1776 had 
no provision respecting schools, and that of 
1798 enjoined ' the legislature as soon as con- 
veniently may be, to provide by law for the 
establishment of schools throughout the 
State, in such manner that the poor shall be 
taught gratis." In 1838, an attempt in the 
convention which framed the constitution of 
that year, to amend this provision so ' as to 
provide by law for the establishment of com- 
mon schools throughout the State, in such a 
manner that all persons residing therein may 
enjoy the benefits of education,' failed, leav- 
ing the provision as in 1798. 

The first general school law was passed in 
1819, expressly 'to provide for the poor 
gratis,' in which with minute definition of 
such as are entitled to the benefit of this 
act, viz., ' of children between the ages of five 
and twelve years, whose parents are unable 
to pay for their schooling, and excluding all 
children whose education is otherwise pro- 
vided.' A list of these children, made out 
by the assessors of each township, corrected 
by the commissioners of the county, is sent to 
teachers of schools within the township, with 
instructions to enter against the names of 
such children on this list as apply for tuition, 
the number of days they may attend or be 
taught, and send in their bill for the same to 
the county commissioner. 

The first act, under which any demonstra- 
tion of what public schools could become, 
was special for the city and county of Phil- 
adelphia, by which a broad and beneficent 
system of public instruction has been devel- 
oped, was adopted in 1818. By this act, in 
1871, 414 schools (viz., 1 Boy's Central 
nigh School or College, 1 High and Normal 
School for Girls, 58 Grammar schools, 142 
Intermediate schools, 186 primary schools 
and 26 night schools), with 87,428 scholars, 
1,668 teachers (79 male and 1,589 female 
teachers, supported at a cost of $1,370,705. 
«• The valuation of school property in 1872 
exceeded $3,000,000. 

The first provision for general education 
for the State was made in 1831, which the 
supplementary acts of 1834, is:35, 1836 and 
1837 has developed into an efficient system 



of public schools, for which much is d 
the wise organization and administration, 
and the judicious publications of Thomas II. 
Bnrrowea of Lancaster, who became the first 
Superintendent of Public Schools as Secre- 
tary of State in 1834. This office was made 
independent in 1857. < Jounty Superintend- 
ence were first organized in 1854, and the 
first State Normal School in 1857. The 
State Teachers' Association was organized 
in 1852; the first School Journal was pul>- 
lished in 1836, and the Pennsylvania School 
Journal in 1852; the first Teachers' Insti- 
tute was held in 1849, and the attendance 
has increased from 3,704 teachers in 1868 
to 11,890 in 1871. 

The following items from the Report 
of the Superintendent (J. P. Wickeraham) 
for 1872, illustrate the magnitude of the 
operations of the system of common schools: 
The total expenditure was $8,345,072. This 
sum supported 15,999 schools in 2,029 
cities and towns; paid 18,368 teachers, for 
834,313 pupils, in buildings which with 
their grounds and equipments have an esti- 
mated value of $18,689,624 ; and employed 
in the district management and county su- 
perintendence, 13,541 persons. 

To the above expenditures for common 
schools in cities, villages and rural districts 
should be added $475,245 paid to thirty- 
seven institutions (existing asylums mainly 
under religious denominations) for the sup- 
port and instruction of 3,527 soldiers' or- 
phans, which has already cost the State 
$3,467,543; $54,000 for the instruction of 
the mute, $70,000 for the instruction of the 
blind; $28,000 for training feeble minded 
children: $10,000 for friendless children; 
$71,900 for juvenile offenders; $11,500 for 
Lincoln University ; $25,00 to the Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania. 

The following outline of the system of 
common schools in operation in 1871 is 
taken mainly from the Report of the Super- 
intendent for that year : 

{\,) Districts and —Each township, 

borough, and city is mado by law a school district. 
The districts thus formed are the only ones except a 
small number of what are called 'independent dis- 
tricts,' with a single school; formed out of parts of 
adjacent counties, otherwise badly accommodated 
with schools. Outside of cities and boroughs, the 
school districts have from one to thirty BChi "Is. the 

average number being about seven The power of 
levying and collecting taxes, building and furnish- 
ing school-houses, employing and paying teachers, 
selecting text-books, and managing the schools gen- 
erally, is vested in a board of Bix directors, two of 
whom are elected annually at the regular local elec- 



940 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



tions. The courts have power to remove directors 
for the non-performance of duty, and the State 
Superintendent can refuse to pay a district its quota 
of the annual Stale appropriation, if its directors do 
not keep the schools 'open according to law.' 

(2,) Superintendents for Towns, Cities, and Coun- 
Hss. — The directors of a district are authorized by 
law to appoint and pay a District Superintendent, 
and to require the Teachers in their employ to hold 
a District Institute. Each board is compelled to 
make an annual report to the State Superintendent 
through the agency of the proper County Superin- 
tendent, who must approve it, accompanied by a 
sworn statement to the effect that the schools of the 
district have been kept open and in operation ac- 
cording to law, and specifically declaring that no 
teacher has been employed during the year who did 
not hold a valid certificate, and that the accounts of 
the district have been legally settled. Failing to 
make such a statement works a forfeiture of the 
State appropriation. 

The school directors of each county, and of each 
city and borough having over 7,000 inhabitants, as 
ma} r choose to do so, meet in convention triennially, 
at the call of the State Superintendent, to elect a 
superintendent and tix his salary. The directors 
fix the salary of the office absolutely, but they are 
limited in their choice of a person to fill it. to per- 
sons having certain scholastic and professional 
qualifications, of the sufficiency of which the State 
Superintendent is to judge before he issues the com- 
mission. The State Superintendent pays the sal- 
aries of the County Superintendents and fills all 
vacancies iu the office by appointment. 

The duties of the superintendents of counties, 
cities, and boroughs are to examine and certificate 
teachers, visit schools, give instruction to the teach- 
ers, hold institutes, and supervise generally the 
school interests intrusted to their care. They make 
monthly and annual reports to the School Depart- 
ment. 

(3,) Teachers and their Certificates. — No person 
can be employed to teach in a common school who 
does not hold a legal certificate in one of the forms 
which are granted as follows : 

A provisional certificate, which is a mere license 
to begin to teach. It is good only in the county 
where issued, and for a single year. A scale of 
figures from one to five is used in filling up this cer- 
tificate, to denote degrees of proficiency in the sev- 
eral branches. 

A professional certificate, which is a license to 
teach in the county where issued for the term of 
the Superintendent granting it, and for one year 
thereafter. It is granted to any good teacher who 
can pass an examination in orthography, reading, 
writing, arithmetic, geography, grammar, history of 
the United States, and the theory of teaching. 

A permanent certificate, which is granted by this 
department to teachers holding professional certifi- 
cates, whose application therefor is indorsed by the 
proper superintendent, the proper board or boards 
of directors, and by a county committee of teachers 
elected by ballot for this purpose at the Teachers' 
Institute. This certificate is good permanently in 
the county where issued, and for one year in any 
other county. 

A State certificate, which is issued to teachers 
who pass an examination, in a prescribed course, 
before the .Board of Examiners of the State Normal 



Schools. This certificate is permanently good in 
any part of the State. 

(4,) State Normal Schools. — The State is divided 
into twelve Normal School districts. To nine of 
these the State has appropriated $15,000 each 
towards the erection of buildings for Normal School 
purposes. The balance of the money required for 
their erection either has been or must be raised by 
local contributions. The buildings when erected do 
not belong to the State, but to the stockholders or 
contributors, who, however, cannot dispose of them 
or use them for any other purpose, without the con- 
sent of the State authorities. The State has appro- 
priated considerable money to the several schools 
for the purchase of apparatus. No school can be 
recognized as a State Normal School until it has 
been found by the State authorities to conform to 
the requirements of law, and, when recognized, its 
charges, course of study, and disciplinary regula- 
tions must be approved by the State Superintend- 
ent. The State furnishes diplomas for all graduates 
of Normal Schools, and the State Superintendent is 
chairman of the board that conducts the examina- 
tion of the graduating classes. The State pays 
each student, who is attending a Normal School for 
the purpose of becoming a teacher, fifty cents a 
week towards his expenses, and gives him a gra- 
tuity of fifty dollars at graduation. All appropria- 
tions to State Normal Schools are paid by the State 
Superintendent. A diploma of the first degree, 
given at a State Normal School, exempts the holder 
from examination in any part of the State for a 
term of two years after graduation ; but at the ex- 
piration of that time he must either submit to an 
examination, or present to the Board of Examiners 
of the Normal School where he graduated, an ap- 
plication for a diploma of the second degree, in- 
dorsed by the board or boards of directors for whom 
he has taught, and by the proper superintendent. 
This, if granted, makes him a teacher tor life. 

(5,) State School Department. — This department 
consists of the State Superintendent, who is ap- 
pointed by the Governor, with the consent of the 
Senate, and holds his office for three years, and ap- 
points his subordinate officers, which consisted in 
1871 of a deputy superintendent, two inspectors of 
Soldiers' Orphan Schools, four clerks, and a mes- 
senger. The work of the School Department, with 
respect to the several educational agencies of the 
State, is briefly as follows: 

With respect to Teachers: — It prepares and fur- 
nishes certificates for all the eighteen thousand 
teachers, and grants directly certificates to such of 
them as have reached the higher grades of the pro- 
fession. 

With respect to School Directors and Comptrollers: 
— It gives advice and instruction concerning their 
duties to the thirteen thousand school directors and 
comptrollers, furnishes them blanks, receives and 
tabulates their reports, reviews their accounts, 
judges whether they have kept their schools open 
according to law, and if so, pays them the State ap- 
propriation for their respective districts. 

With respect to County Superintendents: — It calls 
conventions for the election of County Superintend- 
ents in the several counties, receives the returns 
and judges of their legality, commissions the per- 
sons elected, removes the disqualified, pays their 
salaries, provides blanks for recording and tabu- 
lating their work, and receives and publishes their 
reports. 



COMMON SCHOOLS AND ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION. 



941 



"With respect to City and Borough Svp rink nd- 
ents: — It holds about the same relation to the City 

and Borough Superintendents as it does to County 
Superintendents, except in the nutter of the direct 
payment of salaries. 

With respect to Teachers 1 Institutes : — Tt furnishes 
the Teachers' Institutes — one being held in each 
county — with blanks for reports; receives, tabu- 
lates, and publishes their reports, and renders all 
the assistance possible in their management. 

With respect to State Normal Schools: — It inves- 
tigates the claims of Normal Schools to State recog- 
nition, executes all legal forms necessary to their 
becoming State institutions, examines and' approves 
their courses of study, their governmental regula- 
tions and their charges to students, visits them, ap- 
points the times of examining their graduating 
classes, and assists at the examinations; furnishes 
diplomas tor their graduates, receives ami publishes 
their reports, and pays them their State appropria- 
tions. 

With respect to the Soldiers' Orphan Schools: — 
It has almost complete control of the forty different 
institutions in which soldiers' orphans (3.600) are 
maintained ami instructed; the accommodations, 
the persons employed, the food, clothing, instruction, 
and discipline of the children being subject to the 
direction of the State Superintendent. 

With respect to Colleges and Academies: — It re- 
ceives, tabulates, and publishes all reports made by 
colleges and academies, as required by law. 

Besides all this, the department makes an annual 
report to the legislature, containing full information 
concerning the condition of the system of public in- 
struction in the State, and proposing plans for its 
improvement; to give advice appertaining to their 
school interests to every citizen who asks it, and to 
decide all questions relating to those interests, with- 
out expense to the parties presenting them. 

To carry out, with the necessary system, the 
multiplied details of this immense work, the depart- 
ment prepares and issues, to the different school 
agencies and officers throughout the State, some 
thirty-live kinds of blank-books and forms, and is 
compelled to use twenty-five kinds of blank-books 
in which to keep its own records. Its correspond- 
ence reaches full fifteen thousand letters per annum. 

With all the expenditures by the State 
and municipalities, and with all the activity 
and cooperation of school officers and the 
people, the statistics of adult illiteracy and 
non-attendancce of children of school age 
are truly formidable and alarming. The na- 
tional census of 1870, returns 181,728 per- 
sons, ten years and over, who can not read, 
and 222,5:50 who can not write, and of the 
latter, 120,803 are natives. The Superin- 
tendent in his report for 1872 remarks : ' It 
is to be feared that the number of illiterates, 
both of youth (31,512 between the ao-es of 
10 and 21 years) and those of mature age 
(190,829), is much below the actual Dumber. 
The number reported should be doubled, 
and more than doubled, who are growing 
up in ignorance. 



RHODE ISLAND. 

Rhode Island was first Bettleu in 1631, 
and in lT'io had a { ><>i n 1 l.it i . . t 1 of 69,122, 
which in 1870 had increased bo 217, 
with an area of 1,306 square miles, and a 
valuation of $213,570,350 taxable property. 
Under the settled policy of it- founders 
during the colonial period id' its history, tin- 
people tolerated no legislative interference 
with religions belief or praetice, or wilb the 
education of children, which, like religion, 
was considered strictly a parental ami individ- 
ual duty. In some towns, donations in lands 
were made by individuals for the support of 
Free Schools — the endowed grammar b hools 
of England. Soon after the adoption of 
the federal constitution, the subject of public 
schools was agitated in the pulpits; and in 
1798 a committee of the Providence Asso- 
ciation of Mechanics and Manufacturers ap- 
pointed a committee 'to inquire into the 
most desirable method for the establishment 
of free schools.' On the recommendation of 
this committee, a memorial and petition 
drawn up by John Howland, of Providence, 
was presented to the General Assemblv, and 
in 1800 'an Act to establish Free Schools' 
was passed, but which met with violent op- 
position, and was repealed in 1803, before 
any town but Providence had acted on its 
provisions. That town was excepted in the 
repeal. In 1825 the town of Newport was 
authorized to raise money by tax for the 
support of a free school, and to apply to it 
the avails of certain lands which had been 
bequeathed to the town for this put; 

In 1828, after many years of agitation 'an 
act to establish public schools 1 was passed, 
by which 'all money paid into the general 
treasury by managers of lotteries or their 
agents, by auctioneers for duties accruing to 
the State, &C.,' was set apart for the ex- 
clusive purpose o\' keeping public — . • 1 1 . >. > I s» . 
Each town was empowered to raise money 
by tax not exceeding in any one year twice 
the amount received from the State (which 
was by law not to exceed fcln.000 in any 
one year), provided special notice was in- 
serted in the warrant for the tow u meeting 
that such a tax would be acted on,' and such 
towns could appoint a school committee to 
manage the schools set up nndei this act. 
The town of Providence was authorized by 
special law to as>ess ami collect any amount 
of tax for free school-, and in 1836 took 
the necessary steps to put the public schools 
on a basis of organization, and with an 



942 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



outfit of school-houses, and material appli- 
ances, and with a superintendent (Nathan 
Bishop, the first city superintendent of 
puhlic schools in the United States), and a 
corps of well qualified teachers for each 
grade of school from the primary to the 
high (for both sexes), which in five years 
placed its system of public instruction in 
advance of all other cities in the country. 

Under this act (of 1828), supplemented 
by special acts from year to year to enable 
a few districts to build school-houses by 
tax, and a revision of the law in 1839, by 
which the annual State appropriation was 
increased to $25,000, and the power of the 
towns to raise money by tax was extend- 
ed to double the sum received from the 
State, and by six acts ' in addition to and 
amendments thereof down to 1843, feeble 
and altogether unsatisfactory beginnings 
were made to establish public schools. In 
1843, Wilkins Updike, a member of the 
House from South Kingston, introduced a 
bill for a public act (drawn up by Henry 
Barnard of Connecticut), ' for ascertaining 
the condition of the public schools in this 
State, and for the improvement and better 
management thereof.' The bill simply pro- 
vided for the appointment of an agent ' to 
visit and examine the public schools, the 
qualifications of teachers, and their mode 
of instruction, and the actual condition and 
efficiency of the schools and popular educa- 
tion generally, and make report to the legis- 
lature, with such plan as his observations 
and experience may suggest.' The bill was 
explained by Mr. Updike, and in the even- 
ing before a convention of the two houses, 
by Mr. Barnard, who had then just returned 
from a tour of observation and pioneer 
work into every State in the Union, and on 
the following morning it became a law with- 
out a dissenting voice ; and before Mr. 
Barnard could leave the town the governor 
had issued a commission appointing him to 
the office created by the act. The position 
was at once respectfully and firmly declined ; 
but on the urgent solicitation of Mr. Up- 
dike, Hon. E. R. Potter, Dr. Wayland, Mr. 
Kingsbury, and public men of both politi- 
cal parties, (and the State was widely and 
bitterly divided by the ' Dorr War ' and the 
two constitutions), Mr. Barnard reconsidered 
his decision, and on the 5th of December 
entered on his work of school inspection 
and educational conference and agitation in 
Rhode Island. A citizen of another State, 



in a State proverbially jealous of any inter- 
ference from abroad in her domestic institu- 
tions, and constitutionally opposed to all 
State interference in matters which belong 
to the towns, and going among men and 
into families boastful of their individual 
liberty to do as they pleased in matters of 
religion and education, and suspicious of 
all ' college learnt men,' the agent needed 
all the cooperation solicited by Governor 
Fenner in announcing his appointment to 
the people of Rhode Island. 

In pursuance of an act ' to provide for ascertain- 
ing the condition of the public schools of this State, 
and for the improvement and better management 
thereof,' I have secured the services of Henry 
Barnard, who has had several years experience in 
the discharge of similar duties in a neighboring 
State, and has observed the working of various 
systems of public instruction in this country and in 
Europe. Mr. Barnard will enter immediately on 
the duties of his office. His great object will be to 
collect and disseminate in every practicable way 
information respecting existing defects and desira- 
ble improvements in the organization and adminis- 
tration of our school system, and to awaken, en- 
lighten, and elevate public sentiment, in relation to 
the whole subject of popular education. With this 
view, he will visit all parts of the State, and ascer- 
tain, by personal inspection, and inquiries of 
teachers, school committees, and others, the actual 
condition of the schools, with their various and 
deeply interesting statistical details. He will meet, 
in every town, if practicable, such persons as are 
disposed to assemble together, for the purpose of 
stating facts, views, and opinions, on the condition 
and improvement of the schools, and the more com- 
plete and thorough education of the people. He 
will invite oral and written communications from 
teachers, school committees, and all others inter- 
ested in the subject, respecting their plans and sug- 
gestions for advancing the intellectual and moral 
improvement of the rising, and all future genera- 
tions, in the State. The results of his labors and 
inquiries, will be communicated in a report to the 
General Assembly. In the prosecution of labors 
so delicate, difficult, and extensive, Mr. Barnard 
will need the sympathy and cooperation of every 
citizen of the State. With the most cordial ap- 
proval of the object of the legislature, and entire 
confidence in the ability, experience, and zeal of 
the gentleman whom I have selected to carry it 
out, I commend both to the encouragement and aid 
of all who love the State, and would promote her 
true and durable good, however discordant their 
opinions may be on other subjects. 

The plan of operations was to acertain by 
personal inspection and official reports the 
actual condition of the schools, and arouse 
and enlist the people in the thorough 
and entire change not only of opinion, but 
of habits in regard to schools and educa- 
tion. 

To effect this change, in,the course of three 



COMMON SCHOOLS AND ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION. 



943 



years, eleven hundred school meetings were 
held in the thirty-three different towns — 
one at least, in every large neighborhood. 
One hundred and fifty of these meetings 
were continued through the day and evening; 
one hundred through two evenings and a 
day; fifty through two days and three 
evenings ; and twelve as teachers' meetings 
through the week. 

In addition to these meetings and ad- 
dresses, having reference mainly to legal 
organization and administration, upward of 
two hundred meetings of teachers and pa- 
rents were held for lectures and discussion 
on the best methods of teaching the studies 
ordinarily pursued in common schools, and 
for public exhibitions and examinations of 
schools or of classes of pupils in certain 
brandies or studies, such as arithmetic, read- 
ing, etc. Besides these formal meetings, 
experienced teachers were employed to visit 
particular towns and sections of the State 
which were known to be particularly indif- 
ferent or opposed to public schools, and con- 
verse freely with parents by the way-side 
and by the fireside on the condition and 
importance of these schools. By means of 
these agencies a public meeting was held 
within three miles of every home in Rhode 
Island, and it was believed that three or 
more members of every family in the State 
was directly reached and favorably impressed 
in regard to the educational movement in- 
augurated in 1843. 

To confirm the work begun by the living 
voice, the printed page was freely resorted 
to. Besides hundreds of volumes of elab- 
orate treatises, 100,000 pamphlets and tracts, 
containing at least sixteen pages of educa- 
tional matter each, were distributed gratu- 
itously throughout the State ; and in one year 
not an almanac was sold in Rhode Island 
without at least sixteen pages of educational 
reading attached, including numerous wood 
cuts devoted to schools as they were, and as 
as they should be. Upward of 1,200 vol- 
umes on schools and school systems and 
the theory and practice of teaching were 
purchased by teachers, or added to public 
and private libraries; and at least thirty 
volumes of educational literature were placed 
within the reach of the school committees of 
each town, and made accessible to teachers. 

With this preparation of the public mind, 
a bill for the modification of the school sys- 
tem was introduced into the Legislature, 
and its various provisions explained by the 



agent to the members, After undergoing 

various changes in that body, the bill was 
printed with remarks explanatory of the 
general scope as well as of the minute de- 
tails, and distributed broadcast over the 
State; and not until the rabject bad been 
repeatedly discussed before the legislature 
and the people, was any attempt made to 
press final action, so that when it did be- 
come a law in 1855, it was thoroughly un- 
derstood and went at once into operation 
without friction or serious opposition, and 
no attempt was made to weaken its most 
efficient provisions. To facilitate its intro- 
duction, forms of proceeding from the first 
organization of the school district to laving 
and collecting taxes, specimen of school 
registers, district and town school returns, 
regulations as to classification, studies, 
books, examination of teachers and schools, 
were attached and distributed to every 
school officer. 

To facilitate the construction of spacious, 
attractive and convenient school-houses, the 
importance of these structures and equip- 
ment, their seating, ventilation and heating, 
was fully explained to parents and school 
officers, plans were widely distributed, and 
every cooperation desired by builders or 
committees was given by the State Commis- 
sioner, so that within five years, a complete 
revolution passed over this department of 
the field, and no State in the Union was so 
well furnished with commodious and health- 
ful structures for school purposes. 

To keep teachers up to their work, insti- 
tutes, conventions, associations (State, coun- 
ty and town) were resorted to, a monthly 
educational journal was published, and trea- 
tises on methods and discipline were brought 
within their reach for purchase or perusal. 
When the agent closed his work in 1 B 19, in 
place of unregulated, antagonistic, insuffi- 
cient in number, and poorly equipped pri- 
vate schools, a system of public instruction 
was in quiet operation in every town, reach- 
ing every neighborhood, taught by teachers 
of ascertained qualifications, supported by 
tax, and visited by intelligent and interested 
school officers. 

One of the most effective agencies in this 
reformatory movement, in enlisting teachers, 
parents and school others in a system of 
common efforts was the Rhode Island Insti- 
tute of Instruction, established in 1844, and 
which in 187;i held its twenty ninth anni- 
versary in a series of meetings, in the larg- 



944 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



est public ball in Providence, with a crowded 
attendance of teachers and school officers, 
from all sections of the State. 

Evening schools, which proved an assen- 
tial feature of the plan of supplementary 
instruction in 1845, was taken up system- 
atically in 1867 by Mr. Samuel Austin, 
through whose activity the Rhode Island 
Educational Union was instituted, and whose 
untiring agent he has been since, as well as 
a worker in this field all his life. In twenty 
towns in 1872, sixty evening schools have 
been maintained," with an average of one 
hundred pupils. The legislature in 1871 
made a special appropriation in aid of these 
efforts, and several towns, as well as many 
mill proprietors and corporations now re- 
gard these schools, with their reading-rooms, 
lectures, and other facilities of instruction, as 
essential to the moral and intellectual well- 
being of manufacturing communities. 

The school authorities are: (1,) Board of 
Education, which is not merely advisory, but 
has the immediate charge of the State Nor- 
mal School, and the expenditure of such 
sums as the Legislature may appropriate 
(#3,000 in 187lffor evening schools; (2,) 
State Commissioner of Common Schools, 
with the usual duties ; (3,) Town School 
Committee — elected for three years with the 
appointment of a superintendent for each 
town and city — membership to this com- 
mittee is open to men and women ; (4,) 
district officers, who employ teachers. 

The support of common schools is de- 
rived from : (1,) The State treasury — $90,- 
000 in 1872, derived from income of State 
School Fund ($250,000) and general tax; 
(2,) Town treasury— $309,578 town tax, 
and $24,490 registry tax; (3,) District 
treasuries — $59,722 district taxation. 

The number of towns and cities (36) are 
divided into 423 districts, in which were kept 
682 summer schools, attended by 26,912 
pupils, and 719 winter schools attended by 
28,702 pupils— 612 female and 93 male 
teachers in the summer, and 579 female and 
177 male teachers in the winter. The aver- 
age attendance in public and private schools 
(8,000) was 38,000 out of 42,000 between 
the age of five and fifteen years. 

The national census of 1870 returns 15,- 
416 persons, ten years and over, who can 
not read, and 21,821 who can not write. 
The State board recommend an act to en- 
force attendance upon some school, public 
or private, of all children of school age. 



SOUTH CAROLINA. 

South Carolina, when first settled in 1670, 
was organized ' as the County of Carteret in 
Carolina,' and was constituted a separate 
royal government in 1727. The first State 
constitution was framed in 1776, and the 
population in 1790, on an area of 34,800 
square miles, was 249,073 (107,094 slaves), 
which had increased in 1870 to 705,606 
(415,814 colored), with taxable property to 
the value of $183,913,337. 

The earliest efforts to establish schools in 
the State was at Charleston in 1710, and was 
confined to the English model of a free 
school, an endowed school, ' with a teacher 
to teach the Latin and Greek languages.' 
Similar ' free schools ' were instituted in 
other parishes, 4 for instruction in grammar 
and other sciences,' and provision was made 
in several instances ' for an usher to teach 
writing, arithmetic, accounts, surveying, 
navigation and practical mathematics.' The 
constitution of 1779, and the revision of 
1785, 1798 and 1839 are silent in respect to 
schools and education. The policy of the 
State was to leave elementary education to 
parents, and of the poor in particular, to 
private and parochial efforts, and to associa- 
tions, such as the Hibernian, the German, and 
other national societies. In 1811 the State 
instituted a fund, the income of which was 
to secure to every citizen the benefits of edu- 
cation, but in the act itself was the secret of 
its own failure, a provision that ' if the fund 
should prove inadequate for all applicants, 
preference should be given to the poor.' The 
fund originally provided was small, and was 
entirely absorbed by the preferred class. 
The rich were excluded, and the schools, so 
far as they were independent institutions, de- 
generated into pauper schools. No one who 
could help it, would accept an education 
which could only be granted as a charity, or 
a declaration of pauperism. The same ex- 
periment had been tried in Pennsylvania and 
in the city of New York, as well as in Vir- 
ginia. The evil was not remedied by increas- 
ing the appropriation, the confession of 
pauperism was still required. In 1843, and 
again in 1846, and subsequently by corre- 
spondence in this and all the adjoining States, 
Mr. Barnard of Connecticut, at the request 
of Gov. Allston, Mr. McCarter and others, 
' set forth the practical working of public 
schools, resting on the basis of all other 
public institutions, avowedly open to all 
classes and actually resorted to by the chil- 



COMMON SCHOOLS AND ELEMENTAKV INSTRUCTION. 



915 



dren of the rich and poor, and having all 
the conditions of a good school in school- 
houses, classification as to studies, teachers 
of tested qualifications, and intelligent and 
Constant inspection. With these conditions, 
the success of public schools in Nashville 
and New Orleans, demonstrated that these 
institutions could succeed in Charleston and 
all other large cities and villages at the 
South, as well as in New England ; and with- 
out these conditions, they never had or 
would succeed any where, no matter by what 
name they were called — common, free, or 
elementary. The public school in this 
country and in this age of the world, must 
have those elements which make a good 
school, or parents who know what a good 
education is, and desire it for their children, 
will have nothingto do with it. If it is the 
best school of its grade, the majority of 
parents will send, while there will always 
be families in every community who will 
prefer, from conditions of health, or apti- 
tudes, or other causes, to send their children 
to private schools.' 

In 1854 the initiatory steps were taken — 
and on the 4th of July, 1856, under the lead 
of the Hon. C. C. Memminger and Jefferson 
Bennett, a common school was opened in 
Charleston, which revolutionized public senti- 
ment in that city, and was fast doing it for 
the whole State, when the mad passions of 
men consummated another revolution, which 
for the time shut up schools of every kind 
and grade. But before 1861, two public 
schools existed in Charleston, one embracing 
the usual classes and grades below a high 
school, and the other a high school for girls, 
and a normal school for female teachers for 
the whole State, were in operation under 
teachers who had held similar positions in 
Hartford and Boston, which would compare 
favorably in all the requisites of good schools 
— structures and equipment, regularity of 
attendance, classification by attainments, 
range of studies, teachers — male and female, 
of high personal character, intelligent and 
constant inspection, and the atmosphere of 
public appreciation. A demonstration more 
complete of Mr. Barnard's doctrine could 
not be made, and every credit belongs 
especially to Mr, Memminger for his constant, 
judicious and personal labors in inaugu- 
rating and consummating the work. 

In the constitution of 1868, provision is 
made for the appointment of a State Super- 
intendent, as had been recommended by 



Gov. Manning in 1853, and for the estab- 
lishment of ' ;i liberal and uniform sj stem of 

free public schools throughout the Mate, one 

of which shall be kept open at least -i\ 
months in each year in each school district.' 
The general assembly must also 'provide tor 
the compulsory attendance, at either public 
or private schools, of all children bet 
the ages of six and sixteen years not phy- 
sically disabled, for a term' equivalent to 
twenty-five weeks;' asaving clause is added 
'that no law to the effect shall be passed 
until a system of public schools has been 
thoroughly and completely organized, and 
facilities afforded to all the inhabitants of the 
State for a free education of their children. 1 
When to this provision we add another 
clause, that 'the state normal school, the agri- 
cultural college, and all public schools, col- 
leges and universities supported in whole or 
in part by the public funds, shall be five and 
open to all the children and youth of the 
State, without regard to race or color,' it is 
pretty certain that the law of compulsory 
attendance is not likely to be passed in this 
generation, and if passed will remain in- 
operative on the statute book. 

In 1868 the educational department of 
the State was organized and a Superintendent 
appointed, but up to 1871, this officer could 
report only meagre statistical returns. In 
1870, a general system was organized and 
appropriations and taxation made for its sup- 
port — 137,500 for the university at Columbia, 
§10,000 for the blind and deaf mutes, |15,- 
000 for the State orphan asylum, $150,000 
for free common schools, besides *">u,000 
from the capitation tax. These are large 
amounts, and under favorable conditions as 
to public opinion, and a concentration of 
population in villages, great immediate re- 
sults might be anticipated. The law pro- 
vides for the usual county and district of- 
ficers, and it remains to be seen if the slow- 
process of school habits can be fostered by 
their judicious action, and if time will Boften 
the asperities engendered by civil strife and 
social revolution. 

In 1840, the national census returned 20,- 
615 white persons over 20 years of age who 
could not read and write; and in L870, ac- 
cording to the same authority, there were 
265,8!'- persons over l>» years ^>i age who 
could not read, and 280,870 could not write, 
and out of a school population of 233,915 
between the ages of 5 and 18, there was a 
school attendance of ouly 38,249. 



946 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



TENNESSEE. 

Tennessee was originally- settled in 1765 
from North Carolina, of which it remained 
an integral portion till 1796, when it was 
ceded to the United States and admitted into 
the Union with an area of 45,600 square 
miles, and a population in 1790 of 35,798, 
which had increased in 1870 to 1,268,520 
(322,338 colored), and taxable property to 
the value of $254,673,792. 

The laws and constitution (1776) of North 
Carolina extended over Tennessee till 1796, 
and after that time the only legislation re- 
specting schools was in 1785, to incorporate 
Davidson Academy at Nashville and Martin 
Academy in Washington county, and in 1794, 
Blount College at Knoxville, and Greenville 
College in Green county. 

The constitution of 1796, as amended in 
1835, enjoins on the general assembly 'to 
cherish literature and science,' ' knowledge, 
learning, and virtue being essential to the 
preservation of republican institutions,' and 
to preserve inviolate the funds realized out 
of land and other appropriations for the sup- 
port of common schools. 

Down to 1825, the educational legislation 
of the State was confined to incorporating 
colleges and academies; and by the act of 
1817, 'all academies were considered as 
schools preparatory to the introduction of 
students into the colleges of this state.' 

In 1823, the first provision for public 
schools was made by devoting certain lands 
' to a perpetual and exclusive fund for the 
establishment and promotion of common 
schools in each and every county in the 
state.' In 1827, certain other sources of 
revenue were added, and the whole was de- 
signed to be protected by the constitutional 
provision of 1835, but proved ineffectual 
against the executive and legislative neces- 
sities in the early stages of the war of 
secession, at which time the fund had ac- 
cumulated to the sum of $1,500,000. 

In 1867, a new system was inaugurated, 
but in the political revulsion which followed, 
its efficient features were stricken out, and 
the State is now trying to see how a 
vigorous administration can be established 
without authority in the law, or will in the 
hearts of the people, while the astounding 
fact in the census of 1870 confronts the 
statesmen of Tennessee that 290,549 per- 
sons over 10 years of age cannot read, and 
364,697 can not write. 

In 1873, the legislature reconsecrated the 
permanent school fund (estimated to be 



$2,112,000) to its original purpose, and ap- 
propriated the income (at six per cent.), and 
the avails of a capitation tax of one dollar, 
and a property tax of one mill on the State 
valuation, to public schools. Provision is 
also made for a State superintendent, county 
superintendent, one for each county, and 
three directors for each district. 

TEXAS. 

Texas was settled in 1792, and admitted 
as a State in 1845, with an area of 237,321 
square miles, and a population in 1850 of 
212,592, which had increased in 1870 to 
808,579 (253,475 colored) and taxable 
property to the value of $149,734,929. 

In the constitution of 1845 it is made the 
duty of the legislature to make suitable pro- 
vision for the support and maintenance of 
public schools, and as early as possible to 
establish a system of free schools through- 
out the State. It creates a school fund out 
of all funds, lands, and other property before 
set apart for the support of schools, includ- 
ing the alternate sections of land reserved 
by the State for railroad purposes, and of 
any other lands which may be derived from 
the United States government, and also em- 
powers the legislature to levy a tax for edu- 
cational purposes from year to year through- 
out the State, and reserves all sums arising 
from taxes collected from ' Africans, or per- 
sons of African descent,' for the exclusive 
maintenance of a system of public schools 
for the children of such Africans among 
whom public schools may be encouraged. 
It further authorizes the appointment of a 
superintendent of public instruction. But 
with all this wise constitutional enactment 
no efficient law was put on the statute book 
down to 1862, when the war disorganized 
society still more, and the census of 1870 
showed 189,423 persons over 10 years who 
could not read, and 221,703 who could not 
write. By the constitution of 1869, and 
the school law of April, 1871, school officers 
were created with all the machinery for ad- 
ministration, but the great work of awaken- 
ing parental interest, and creating a public 
opinion has not yet been attempted. 

The first report of the State Superintend- 
ent for 1871 is devoted mainly to an exposi- 
tion of difficulties in organizing a compul- 
sory system over a vast area, with a sparse 
population, and without the inheritance of 
good school habits. The only encouraging 
feature is the existence of a permanent 
School Fund to the value of $2,267,971, 
yielding $136,096 August 31, 1871. 



COMMON SCHOOLS AND ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION. 



947 



VERMONT. 

Vermont was settled in 1724 largely from 
the State of Connecticut, and was admitted 
as one of the United States in 1791, with 
an area of 10,212 square miles, and a pop- 
ulation in 1790 of 85,416, which had in- 
creased in 1871 to 330,551, and a valuation 
for taxable purposes of $102,548,528. 

The constitution of 1793 declares that 
' a competent number of schools should be 
maintained in each town for the instruction 
of youths, and that one or more grammar 
schools should be incorporated and sup- 
ported in each county in this State.' Prior 
to this date, schools had been maintained in 
each neighborhood, and by a general law 
passed in 1782, provision was made for the 
division of towns into convenient school 
districts, and the appointment of trustees in 
each town for the general superintendence 
of the schools, to whom was committed the 
power of raising one-half of the money re- 
quired to build school-houses and support 
the schools by a tax on the grand list, and 
the other half, either on the list or the pupils 
of the schools, as the districts might order. 

In 1825, the State made provision for a 
State School Fund, to be reserved until the 
capital should yield an income sufficient to 
keep a free common school in each district for 
a period of two months, but after the lapse 
of twenty years the accumulations seemed 
so slow and the necessities of the State re- 
quiring a State House, the law was repealed, 
and the capital, amounting at that time to 
$250,000, was borrowed and converted into a 
granite structure ; and the schools were kept 
open quite as long each year in the old 
ways, which according to the census of 1840 
had reduced the amount of illiterary rela- 
tively below that of every State but one in 
the Union. In 1837, the share of the 
United States surplus revenue deposited 
with Vermont was distributed among the 
several towns, and the annual interest 
($40,000) to be divided in the same manner 
as a three per cent, assessment on the grand 
list for the support of schools in the same. 

In 1845, a State Superintendent (Gov. 
Eaton) was appointed, and teachers insti- 
tutes were held for the first time under his 
auspices in 1846. Since 1856, State super- 
vision has been exercised by a Board of 
Education, acting through a secretary ; and 
town supervision has been administered by 
a single officer. In 1870, the town superin- 
tendents in each county were required to 



meet the secretary at inch place and time 
(in March or April) each year aa he may 
designate, to agree on a uniform Btandard of 
examination for all candidates for positions 

as touchers, make preliminary arrangements 
for the annual session of the institute tor the 
county, and confer generally on the int. 
of education. Each town superintendent 
must hold two public examinations of can- 
didates, and the State Superintendent most 
do the same at the county institutes. 

In 1866, State Normal Schools were in- 
stituted, of which there are now three, at 
Randolph, Johnson, and Castleton, to each 
of which $1,000 is appropriated. 

The report of the secretary (John M. 
French) for 1872, is a document of 566 
pages — full and instructive as to the condi- 
tion of the schools, and the difficulties of 
getting the old district system on to the 
higher plane of a true system of graded 
schools. Towns are now (since 1870) 
authorized to abolish the district system, 
and place all the public schools under the 
management of six directors, one-third 
elected each year for a term of three years. 
This board may provide for the instruction 
of all the scholars of the town, in all the 
branches, higher as well as elementary, of a 
thorough education, in a series of schools, 
located for the convenience of families, and 
adapted to the different stages of advance- 
ment of groups of pupils, under teachers 
best qualified for each stage. Towns are 
also authorized to establish central schools 
for the advanced pupils of all the districts! 

The following are among the statistical 
items for 1871-2: Towns and cities, 250; 
organized school districts, 2,160 ; fractional 
districts, 464; families, 67,102; families 
without children of school age, 46,4 >18 ; chil- 
dren between five and twenty. 84,940; 
children attending common schools, To, 904 ; 
children attending academies, etc., 4,918; 
common schools, 2,503 ; male teachers, 
671 ; female teachers, :5,."> 1 1 ; teachers with- 
out experience, 861 ; teachers teaching in 
same district, 939 ; teachers. State Normal 
graduates, 877 ; teachers who board round, 
1,313; school-houses, 8,399, and estimated 
value of same, $1,265,887 ; wages and board 
of teachers, $397,165; amount distributed 
by State, $116,678; amount raised by town 
tax, $69,880 ; amount by district tax, $346,- 
051; total, $526,000. Census of 1870 re- 
turned 15,185 persons over 10 years of age 
could not read, and 17,706 could DOt write. 



94S 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



VIRGINIA. 

Virginia was first settled in 1607, and 
adopted its first constitution in 1776, having 
in 1700 a population of 748,308 (293,427 
slaves). Its original area of 61,352 square 
miles was reduced by the separation and 
organization of a portion of its territory 
into a new State called West Virginia to 
38,350 square miles, with a population in 
1870 of 1,225,163 (512,841 colored), and 
taxable property to the value of $365,439,- 
917. The constitution of 1776 contained 
no reference to education, but in a bill for 
the more general diffusion of knowledge 
prepared by Wythe and Jefferson in 1779, 
there is the following preamble : 

Whereas it appearetli that however certain forms 
of government are better calculated than others to 
protect individuals in the free exercise of their 
natural rights, and are at the same time themselves 
better guarded against degeneracy, yet experience 
hath shown, that even under the best forms those 
intrusted with power have in time, and by slow 
operations, perverted it into tyranny ; and it is be- 
lieved the most effectual means of preventing this 
would be to illuminate, as far as practicable, the 
minds of the people at large, and more especially 
thereby of the experience of other ages and 
countries, they may be enabled to know ambition 
under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their 
natural powers to defeat its purposes ; and whereas 
it is generally true that the people will be happiest 
whose laws are best, and are best administered, and 
that laws will be wisely formed and honestly ad- 
ministered in proportion as those who form and ad- 
minister them are wise and honest; whence it be- 
comes expedient for promoting the public happiness, 
that those persons whom nature hath endowed with 
genius and virtue should be rendered, by liberal ed- 
ucation, worthy to receive, and able to guard the 
sacred deposit of the rights aud liberties of their 
fellow-citizens, and that they should be called to 
the charge without regard to wealth, birth, or other 
accidental condition or circumstance. But the in- 
digence of the greater number, disabling them from 
so educating at their own expense those of their 
children whom nature hath fitly formed and disposed 
to become useful instruments of the public, it is 
better that such should be sought for and educated 
at the common expense of all. than that the happi- 
ness of all should be confided to the weak or wicked. 

The admirable code of which the above 
is the preamble, was not adopted, and the 
first general school law was passed in 1796, 
with the following preamble : 

Whereas it appearcth that the great advantages 
which civilized and polished nations enjoy, beyond 
the savage and barbarous nations of the world, are 
principally derived from the invention and use of 
letters, by means whereof the knowledge and ex- 
perience of past ages are recorded and transmitted, 
so that man, availing himself in succession of the 
accumulated wisdom and discoveries of his prede- 
cessors, is enabled more successfully to pursu: and 



improve not only those arts which contribute to the 
support, convenience, and ornament of life, but 
those also which tend to illumine and ennoble his 
understanding and his nature. 

And whereas, upon a review of the history of 
mankind, it seemeth that however favorable repub- 
lican government, founded on the principles of 
equal liberty, justice, and order, may be to human 
happiness, no real stability or lasting permanency 
thereof can be rationally hoped for if the minds of 
the citizens be not rendered liberal and humane, and 
be not fully impressed with the importance of those 
principles from whence these biessings proceed ; 
with a view therefore to lay the first foundations of 
a system of education which may tend to produce 
those desirable purposes. 

In 1810 the Literary Fund was instituted, 
and in 1816 the directors were instructed to 
report to the General Assembly a system of 
public education to comprehend a university, 
and such additional colleges, academies, and 
schools as shall diffuse the benefits of edu- 
cation throughout the commonwealth. The 
report embodied a scheme similar in its 
main features to that of 1779, which passed 
the House but was lost in the Senate. In 
1818 an act was passed which appropriated 
$45,000 of the revenue to the primary edu- 
cation of the poor, and $15,000 a year to 
endow and support a university, to be styled 
' The University of Virginia.' 1 

On the basis of this law, and a special 
act of 1819, Mr. Jefferson was successful in 
establishing an institution of higher learn- 
ing, which educated, down to 1870, 8,000 
students for Virginia, and exerted a power- 
ful influence on the organization, studies 
and discipline of American colleges gener- 
ally. 

The system of primary education on the 
basis of the Literary Fund in 1811, and the 
act of 1818, did not accomplish even its 
narrow and ill-aimed object, the primary in- 
struction of the poor. Governor Campbell, 
in 1839 proclaimed its failure, and that the 
utter ignorance of the white adults in that 
year was greater than in 1817, as evidenced 
by the register of marriage licenses; and 
this statement was confirmed by the na- 
tional census of 1840, which returned 58,- 
787 persons over twenty years of age, out of 
the free white population, who could not 
read and write. Well might Governor Mc- 
Dowell say to the Legislature in 1843: 'This 
plan of common education, which reaches 
only 28,000 out of the 51,000 poor chil- 
dren, and gives them only sixty days tuition, 
is a costly and delusive nullity, which ought 
to be abolished, and another and better one 
established in its place.' Various plans of 



COMMON SCHOOLS AND ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION. 



949 



modification and substitution was suggested 
and discussed, but they were set aside in 
the frenzy of political excitement ; and the 
national census of 1870 returns the illiteracy 
of the poor whites, with the frightful ad- 
dition of the entire eolored population, over 
ten years of age, at 390,913, who could not 
read, and 445,893 who could not write — and 
of the latter number, 444,623 were natives. 

The constitution of 1867, ordains the 
outline of a system, which if it can be ac- 
cepted cordially by the people, and admin- 
istered firmly, but kindly, by officers who 
have their confidence, will in one generation 
do more for popular education than has been 
realized since Rev. Mr. Copeland, in 1621, 
first moved for the establishment of a ' Free 
School ' in the Colony of Virginia, twenty- 
six years before ' Brother Purmont was en- 
treated to become schoolmaster for the 
teaching and nurturing of children' in Boston. 

Under the constitution of 1867, and the 
school law of 1870, a new system is now 
being administered by W. II. Ruffner, whose 
second annual report, dated Nov. 1, 1872, is 
an admirable document, in two parts. Part 
I. is devoted to a statistical and expository 
record of the work ; Part II. is an exposi- 
tion of the general principles and methods 
of the system and institutions established 
by the earlier and later legislation of Vir- 
ginia. Both documents should have a wide 
circulation and find thoughtful readers, and 
henceforth many 'doers of the word.' The 
results of 1872, compared with those of 
1871, and especially with any year of the 
former system are very encouraging; 3,695 
public schools, with 166,337 pupils, under 
3,853 teachers, examined and visited by 91 
city and county superintendents, and main- 
tained at an expense of 1993,318, is a hope- 
ful exhibition of two years work under such 
difficulties as exist in this as in the other 
Southern States. To this number of public 
schools should be added 856 private schools 
(648 primary, 187 academies, and 21 col- 
legcs), with 20,497 pupils. 

In the statistical summary of the Super- 
intendent, and Auditor's Report, appear the 
following items: Capital of Literary Fund, 
§1,596,069; pay of public school teachers 
and treasurers, §643,066 ; county superin- 
tendents, §45,295 ; central office, §6,490; dis- 
trict expenses, §289,467 ; University of Vir- 
ginia, §15,000 ; Virginia Military Institute, 
§15,000; Deaf, Mute, and Blind School, 
§40,000. Aid (§28,900) from the Peabody 
Fund was given to three Normal Schools, &c. 
50 



wKsr viuuinia. 
West Virginia was detached from the ter- 
ritory of 'Old Virginia, 1 the people refusing 

to be put out of the United States by the 
war of secession, and was admitted as a State 
in hecember, 1862, with an area of _':i,000 
square miles and a population in I B60 of 

393,224, which had increased to W2,01 I in 
1870, with taxable property to the amount 
of §140,538,273. 

The Constitution, as amended in 1863, 
creates a school fund out of the Stale's pro- 
portion of the 'literary fund' of Virginia and 
other sources, for the support of free schools 
throughout the State and for no other pur- 
pose whatever.' The Legislature isdirecte I 
to ' provide as soon as practicable for the 
establishment of a thorough and efficient 
system of free schools,' for the election of a 
State Superintendent, for township taxation 
for free schools, for the proper care of the 
blind, deaf mutes, and insane, and the organ- 
ization of such institutions of learning as 
the best interests of general education iu 
the State may demand. 

The system of free schools established iu 
1865, provide for '. (1.) A general superin- 
tendent of free schools; (2,) county superin- 
tendents, elected by the people, for two 
years; (3,) township commissioners, three 
for each township, one elected each year for 
a term of three years; (4,) district trnsl 
appointed by the township board, from the 
residents of the district for which the school 
is provided; (5,) State Board of the School 
Fund, for the management of any fund set 
apart for the support of tree schools. 

In 1871, there were 2,357 public schools, 
with 87,330 pupils enrolled under 2,303 
teachers in 2,113 school-houses, estimated to 
have cost §2,257,74 1. The total expend- 
iture for the year, for all objects, exceeded 
§565,000. 

Dr. Sears applied $18,000 in aid of nor- 
mal instruction in the State University, State 
Normal School at Fairmouot, and the teach- 
ers' department in Marshall College, as well 
as to the establishment of the graded 
schools, and to the Teachers' Institutes. 

Institutes were held at twenty different 
points with manifest advantage to teachers, 
and to the school interest, of the localities 
where held. 

The support of schools falls mainly on a 
capitation tax of one dollar on each male 
inhabitant, over twenty-one \ ears, and a tax 
of ten cents on every one hundred dollars 
of taxable property. 



950 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



WISCONSIN. 

Wisconsin was detached from the Terri- 
tory of Michigan and organized an inde- 
pendent Territory in 1836, and admitted a 
State in 1848, with a population in 1850, on 
an area of 53,954 square miles, of 305,391, 
which had increased in 1870 to 1,054,070, 
with $333,447,568 taxable property. 

By the constitution of 1848, the super- 
vision of public instruction is invested in a 
State Superintendent, to be chosen by the 
qualified electors of the State ; the proceeds 
of all lands donated by the United States to 
the State for educational purposes are se- 
cured inviolably (1,) for the maintenance of 
common schools in each school district, and 
the purchase of suitable libraries and appa- 
ratus ; (2,) for the maintenance of academies 
and normal schools, and (3,) for a state 
university ; each town and city is required 
to raise by a tax, annually, for the support of 
free common schools therein, a sum not less 
than one-half the amount received by each 
town or city for school purposes, from the 
income of the school fund. 

The first school law dates from 1849, by 
which all the territory in the organized 
towns is divided into school districts, the 
affairs of which are managed by three dis- 
trict officers, subject to the general super- 
vision of the town school superintendent. 

In 1857, twenty-five per cent, of the in- 
come of all swamp and overflowed lands 
granted to the State were constituted a 
normal school fund, the avails of which was 
first applied to colleges and academies which 
supported normal classes, but in 1865, the 
entire sales constitute a special fund for the 
support of State Normal Schools, of which 
five are now located. The capital of the 
Normal Fund is now about $1,000,000; and 
the Common School Fund, $2,500,000. 

According to the last official report (of 
Samuel Fallowes) for 1872, there were 5,103 
districts (excluding cities), with 423,717 
persons of the school age (4 to 20), and the 
whole number of all ages attending public 
schools, 270,292; private schools, 18,020; 
academies and colleges, 2,831 ; benevolent 
institutions, 1,200; or an aggregate attend- 
ance for 1872, of 292,343. 

The number of school-houses returned 
was 4,920, with accommodations for 312,- 
612, valued at$3,295,268. The productive 
capital of the school fund is $2,482,771, 
and the aggregate expenditure for schools, 
$2,174,154. 



From this brief but comprehensive survey 
of the historical development of public in- 
struction, and especially of common schools 
in the different States, it appears that : 

1. The universal education of the people 
is now regarded among the primary objects 
of legislation, and a system of common or 
public schools is now ordained in the consti- 
tution or fundamental law, and organized 
and administered by legally constituted au- 
thorities in every State and Territory. 

2. In every State there is a department 
of public instruction, under either a board 
or a single officer, charged with the super- 
vision of this great interest, and in commu- 
nication with the subordinate officers in the 
remotest and smallest corporation into 
which the territory may be divided. 

3. For the accommodation and support of 
public schools, permanent funds, amounting 
in the aggregate to over $100,000,000 are 
set apart; and all property, real and personal, 
is subject to state and local taxation, and 
was assessed in 1871 to the amount of over 
$75,000,000 for public school purposes. 

4. To provide local accommodations and 
material facilities for public schools, within 
the last twenty-five years, upwards of $100,- 
000,000 have been invested in school-houses 
and their equipment. 

5. To realize an adequate return from this 
immense expenditure, more than 100 state 
and city normal and training schools have 
been established, and a system of examina- 
tion and instruction instituted, more or less 
efficient, to exclude incompetent teachers ; 
and to improve the qualifications of persons 
actually engaged in the work of instruction, 
more than 500 institutes arc now held an- 
nually, in which over 50,000 teachers spend 
from three to five days in professional 
studies and exercises. 

6. Notwithstanding this legislation and 
these expenditures, the non-school attend- 
ance and the adult illiteracy of the country is 
alarming, the national census of 1870 return- 
ing 4,528,084 persons, ten years of age and . 
over, who can not read, and 5,658,144 who 
can not write ; and of the last number 
4,880,371 are native born. 

7. The national census of 1870 returns 
125,056 public schools of different grades, 
with 183,198 (109.024 females) teachers; 
6,228,060 pupils (about equally divided as 
to sex) ; and a total expenditure of $64,- 
030,673, of which sum $58,855,507 came 
from taxation. 



COMMON SCHOOLS AND ELEMENTARY IH8TB0OTIO*. 



951 



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952 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



IT. SECONDARY INSTRUCTION. 

The first public schools of the American 
colonies were the free endowed grammar 
schools and subscription grammar schools; 
schools for secondary education. Public pri- 
mary or elementary common schools were 
of later date, both in chronological order, 
and as being a logical result of their prede- 
cessors of higher grade. 

The first school laws, those of Connecti- 
cut and Massachusetts, which were subse- 
quent to the establishment by individuals or 
towns of the classes of schools they referred 
to, recognized all three grades of education- 
al institutions, both what are at present 
termed common or elementary, and also 
secondary or superior ; that is to say, com- 
mon or neighborhood schools, grammar 
schools, and colleges. 

The class of secondary schools, since the 
very earliest period of their establishment, 
has been far less cherished and supported, 
either by public opinion or by legal provis- 
ions, than either of the other two classes. 
Almost universally, the academy, the en- 
dowed school, the grammar school, has been 
wholly left to the support of those wealthier 
or more learned classes who have been ta- 
citly assumed to have the only use for them ; 
and where any state assistance has been ex- 
tended to them, it has usually been in the ex- 
ceptional form of individual acts of incorpo- 
ration or individual grants of money or land. 

It may be observed that such a co-equal 
public recognition, if extended to the class 
of secondary schools, would at once produce 
a definite and important result, in throwing 
probably half of what may be termed the 
present secondary course of study back with- 
in the course of the elementary grade of 
schools, and also in bringing back a large 
number of what are termed colleges into 
their appropriate grade of secondary institu- 
tions. 

The noticeable and important fact is more- 
over thus brought out, that public opinion 
in the United States has never, up to the 
present time, demanded or recognized any 
universal privilege of education beyond that 
in the merest rudiments of it. 

This neglect has of course caused the ex- 
isting almost entire deficiency of recorded 
statistics of schools of this class. Such sta- 



tistics are not accessible at all, except in the 
single state of New York, and even there, 
only from such secondary institutions as are 
obliged to furnish them as a condition of 
their receipt of a portion of the literature 
fund. This remark is not applicable t<> the 
grade of schools known as public high 
schools, for boys or girls, or both, in several 
of our larger cities; but these sch >ols, 
few in number and of modern origin, are 
not so much the outgrowth of popular feel- 
ling, as the creations of a few intelligent 
friends of public education, in advance of 
any general demand for this class of institu- 
tions. Although not recognized generally 
as part of our systems of public instruction, 
schools of the former class have' increased 
rapidly, and now exist in almost every village 
in the land, and their aggregate number m 
1850, according to the census of that year, 
will be seen in the table on page 451. 

The progress of this class of schools, in 
respect to studies, books, and equipment 
generally, and methods of instruction and 
discipline, can be readily measured by any 
one who will look into the best academy or 
public high school in his neighborhood, and 
then read the following communications — 
the first by the Hon. Josiah Quincy, respect- 
ing one of the earliest institutions of the class 
known as academies ; and the other two 
by eminent public men, respecting the pub 
lie schools, and particularly the Latin school 
of Boston, as it was prior to or about the 
beginning of the present century, and at 
that time pronounced "the best on the 
American continent." 

"Mr. Barnard : Dear Sir — You ask brief- 
ly the position of Phillips Academy as to 
studies, text-books, methods, and discipline. 
That academy was founded in the year 1 778, 
in the midst of the war of the Revolution, 
by the united contributions of three broth- 
ers — Samuel, John, and William Phillips — 
all of them men of property according to 
the scale of that day, and all of a liberal spirit 
toward every object, religious, moral, or ed- 
ucational. But the real author and instiga- 
tor of that foundation was the only son of 
the first of the above-named, who was known 
during the early period of his life by the 
name of Samuel Phillips, Junior. He was, 
during his whole life, one of the most dis- 
tinguished, exemplary, and popular men in 
Massachusetts: active, spirited, influential, 
and ready, and a loader in every good work,* 



ACADEMIES, HIGH SCHOOLS, ETC. 






and he had the control of the hearts of his 
father and two uncles, and was undoubtedly 
the influential spirit giving vitality to the 
plan of that institution. There was only 
one academy in the Btate at that time — 1 Sum- 
mer Academy at Newbury — which, although 
it had sent forth many good scholars, was 
then going to decay ; and the beautiful and 
commanding site in the south parish of An- 
dover which that institution now occupies, 
was unquestionably one of the causes of the 
idea of the institution as well as of its lo- 
cality. Eliphalet Pearson had been educa- 
ted at Dummer Academy, was distinguished 
for his scholarship and zeal in the cause of 
classical learning; Samuel Phillips, jr., had 
formed an intimacy with him at college, though 
in different classes, and entertained a high 
opinion both of his literary attainments and 
spirit of discipline. Phillips Academy was 
projected with reference to his becoming its 
first master; and his aid was joined with 
that of his friend Phillips in forming the con- 
stitution of the academy. 

" The time of its foundation was unques- 
tionably most inauspicious to its success, 
but young Phillips was of a spirit that 
quailed before no obstacles. It was designed 
to be a model institution of the kind, and 
no pains were omitted to secure its success ; 
and notwithstanding the uncertainties of the 
political aspect of the time and the perpetu- 
ally increasing depreciation of paper money, 
it was sustained in great usefulness and pros- 
perity. I was sent to that academy within 
a month after its opening, in May, 1778, 
being the seventh admission on its catalogue. 
I had just then entered upon my seventh 
year, and was thrust at once into my Latin 
at a period of life when noun, pronoun, and 
participle were terms of mysterious mean- 
ing which all the explanations of my gram- 
mars and my masters for a long time vainly 
attempted to make me comprehend. But the 
laws of the school were imperious. They 
had no regard for my age, and I was for 
years submitted to the studies and discipline 
of the seminary, which, though I could re- 
peat the former, through want of compre- 
hension of their meaning, I could not possi- 
bly understand. I was sent to the academy 
two years at least before I ought to have 
been. But William Phillips was my grand- 
father; it was deemed desirable that the 
founders of the academy should show confi- 
dence in its advantages; I was, therefore, 
sent at once, upon its first opening, and I 



have always regarded the Bevere discipline 
to which 1 was subjected, in consequence oi 
the inadequacy of my years to m\ studies, 
a> a humble contribution toward the bo 
of the academy. 

"The course of studies and text-books 1 do 
not believe I can from memory exactly re- 
capitulate; I cannot, however, be far out 
of the way in Btating thai , Cheever , 8 Ac- 
cidence' was our first book ; the -■•cud, 
' Corderius ;' the third, 'Nepos;' then, if 
I mistake nut, came ' VirgiL 1 There may 
have been some intermediate author which 
has escaped my memory, bu1 besides Virgil 
I have no recollection of any higher author. 

"Our grammar was ' Ward'-,* in which all 
the rules and explanations are in Latin, and 
we were drilled Bedulously in writing this 
language far enough to gel into the univer- 
sity. < >ur studies in Greek were verv Blight 
and superficial. Gloucester's Greek ''ram- 
mar was our guide in that language, and a 
thorough ability to construe the four <'. im- 
pels was all required of us to enter the col- 
lege. 

"These are the best answers I can gi 
your inquiries on the subject of 'studies 
and text-books,' hut I am not confident that 
my memory serves me with exactness. < >ur 
preparation was limited enough, but suffi- 
cient for the poverty and distracted state of 
the period. 

"Of 'methods and discipline,' for which 
you inquire, T can only say that the former 
was strict and exact, ami the latter Bevere. 
Pearson was a convert to thorough disci- 
pline; monitors kept an account of all of a 
student's failures, idleness, inattention, whis- 
pering, and like deviations from order, and 
at the end of the week were bestowed sub- 
stantial rewards for such self-indulgences, 
distributed upon the head and hand with no 
lack of strength or fidelity. 

"In that day arithmetic was. begun at the 
university. The degree of preparation for col- 
lege ami the amount of the studies within it 
arc not worthy of remembrance when com- 
pared with the means of acquirement now 
presented to the aspiring student. 

" Your other inquiries I should be happy 
to make the subject of reply, but long 
satioii of familiarity with the objects to which 
they relate makes me dubious of my power 
to add any thing important to their history. 
My knowledge of the common schools of 
Boston was obtained only during the vaca- 
tions of the academy, ami had chief refer- 



954 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



ence to improvement in my writing. Their 
advantages were few enough and humble 
enough ; the education of females very slight, 
and limited to reading, writing, and the ear- 
lier branches of arithmetic. 

"The interests of schools and of education 
were, thirty years ago, subjects of my thought 
and writing; but the lapse of time and the 
interposition of other objects and new du- 
ties deprive me of the power of aiding your 
researches on these subjects, which are, how- 
ever, easily and far better satisfied by the 
active men of the day. Wishing you all 
success in these wise and noble pursuits, 
" I am, very truly, 

" Your friend and servant, 

" Josiah Quincy." 

"Boston, Dec. 1st, 1860." 

The following "Memorandum of an emi- 
nent clergyman, who was educated in the 
best schools of Boston just before the Revo- 
lution," we copy from a volume of the 
" Massachusetts Common School Journal," 
vol. xii., pp. 311, 312. The notes are by 
the editor of the Journal, Wm. B. Fowle : 

" At the age of six and a half years, I 
was sent to Master John Lovell's Latin 
school. The only requirement was reading 
well ; but, though fully qualified, I was sent 
away to Master Griffith, a private teacher, 
to learn to read, write and spell. I learned 
the English Grammar in Dilworth's Spelling 
Book by heart. Griffith traced letters with 
a pencil, and the pupils inked them. 

" Entered Lovell's school at seven years. 
Lovell was a tyrant, and his system one of 
terror. Trouncing* was common in the 



* " Trouncing was performed by stripping the hoy, 
mounting him on another's back, and whipping him 
with birch rods, before the whole school. James 
Lovell, the grandson of John, once related to us the 
following anecdote, which shows the utility of cor- 
poral punishment ! It seems that a boy had played 
truant, and Master John had publicly declared that 
the offender should be trounced. When such a sen- 
tence was pronounced, it was understood that the 
other boys might seize the criminal, and take him 
to school by force. The culprit was soon seized by 
one party, and hurried to the master, who inflicted 
the punishment without delay. On his way home, 
the culprit met another party, who cried out, ' Ah, 
John Brown,' or whatever his name was, 'you'll 
get it when you go to school!' 'No, I shan't,' 
said the victorious boy, who felt that he had got the 
start of them, 'No, I shan't, for Fve got it,' and, as 
he said this, ho slapped his hand upon the part that 
liad paid the penalty, thus, as the poet says, ' suit- 
ing the action to the word.' " 



school. Dr. Cooper was one of his early 
scholars, and he told Dr. Jackson, the min- 
ister of Brookline, that he had dreams of 
school till he died. The boys were so afraid 
they could not study. Sam. Bradford, after- 
ward sheriff, pronounced the P in Ptolemy, 
and the younger Lovell rapped him over the 
head with a heavy ferule.* 

"We studied Latin from 8 o'clock till 
11, and from 1 till dark. After one or two 
years, I went to the town school, to Master 
Holbrook, at the corner of West street, to 
learn to write ; and to Master Proctor, on 
Pemberton's Hill, in the south-east part of 
Scollay's Building. My second, third, and 
fourth year, I wrote there, and did nothing 
else. The English boys alone were taught 
to make pens. Griffith was gentle, but his 
being a private teacher accounts for it. 

" The course of study was, grammar ; 
Esop, with a translation ; Clarke's Introduc- 
tion to writing Latin ; Eutropius, with a 
translation ; Corderius ; Ovid's Metamor- 
phoses ; Virgil's Georgics ; iEneid ; Caesar; 
Cicero. In the sixth year I began Greek, 
and for the first time attempted English 
composition, by translating Caesar's Com- 
mentaries. The master allowed us to read 
poetical translations, such as Trappe's and 
Dryden's Virgil. I was half way through 
Virgil when I began Greek with Ward's 
Greek Grammar. 

"After Cheever's Latm Accidence, we 
took Ward's Lily's Latin Grammer. After 
the Greek Grammar, we read the Greek 
Testament, and were allowed to use Beza's 
Latin translation. Then came Homer's 
Iliad, five or six books, using Clarke's 
translation with notes, and this was all my 
Greek education at school. Then we took 
Horace, and composed Latin verses, using 
the Gradus ad Parnassum. Daniel Jones 
was the first Latin scholar in 1771 or 1772, 



* "We saw this done by another Boston teacher, 
about thirty years ago, and when we remonstrated 
with him upon the danger of inflicting such a blow, 
upon such a spot, '0, the caitiffs,' said he, 'it is 
good for theml' About the same time, another 
teacher, who used to strike his pupils upon the 
hand so that the marks and bruises were visible, 
was waited upon by a committee of mothers, who 
lived near the school, and had been annoyed by the 
outcries of the sufferers. The teacher promised not 
to strike the boys any more on the hand, and the 
women wont away satisfied. But, instead of in- 
flicting blows upon the hand, he inflicted them upon 
the soles of tho feet, and made the punishment moro 
severe." 



ACADEMIE8, HIGH SCHOOLS, ETC. 



955 



aud he was brother to Thomas Kilby Jones, 
who was no scholar, though a distinguished 
merchant afterward. 

" I entered college at the age of fourteen 
years and three months, and was equal in 
Latin and Greek to the best in the senior 
class. Xenophon and Sallust were the only 
books used in college that I had not stud- 
ied. I went to the private school from 1 1 
to 12 a. m., and to the public from 3 to 5 

P. M. 

" The last two years of my school life, 
nobody taught English Grammar or Geog- 
raphy, but Col. Joseph Ward (son of Dea- 
con Joseph Ward, of Newton, West Parish, 
blacksmith,) who was self-taught, and set 
up a school in Boston. lie became aid to 
General Ward when the war commenced, 
and did not teach after the war. 

" I never saw a map, except in Caesar's 
Commentaries, and did not know what that 
meant. Our class studied Lowth's English 
Grammar at college. At Master Proctor's 
school, reading and writing were taught in 
the same room, to girls and boys, from 7 to 
14 years of age, and the Bible was the only 
reading book. Dilworth's Spelling Book 
was used, and the New England Primer. 
The master set sums in our MSS. but did not 
go farther than the Rule of Three. 

" Master Griffith was a thin man, and 
wore a wig, as did Masters Lovell and 
Proctor, but they wore a cap when not in 
full dress. James Lovell was so beaten by 
his grandfather John, that James the father 
rose and said, ' Sir, you have flogged that 
boy enough.' The boy went off determined 
to leave school, and go to Master Proctor's ; 
but he met one of Master Proctor's boys, 
who asked whither he was going, and when 
informed, warned him not to go, for he 
would fare worse." 

Hon. Edward Everett, in an address at the 
Annual School Festival in Faneuil Hall in 
1852, gives the following account of the 
educational advantages he enjoyed in early 
life: — 

" It was fifty-two years last April since I 
began, at the age of nine years, to attend 
the reading and writing schools in North 
Bennett street. The reading school was 
under Master Little, (for 'Young America' 
had not yet repudiated that title,) and the 
writing school was kept by Master Tileston. 
Master Little, in spite of his name, was a 
giant in stature — six feet four, at least — and 



somewhat wedded to the past Hestrugg 
earnestly against the change then taking 

place iii the pronunciation "t' n, and insisted 
on saying monoomeni and natur. Bui I ac- 
quired, under his tuition, what was thought 
in those days a wry tolerable knowledge of 
Lindley Murray's abridgmenl of English 
grammar, and at the end of the year could 
parse almost any sentence in the ' American 
Preceptor.' Master Tileston \\a^ a writing 
master of tin; old schooL He Bel the c< 
himself, and taught that beautiful old Boston 
handwriting, which, if I d«> not mi-take, has, 
in the march of innovation, (which is Dot 
always the same thing as improvement) 
been changed very little for the better. 
Master Tileston was advanced in years, and 
had found a qualification for his calling as a 
writing master, in what might have seemed 
at first to threaten to be an obstruction. 
The fingers of his right hand had been con- 
tracted and stiffened in early life, by a burn, 
but were fixed in just the position to hold a 
pen and a penknife — and nothing else. As 
they were also considerably indurated, they 
served as a convenient instrument of disci- 
pline. A copy badly written, or a blotted 
page, was sometimes visited with an inflic- 
tion which would have done no discredit to 
the beak of a bald eagle. His long, deep 
desk was a perfect curiosity-shop of confis- 
cated balls, tops, penknives, marbles aud 
Jews-harps — the accumulation of forty years. 
I desire, however, to speak of him with 
gratitude, for he put me on the track of an 
acquisition which has been extremely useful 
to me in after life — that of a plain, legible 
hand. I remained at these schools about 
sixteen months, and had the good fortune in 
1804 to receive the Franklin medal in the 
English department. After an interval of 
about a year, during which 1 attended a 
private school kept by Mr. Ezekiel Webster, 
of New Hampshire, and on an occasion of 
his absence, by his ever memorable brother, 
Daniel Webster, at that time a student of 
law in Boston, 1 went to the Latin school, 
then slowly emerging from a state of extreme 
depression. It was kept in School street 
where the Horticultural Hall now stands. 
The standard of scholastic attainment was 
certainly not higher than that of material 
comfort in those days. We read pretty 

much the same books — or of the sam< 
— in Latin and Greek, as arc read now, but 
in a very cursory and superficial manner. 
There was no attention paid to the philoso- 



956 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



phy of the languages — to the deduction of 
words from their radical elements — to the 
niceties of construction — still less to pros- 
ody. I never made a hexameter or pen- 
tameter verse till, years afterward, I had a 
son at school in London, who occasionally 
required a little aid in that way. The sub- 
sidiary and illustrative branches were wholly 
unknown in the Latin school in 1805. Such 
a thing as a school library, a book of refer- 
ence, a critical edition of a classic, a map, a 
blackboard, an engraving of an ancient 
building, or a copy of a work of ancient 
art, such as now adorn the walls of our 
schools, was as little known as the electric 
telegraph. If our children, who possess all 
these appliances and aids to learning, do 
not greatly excel their parents, they will be 
much to blame." 

Academy Life in Philadelphia about 17G0. 

Graydon, in " Memoirs of a Life chiefly 
passed in Philadelphia, within the last sixty 
[1752-1811] years" printed in Harrisburgh 
by John Wyeth, 1811, after noting his first 
teacher in Bristol, where he was born, as a 
kind, good-humored Irishman, by the name 
of Pinkerton, and his first teacher in Phila- 
delphia, an Englishman (David James 
Dove), much celebrated in his day both as 
teacher and maker of a minor kind of satir- 
ical poetry, chronicles his admission into 
the principal seminary in Pennsylvania, 
then as now bearing the name of a university. 

" I was now about eight years of age, and 
my first introduction was to Mr. Kinnersley, 
the teacher of English and Professor of 
Oratory. He was an Anabaptist clergyman, 
a large, venerable looking man, of no great 
geueral erudition, though a considerable 
proficient in electricity ; and who, whether 
truly or not, has been said to have had a share 
in certain discoveries in that science, of which 
Doctor Franklin received the whole credit. 
The task of the younger boys, at least, con- 
sisted in learning to read and to write their 
mother tongue grammatically ; and one day 
in the week (I think Friday) was set apart 
for the recitation of select passages in poetry 
and prose. For this purpose, each scholar, 
in his turn, ascended the stage, and said his 
speech, as the phrase was. This speech was 
carefully taught him by his master, both 
with respect to its pronunciation, and the 
action deemed suitable to its several parts. 
Two of these specimens of infantile oratory, 
to the disturbance of my repose, I had been 
qualified to exhibit : family partiality, no 



doubt, overrated their merit : and hence, 
my declaiming powers were in a state of 
such constant requisition, that my orations, 
like worn out ditties, became vapid and 
fatiguing to me; and consequently impaired 
my relish for that kind of acquirement. 
More profit attended my reading. After 
yEsop's fables, and an abridgment of the 
Roman history, Telemachus was put into 
our hands; and if it be admitted that the 
human heart may be bettered by instruc- 
tion,' mine, I may aver, was benefited by this 
work of the virtuous Fcnelon. While the 
mild wisdom of Mentor called forth my 
veneration, the noble ardor of the youthful 
hero excited my sympathy and emulation. 
I took part, like a second friend, in the 
vicissitudes of his fortune, I participated in 
his toils, I warmed with his exploits, I wept 
where he wept, and exulted where he 
triumphed. 

" A few days after I had been put under 
the care of Mr. Kinnersley, I was told by 
my classmates that it was necessary for me 
to fight a battle with some one in order to 
establish my claim to the honor of being an 
academy boy ; that this could not be dis- 
pensed with, and that they would select for 
me a suitable antagonist, one of my match, 
whom after school I must fight, or be looked 
upon as a coward. I must confess that I 
did not at all relish the proposal. Though 
possessing a sufficient degree of spirit, or at 
least irascibility, to defend myself when as- 
saulted, I had never been a boxer. Being 
of a light and slender make, I was not cal- 
culated for the business, nor had I ever been 
ambitious of being the cock of a school. 
Besides, by the laws of the institution I was 
now a subject of, fighting was a capital 
crime ; a sort of felony deprived of clergy, 
whose punishment was not to be averted by 
the most scholar-like reading. For these 
reasons, both of which had sufficient weight 
with me, and the last, not the least, as I had 
never been a willful transgressor of rules, or 
callous to the consequences of an infraction 
of them, I absolutely declined the proposal ; 
although I had too much of that feeling 
about me, which some might call false 
honor, to represent the case to the master, 
which would at once have extricated me 
from my difficulty, and brought down con- 
dign punishment on its imposers. Matters 
thus went on until school was out, when I 
found that the lists were appointed, and that 
a certain John Appowen, a lad who, though 



PROFESSIONAL SCHOOLS, ETC. 



957 



not quite so tall, yet better set and older 
than myself, was pitted against me. With 
increased pertinaeity I again refused the 
combat, and insisted on being permitted to 
go home unmolested. On quickening my 
pace for this purpose, my persecutors, with 
Appowen at their head, followed close at 
my heels. Upon this I moved faster and 
faster, until my retreat became a flight too 
unequivocal and inglorious for a man to re- 
late of himself, had not Homer furnished 
some apology for the procedure, in making 
the heroic Hector thrice encircle the walls 
of Troy, before he could find courage to 
encounter the implacable Achilles. To cut 
the story short, my spirit could no longer 
brook an oppression so intolerable, and 
stung to the quick at the term coward which 
was lavished upon me, I made a halt and 
faced my pursuers. A combat immediately 
ensued between Appowen and myself, which 
for some time was maintained on each side 
with equal vigor and determination, when, 
unluckily, I received his fist directly in my 
gullet. The blow for a time depriving me 
of breath and the power of resistance, 
victory declared for my adversary, though 
not without the acknowledgment of the 
party that I had at last behaved well, and 
shown myself not unworthy of the name of 
an academy boy. Being thus established, I 
had no more battles imposed upon me, and 
none that I can recollect, of my own pro- 
voking ; for I have a right to declare that 
my general deportment was correct and un- 
offending, though extremely obstinate and 
unyielding under a sense of injustice. 

"In March, 1761, I entered the Latin 
school, and became the pupil of Mr. John 
Beveridge, a native of Scotland, who retained 
the smack of his vernacular tongue in its 
primitive purity. His acquaintance with 
the language he taught, was I believe, 
justly deemed to be very accurate and pro- 
found. But as to his other acquirements, 
after excepting the game of backgammon, 
in which he was said to excel, truth will not 
warrant me in saying a great deal. He 
was, however, diligent and laborious in his 
attention to his school; and had he pos- 
sessed the faculty of making himself be- 
loved by the scholars, and of exciting their 
emulation and exertion, nothing would have 
been wanting in him to an entire qualifica- 
tion for his office. But unfortunately, he 
had no dignity of character, and was no 
less destitute of the art of making himself 



respected than beloved. Though not per- 
haps to he complained of as intolerably 
severe, he yel made a pretty free use of the 
ratan and the ferule, hut to very little purpose. 
He was, in short, no disciplinarian, and con- 
sequently very nnequal to the management 
of seventy or eighty hoys, many of whom 
were superlatively pickle and unruly. He 
was assisted, indeed, by two ashers, who 
eased him in the burden of teaching, hut 
who, in matters of discipline, seemed dis- 
inclined to interfere, and disposed to con- 
sider themselves rather as subjects than 
rulers. I have seen them slily slip out of 
the way when the principal was entering 
upon the job of capitally punishing a boy, 
who from his size would be likely to make 
resistance. For this had become nearly a 
matter of course; and poor Beveridge, who 
was diminutive in his stature and neither 
young nor vigorous, after exhaust in-- himself 
in the vain attempt to denude the delin- 
quent, was generally glad to compound for 
a few strokes over his clothes, on any part 
that was accessible. He had, indeed, so 
frequently been foiled, that his birch at 
length was rarely brought forth, ami might 
truly be said to have lost its terrors — 
it was tanqnam gladium in vagina rcpos- 
itum. He indemnified himself, however, by 
a redoubled use of his ratan. 

" So entire was the want of respect towards 
him, and so liable was ne to be imposed 
upon, that one of the larger boys, for a 
wager, once pulled off his wig, which he 
effected by suddenly twitching it from his 
head under pretense of brushing from it a 
spider; and the unequivocal insult was only 
resented by the peevish exclamation of 
hoot mon ! 

"Various were the rogueries that were 
played upon him; but the most audacious 
of all was the following. At the hour oi 
convening in the afternoon, that being found 
the most convenient, from the circumstance 
of Mr. Beveridge being usually a little be- 
yond the time; the bell having rung, the 
ushers being at their posts, and the BCholars 
arranged in their classes, three or four of 
the conspirators conceal themselves without, 
for the purpose of observing the motion- of 
their victim. lie arrives, enters the school, 
and is permitted to proceed until he is sup- 
posed to have nearly reached his chair at 
the upper end of the room, when instantly 

the door and everv window-shutter is closed. 
Now, shrouded in utter darkness, the moat 



958 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



hideous yells that can be conceived are sent 
forth from at least three score of throats ; 
and Ovids, and Virgils, and Horaces, 
together with the more heavy metal of 
dictionaries, whether of Cole, of Young, or 
of Ainsworth, are hurled without remorse 
at the head of the astonished preceptor, 
who, on his side, groping and crawling under 
cover of the forms, makes the best of his 
way to the door. When attained, and light 
restored, a death-like silence ensues. Every 
boy is at his lesson ; no one has bad a hand 
or a voice in the recent atrocity ; what then 
is to be done, and who shall be chastised. 

StEvit at^-ox Volscens, nee teli conspicit usquam 
Aactorem, nee quo se ardens immittere vossit. 

Fierce Volscens foams with rage, and gazing round 
Descries not him who aim'd the fatal wound ; 
Nor knows to fix revenge. 

" This most intolerable outrage, from its 
succeeding beyond expectation, and being 
entirely to the taste of the school, had a 
run of several days ; and was only then put 
a stop to by the interference of the facility, 
who decreed the most exemplary punish- 
ment on those who should be found offend- 
ing in the premises, and by taking measures 
to prevent a further repetition of the 
enormity. 

" The ushers, during the term of my 
pupilage, a period of four years or more, 
were often changed; and some of them, it 
must be admitted, were insignificant 
enough ; but otheA, were men of sense and 
respectability, to whom, on a comparison 
with the principal, the management of the 
school might have been committed with 
much advantage. Among these was Mr. 
Patrick Allison, afterwards officiating as a 
Presbyterian clergyman in Baltimore ; Mr. 
James Wilson, late one of the associate 
justices of the Supreme Court of the 
United States; and Mr. John Andrews, now 
Doctor Andrews of the University of Penn- 
sylvania. It is true they were much 
younger men than Mr. Beveridge, and 
probably unequal adepts in the language that 
was taught ; but even on the supposition 
of this comparative deficiency on their part, 
it would have been amply compensated by 
their judicious discipline and instruction. 

" With respect to my progress and that of 
the class to which I belonged, it was reputa- 
ble and perhaps laudable for the first two 
years. From a pretty close application, we 
were well grounded in grammar, and had 
passed through the elementary books, much 
to the approbation of our teachers ; but at 



length, with a single exception, we became 
possessed of the demons of liberty and 
idleness. We were, to a great degree, im- 
patient of the restraints of a school ; and 
if we yet retained any latent sparks of the 
emulation of improvement, we were unfor- 
tunately never favored with the collision that 
could draw them forth. We could feelingly 
have exclaimed with Louis the Fourteenth, 
metis a quoi sert de lire ! but where's the 
use of all this pouring over books! One 
boy thought he had Latin enough, as he 
was not designed for a learned profession ; 
his father thought so too, and was about 
taking him from school. Another was of 
opinion that he might be much better em- 
ployed in a counting-house, and was also 
about ridding himself of his scholastic 
shackles. As this was a consummation de- 
voutly wished by us all, we cheerfully re- 
nounced the learned professions for the sake 
of the supposed liberty that would be the 
consequence. We were all, therefore, to be 
merchants, as to be mechanics was too 
humiliating; and accordingly, when the 
question was proposed, which of us would 
enter upon the study of Greek, the gram- 
mar of which tongue was about to be put 
into our hands, there were but two or three 
who declared for it. As to myself, it was 
my mother's desire, from her knowing it to 
have been my father's intention to give me 
the best education the country afforded, that 
I should go on, and acquire every language 
and science that was taught in the institu- 
tion ; but as my evil star would have it, I 
was thoroughly tired of books and confine- 
ment, and her advice and even entreaties 
were overruled by my extreme repugnance 
to a longer continuance in the college, 
which, to my lasting regret, I bid adieu to 
when a little turned of fourteen, at the very 
season when the minds of the studious 
begin to profit by instruction. We were at 
this time reading Horace and Cicero, having 
passed through Ovid, Virgil, Caesar and Sal- 
lust. From my own experience on this oc- 
casion, I am inclined to think it of much 
consequence, that a boy designed to com- 
plete his college studies, should be classed 
with those of a similar destination." 

A picture of academy life prior to 1800 — 
its material outfit of building and apparatus, 
its teachers, studies, and students, in Georgia 
and Virginia, has already been given, and 
does not differ essentially from "the beg- 
garly elements " above described. 



ACADEMIES, HIGH SCHOOLS, AND SEMINARIES. 



959 



Public High Schools — Endowed Academies. 

In the original organization of public in- 
struction in New England, provision was 
made for a school of a higher order than 
the common district or neighborhood school, 
where the mother tongue, penmanship and 
arithmetic were taught to all, so that " so 
much barbarism as a single child unable to 
read the Holy Word of God, and the good 
laws of the colony could not exist." This 
school in Massachusetts and New Hampshire 
was a town grammar school for all towns of 
one hundred families. In Connecticut the 
same original requisition gave place in 16*72 
to a school of the same grade for the head 
town of each county, and to diminish the ex- 
pense of tuition, and ultimately to make the 
instruction gratuitous, was aided by giants 
of public lands, and to some extent endowed 
by individuals. By degrees in all parts of 
New England, where there was a difficulty 
in establishing the local grammar school, 
either from paucity of inhabitants, or want 
of popular appreciation of the necessity or 
the advantages of instruction of this grade, 
either the clergyman in his own house fitted 
young men for college, or a college graduate 
at his own risk opened a temporary school 
for pupils, whose parents desired for them 
more of arithmetic and grammar than could 
be obtained in the district school. In such 
places, if there were few men, or even one 
man of public spirit and energy, sooner or 
later an academic institution would spring 
up, towards the support of which donations 
or bequests would be made, and for its better 
management, corporate powers and grants 
of public lands would be asked and obtained 
from the legislature. In Massachusetts alone 
these charters and land grants were made 
originally, as a settled policy — only for dis- 
tricts where the grammar schools could 
not supply the wants of a higher education, 
and for not more than one institution in a 
large extent of territory like that of a county. 
By degrees this policy was forgotten and 
disregarded, even in Massachusetts, and 
charters were freely granted, and the Ac.id- 
emies came to rival and supersede even the 
Town Grammar schools — until public atten- 
tion was arrested to the fact, first by James 
G. Carter in 1824. From that time strenu- 
ous efforts have been made by the friends of 
public schools to restore I he earlier and better 
policy, of Public High Schools for boys and 
girls in every city and town where the popula- 



tion was sufficient to furnish a quota of 

scholars, who could at once reside with their 
parents and get the advantages of the bighei 
education** To provide for children and 
youth in smaller towns and in mora 
sparsely populated counties, where the 

obliged to go away from home for a bighei 
education, Academies and Seminaries Gave 
been largely endowed, so as to reduoe t he- 
cost of tuition and the expense of read 
These schools are becoming fewer in Dumber, 
but the few are better endowed, and better 
equipped for the work of classical and scien- 
tific teaching. 

Academies out of New 

Out of New England generally, where the 
township plan of settlement did nol pre- 
vail, and where even neighborhood schools 
were not provided for or made obligatory by 
law, the educational wants of the few 
families, who cared for higher, as well as 
elementary instruction for their older and 
younger children, could be most readily and 
economically obtained for them by associated 
efforts, which soon resulted in special charters 
for convenience of management ; and hence 
all overthe country the policy of Academies, 
not only for large districts, like one oi more 
counties, but for all large towns and cities 
prevailed. In such States, the demand for 
educational facilities for the more wealthy 
and educated families being thus partially, 
and in some cases even liberally supplied, it 
has been difficult to overcome the force of 
habit, and inaugurate a school policy large 
and broad enough to provide at once tor ele- 
mentary and higher grades of schools at the 
public expense for the entire community. 
Without the higher element, the public school 
inevitably sinks down into a class institution 
— common, not only because it is rudiment- 
ary and cheap, but because it is poor and 
only for the poor. 

By degrees the Graded System of Public 
Schools, presented by Mr. Mann and Mr. 
Barnard, and particularly 1>\ the latter in 
addresses delivered before the Legislatures 
and in the principal cities of 
States between the years 1842 1848, ami in 
numerous publications on this subject, of 
which over i .(Mid, mio copies have been print- 
ed and distributed — was established in all 
the principal cities of the country, w In i 

• Aoooidias t" ili.' Kaporl of MuMMhuietb Board of Brio- 
ration fot 1870, High Bchook wot* maintaii • d n I6B out of 339 
towns in the State, braeii ' of tin population, 

in nearly all the towns having over '.2,000 inhabitants. 



960 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



now found the best specimens of our Amer- 
ican system of Public Instruction. 

Outside of the Public High School, the 
incorporated and endowed Academies and 
Seminaries, until quite recently, were avow- 
edly denominational in the religious profes- 
sion of their teachers and the general influ- 
ence of the institution. Recently, several 
schools of the secondary class have been es- 
tablished on the basis of corporate powers, 
but the instruction has been made free or 
cheap, and all sectarian preference and influ- 
ence has been disavowed and guarded 
against. Of this class are the Putnam Free 
School at Newburyport, Mass., the Free 
Academy at Norwich, and the Morgan 
School at Clinton, in Connecticut. 
Female Seminaries and Colleges. 

Although variously designated, all the in- 
stitutions for female education of the highest 
grade, yet established in this country, belong 
properly to the department of secondary in- 
struction, these are nearly all the creation 
not only of the present century, but of the 
last twenty-five years. But before noticing 
a few of the more prominent institutions 
which are fast rising into grade of superior 
schools, we cite from a communication 
of Rev. William Woodbridge, an account 
of the education of girls as it was more 
than one hundred years ago. 

Girls had no separate classes, though generally 
sitting on separate benches. A merchant from Bos- 
ton, resident in my native town, who was desirous 
to give his eldest daughter the best education, sent 
her to that city, one quarter, to be taught needle- 
work and dancing, and to improve her manners in 
good and genteel company. To complete this educa- 
tion, another quarter, the year following, was spent 
at Boston. A third quarter was then allowed her 
at the school of a lady in Hartford. Another female 
among my schoolmates was allowed to attend the 
same school for the period of three months, to attain 
the same accomplishments of needlework, good 
reading, marking, and polished manners. These 
are the only instances of female education, beyond 
that of the common schools before described, which 
I knew, in a town of considerable extent, on Con- 
necticut viver, until 1776. 

You inquire how so many of the females of New 
England, during the latter part of the last century, 
acquired that firmness, and energy, and excellence 
of character for which they have been so justly dis- 
tinguished, while their advantages of school educa- 
tion were so limited. 

The only answer to this question must be founded 
on the fact, that it is not the amount of knowledge, 
but the nature of that knowledge, and still more, the 
manner in which it is used, and the surrounding in- 
fluences and habits, which form the character. 
Natural logic — the self-taught art of thinking — 
was the guard and guide of the female mind. The 



first of Watt's five methods of mental improvement! 
" The attentive notice of every instructive object 
and occurrence," was not then in circulation, but 
was exemplified in practice. Newspapers were 
taken and read in perhaps half a dozen families, in 
the most populous villages and towns. Books, 
though scarce, were found in some families, and freely 
lent; and in place of a flood of books, many of 
which are trifling or pernicious, there were a few, 
of the best character. They were thoroughly read, 
and talked of, and digested. In town and village 
libraries, there were some useful histories, natural 
and political. Milton, Watts' Lyric Poems, Young's 
Night Thoughts, Hervey's Meditations, the Tattler, 
and Addison's Spectator, were not scarce, though 
not generally diffused. Pamela, Clarissa Harlow, 
and an abridgement of Grandison, were in a few 
hands, and eagerly read; and the Adventures of 
Robinson Crusoe, was the chief work of this kind 
for the young. 

But the daily, attentive study of the Holy Scrip- 
tures, the great source of all wisdom and discretion, 
was deemed indispensable in those days, when every 
child had a Bible, and was accustomed to read a 
portion of the lesson at morning prayers. This 
study, with the use of Watts' Psalms (a book, which 
with all the defects it may have, contains a rich 
treasure of poetry and thought, as well as piety,) at 
home, at church, and in singing schools, I regard as 
having furnished, more than all other books and in- 
structions, the means of mental improvement, for 
forty years of the last century. 

When, at length, academies were opened for 
female improvement in the higher branches, a gen- 
eral excitement appeared in parents, and an emula- 
tion in daughters to attend them. Many attended 
such a school one or two quarters, others a year, 
some few longer. From these short periods of at- 
tendance for instruction in elementary branches) 
arose higher improvements. The love of reading 
and habits of application became fashionable ; and 
fashion we know is the mistress of the world. 

When the instruction of females in any of the de- 
partments of science was first proposed, it excited 
ridicule. The man who devoted his time and heart 
to the work was regarded as an enthusiast. The 
cry was — " What need is there of learning how far 
off the sun is, when it is near enough to warm us?" 
— " What, will the teacher learn his pupils to make 
Almanacs?" — "When girls become scholars, who 
is to make the puddings and the pies?" But these 
narrow prejudices have almost passed away. Many 
have since become equally enthusiasts on this sub- 
ject, and the results of an improved system of 
female education have not disappointed their hopes 
or mine. By a true discipline of mind, and ap- 
plication to the solid branches of knowledge, 
our well educated females have become more 
agreeable companions, more useful members 
of society, and more skillful and faithful teach- 
ers, without disqualifying themselves for domestic 
avocations. 

The first school of eminence exclusively 
for girls was the Moravian Seminary at Beth- 
lehem, Pennsylvania. This was established 
as early as 1749, but was not opened as a 
boarding-school until 1785. It enjoyed 
about that date a national reputation. About 



ACADEMIES, HIGH SCHOOLS, AND SEMINARIES. 



961 



the same period the Academy of the Visita- 
tion, at Georgetown, the first Catholic Sem- 
inary for girls in the United States, was es- 
tablished, and at this date there are upwards 
of fifty under the care of different religious 
orders in the different dioceses. 

It has been claimed that President 1 >wight, 
in his school at Greenfield, opened in L783, 
was the first in the country to admit pupils 
of both sexes to an entire equality of intel- 
lectual training of the highest order. 

When that famous teacher, ( !aleb Bing- 
ham, removed to Boston, in 1784, he did so 
with the design of opening there a school 
for girls, who were, singularly enough, at 
that time excluded from the public schools. 
Mr. Bingham's enterprise was successful, 
and was also the means of revolutionizing 
the unfair school system of the city, and of 
introducing a plan which, though imperfect, 
provided some public instruction for girls. 
After many delays and defeats, the Girls' High 
School, in 1872, was left to occupy alone the 
largest, most costly, and best equipped school 
structure in the United States, under the di- 
rection of a principal (Samuel Eliot, LL. D.) 
who was recently a college president. 

In 1792, Miss Pierce opened a school for 
girls at Litchfield, Connecticut, which con- 
tinued in operation for forty years, and edu- 
cated large numbers of young ladies from 
all parts of the country. In the same year, 
at Philadelphia, was incorporated the first 
Female Academy in this country. 

From about 1797 to 1800, Rev. William 
Woodbridge, father of the well-known au- 
thor and educator, W. C. Woodbridge, 
taught a young ladies' school, at first at 
Norwich, and afterward at Middletown, Ct. 
He had previously (in 1779) taught a class 
of young ladies in New Haven, Ct., and a 
Female Academy in 1789 at Medford, Mass. 

In 1816, Mrs. Emma Willard commenced 
her endeavors to secure for women the op- 
portunity of acquiring a grade of education 
corresponding to that which colleges furnish 
to the other sex. The eminent success and 
excellence of her celebrated school at Troy 
are well known; and an important conse- 
quence of her labors was, that female semi- 
naries were admitted to receive aid from the 
literature fund of the State of New York, 
on the same terms with the male academies, 

From 1818 to 1830, Rev. Joseph Emerson 
conducted a young ladies' school of high rep- 
utation and efficiency, successively at Byfield 
and Saugus, Mass., and Wethersfield, Conn. 



In 182:;, George B. Emerson, Id.. D., opened 
a young ladies r school at Boston, probably 
with a more complete outfit than any which 

had preceded it. Soon after, the well-known 
school of Mr. Kingsbury, an institution of 
similar grade and excellence, was opened at 
Providence. Miss /. P. Grant and M -- 
Mary Lyon, both pupils of Rev. .1. Emerson, 
were associated in the conduct of an ex- 
cellent school for young ladies at [pawich, 
Mass., in 1821. The energetic and p 
vering labors of Miss Lyon, with the pur- 
pose of establishing a permanent Protestant 
school of high grade for young ladies, re- 
sulted in the establishment of the celebrated 
seminary at South Iladley, which was 
opened in 18,37. In 1839 the firel Normal 
School for female teachers was opened at 
Framingham. 

In 1822, Miss Catherine E. Beecher open- 
ed a school for young ladies at Hartford, 
Conn., which she conducted with eminent 
success for ten years. She afterward taught 
for a short period at Cincinnati, but her la- 
bors for female education have subsequently 
consisted in various publications, and in the 
management of an extended scheme for a 
system of Christian female education, in- 
cluding a national board, high schools, and 
normal schools; which has resulted in the 
establishment of several valuable institutions. 

In 1825, at Wilbraham, Mas-., was open- 
ed the first of the Methodist Conference 
seminaries — institutions whose plan has sub- 
stantially followed that of the Wilbraham 
Seminary, which was drawn up by Rev. 
Wilbur Fiskc, its first principal, and ad- 
mitted young women as well as young men 
to their advantages. Ten years later. < >ber- 
lin College, at first with no higher ranee of 
studies, but since largely increased, extend- 
ed all its courses to females as well as males, 
and fifty years later Cornell University, with 
public and private endowments out of which 
$2,000,000 will be realized, has opened all 
its optional classes and Bchools, and all its 
degrees to aspirants of both Bexes on the 
same conditions. In the number of largely 
endowed female institutions is the Lacker 
Collegiate Institute at Brooklyn, X. V., which 
had previously existed as the Brooklyn Insti- 
tute, and received its present name in con- 
sequence of the munificent gift of *s;>,000 
by Mrs. Harriet L. Lacker of that city; and 
Yassar Female College at Poughkeepsie, 

N. V., for which the vast sum of |800,000 has 
been given by Matthew Vaasar, ^( that city. 



962 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



III. COLLEGES, OR SUPERIOR INSTRUCTION. 

INTRODUCTION. 

At the close of the Colonial period of our 
educational history, we have already noticed 
the fact of the existence of seven Colleges, — 
Harvard, William and Mary, Yale, Nassau 
Hall, Rutgers, Brown, and Kings — all of 
them founded on a common type, all of 
them including, as an essential part of their 
curriculum, the study of Latin and Greek, 
with special reference to the wants of the 
church, while they were all avowedly pre- 
paratory to the " learned professions of the- 
ology, law, and medicine " generally. By 
degrees the term University came to be ap- 
plied to this class of institutions — which, 
without changing in any essential particular 
the aims or studies of the American College, 
has perverted and belittled one of the most 
significant and noblest terms in the annals 
of human culture. We have yet not a sin- 
gle institution which, by the independent 
test of its admission, and the optional range 
of its instruction, based on a preliminary in- 
stitutional drill in the elementary principles 
of received science, is entitled to the desig- 
nation of University in its best European 
sense. Oar Universities, so called, with few 
honorable exceptions, can not, without great 
latitude of construction, be admitted into 
the classification of American Colleges ; and 
great injury has been done to higher learn- 
ing in this country by the indiscriminate 
incorporation of associations, all avowedly 
sectarian in their constitution and aims, with 
power to grant academic degrees, under the 
name of a college or university. 

Condition of American Colleges about 1800. 

The following account of all the Colleges 
in operation in 1796 is taken from Winter- 
botham's Historical, Geographical, Commer- 
cial and Philosophical View of the United 
States, published in four volumes in London 
in 1796. The information was obtained by 
personal inquiries, and from such sources as 
Morse, Webster, Wirtherspoon, <fec. Wo 
have added a few paragraphs and notes 
respecting institutions omitted by the above 
author, to make the account complete to the 
beginning of this century. 

Massachusetts. — Harvard University 
takes its date from the year 1638. Two 
years before, the General Court gave four 
hundred pounds for the support of a public 



school at Newtown, which has since been 
called Cambridge. This year (1638) the 
Rev. Mr. John Harvard, a worthy minister 
residing in Charlestown, died, and left a dona- 
tion of seven hundred and seventy-nine 
pounds, for the use of the fore-mentioned 
public school. In honor to the memory of 
so liberal a benefactor, the General Court, 
the same year, ordered that the school should 
take the name of Harvard College. 

In 1642, the college was put upon a more 
respectable footing, and the governor, dep- 
uty governor, and magistrates, and the min- 
isters of the six next adjacent towns, with 
the president, were erected into a corpora- 
tion for the ordering and managing its con- 
cerns. It received its first charter in 1650. 
' Cambridge, in which the university is sit- 
uated, is a pleasant village, four miles west- 
ward from Boston, containing a number of 
elegant seats, which are neat and well-built. 
The university consists of four elegant brick 
edifices, handsomely inclosed. They stand 
on a beautiful green, which spreads to the 
north-west, and exhibit a pleasing view. 

The names of the several buildings are, 
Harvard Hall, Massachusetts Hall, Hollis 
Hall, and Holden Chapel. Harvard Hall 
is divided into six apartments; one of which 
is appropriated for the library, one for the 
museum, two for the philosophical appara- 
tus; one is used for a chapel, and the other 
for a dining hall. The library, in 1791, con- 
sisted of upwards of thirteen thousand vol- 
umes ; and is continually increasing from the 
interest of permanent funds, as well as from 
casual benefactions. The philosophical ap- 
paratus belonging to this university, cost 
between one thousand four hundred, and 
one thousand five hundred pounds sterling, 
and is the most elegant and complete of any 
in America. 

Agreeable to the present constitution of 
Massachusetts, his Excellency the Governor, 
Lieutenant-governor, the Council and Senate, 
the President of the University, and the 
ministers of the congregational churches in 
the towns of Boston, Charlestown, Cam- 
bridge, Watertown, Roxbury, and Dorches- 
ter, are, ex ojjiciis, overseers of the university. 

The corporation is a distinct body, con- 
sisting of seven members, in whom is vested 
the property of the university. 

Harvard University has a President, Em- 
eritus Professor of Divinity, — Hollisian Pro- 
fessor of Divinity, — Hancock Professor of 
Hebrew and other Oriental languages, — Hoi- 



COLLEGES, OR SUPERIOR INSTURCTION. 



9G3 



lis Professor of Mathematics and Natural 
Philosophy — Hersey Professor of Anatomy 
and Surgery, — Hersey Professor of the 
theory and practice of Physic, — Erving Pro- 
fessor of Chemistry and Materia Medica, — 
four tutors, who teach the Greek and Latin 
languages, logic, metaphysics, and ethics, 
geography, and the elements of geometry, 
natural philosophy, astronomy, and history ; 
and a preceptor of the French language. 

This university, as to its library, philo- 
sophical apparatus and professorships, is at 
present the first literary institution on the 
American continent. Since its first estab- 
lishment, upwards of three thousand three 
hundred students have received honorary 
degrees from its successive officers ; about 
one-third of whom have been ordained to 
the work of the gospel ministry. It has 
generally from one hundred and thirty to 
one hundred and sixty students. 

This university is liberally endowed, and 
is frequently receiving donations for the es- 
tablishment of new professorships. For- 
merly there was an annual grant made by the 
legislature to the president and professors, 
of from four to five hundred pounds, which 
for several years past has been discontinued. 

[Williams College grew out of the avails 
of land and other property left by will of 
Col. Ephraim Williams, dated July 22, 1755, 
"for the support of a Free School in a 
township west of Fort Massachusetts." The 
land was in part a grant of 200 acres made 
to him by the General Court of Massachu- 
setts for military service in the French war 
from 1740 to 1748. In 1785 a body of 
trustees to maintain a free school in Wil- 
liamstown was incorporated by the legisla- 
ture, a building erected, and a school opened 
in the same in 1791, with two departments 
— a grammar-school or academy, with a col- 
lege course, and an English free school. In 
1793 this school, by act of the legislature, 
became Williams College, with a grant of 
$4,000 from the State to purchase books and 
philosophical apparatus. The requirements 
for entering the college were, ability " to 
read, parse and construe, to the satisfaction 
of the president and tutor, Virgil's ./Eneid, 
Tully's Orations, and the Evangelists, in 
Greek ; or if he prefers to become acquainted 
with French, he must be able to read, with 
a tolerable degree of accuracy and fluency, 
Hudson's French Scholars' Guide, Tele- 
muchus, or some other approved French 
author.] 



Virginia.*— The college 6f William and 
Man- was founded in tin' time of King 
William and Qaeen Mary [1692], who grant- 
ed to it twenty thousand acres of land, and 
a penny a pound duty <>n certain toba 
exported from Virginiaand Maryland, which 
had been levied by the statute of --'•"> < "ar. 
II. The Assembly also gave it, by tempo- 
rary laws, a duty on liquors imported, and 
skins and furs exported. From these re- 
sources it received upwards of three thou- 
sand pounds. The buildings are of brick, 
sufficient for an indifferent accommodation 
of perhaps one hundred students. By its 
charter it was to be under the government 
of twenty visitors, who were to be its legis- 
lators, and to have a president and six 
professors, who were incorporated : it was 
allowed a representative in tlie General As- 
sembly. Under this charter, a professor- 
ship of the Greek and Latin languagi 
professor of mathematics, one of moral phi- 
losophy, and two of divinity, were estab- 
lished. To these were annexed, for a >ixth 
professorship, a considerable donation by a 
Mr. Boyle of England, for the instruction 
of the Indians, and their conversion to 
Christianity: this was called the professor- 
ship of Brasserton, from an estate of that 
name in England, purchased with the in 
given. Tlie admission of the learners of 
Latin and Greek filled the college with 
children ; this rendering it disagreeable to 
the young gentlemen already prepared for 
entering on the sciences, they desisted from 
resorting to it, and thus the schools for 
mathematics and moral philosophy, which 
might have been of some service, became 
of very little use. The revenues, too, were 
exhausted in accommodating those who 
came only to acquire the rudiments of 
science. After the present revolution, the 
visitors having DO power to change those 
circumstances in the constitution of the 
college which were fixed by the charter, 
and being therefore confined iii the number 
of professorships, undertook to change 

* In 1619 a gift of 5<HU. wal made to the Virginia Company 
to aid in the education of Indian youth*. Collection! 
taken op in the Oharobsaof England, by which 10,501 
realized, and the company appropriated Iiukih acre* > f land nt 
Henrico, a little below tin- present lite of Richmond. Rev. 
Mr. Cnpeiand wai made president, and George Thorpe, with 
50 tenant*. sent over in 1691 t>> Improve the land 
all slam by the Indian* in the great massacre "f 1699, nnd the 
project of the college was sJtMdonad, I" 1088 an attempt era* 
made In the Assembly to Mtablish a college " for the *n 
the miniitry and the promotion of piety." In 1609 ■ charter 
was obtained ftoni the government in England through the 
agency <>t' Rev. earns* Blair, who became it- nresident, and the 
assistance of Lieut. Governor Nicholson, and was culled after 

Its royal founders, William und Mury. 



964 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



the objects of the professorships. They 
excluded the two schools for divinity, and 
that for the Greek and Latin languages, and 
substituted others; so that at present they 
stand thus — a professorship for law and po- 
lice ; anatomy and medicine ; natural phi- 
losophy and mathematics; moral philoso- 
phy, the law of nature and nations, the 
tine arts ; modern languages ; for the Bras- 
serton. 

Measures have been taken to increase 
the number of professorships, as well for 
the purpose of subdividing those already 
instituted, as of adding others for other 
branches of science. To the professorships 
usually established in the universities of 
Europe, it would seem proper to add one 
for the ancient languages and literature of 
the north, on account of their connection 
with our own languages, laws, customs, and 
history. The purposes of the Brasserton 
institution would be better answered by 
maintaining a perpetual mission among the 
Indian tribes ; the object of which, besides 
instructing them in the principles of 
Christianity, as the founder requires, should 
be to collect their traditions, laws, customs, 
languages, and other circumstances which 
might lead to a discovery of their relation 
to one another, or descent from other na- 
tions. When these objects are accomplished 
with one tribe, the missionary might pass 
on to another. 

The college edifice is a huge, misshapen 
pile; "which, but that it has a root, would 
be taken for a brick-kiln." In 1787, there 
were about thirty young gentlemen mem- 
bers of this college, a large proportion of 
which were law students. 

The academy in Prince Edward county 
has been erected into a college by the name 
of Hampden Sydney college. It has been 
a flourishing seminary, but is now said to 
be on the decline. 

Connecticut. — Yale College was founded 
in 1700, and remained at Killingworth until 
1707; then at Say brook untif 1716, when 
it was removed and fixed at New Haven. 
Among its principal benefactors was Gov- 
ernor Yale, in honor of whom, in 1718, it 
was named Yale College. Its first building 
was erected in 1717, being one hundred 
and seventy feet in length, and twenty-two 
in breadth, built of wood. This was taken 
down in 1782. The present college, which 
is of brick, was built in 1750, under the 
direction of the Rev. President Clap, and 



is one hundred feet long and forty feet wide, 
three stories high, and contains thirty-two 
chambers, and sixty-four studies, convenient 
for the reception of one hundred students. 
The college chapel, which is also of brick, 
was built in 1761, being fifty feet by forty, 
with a steeple one hundred and twenty- 
five feet high. In this building is the 
public library, consisting of about two thou- 
sand five hundred volumes ; and the philo- 
sophical apparatus, which, by a late hand- 
some addition, is now as complete as most 
others in the United States, and contains 
the machines necessary for exhibiting ex- 
periments in the whole course of experi- 
mental philosophy and astronomy. The 
college museum, to which additions are 
constantly making, contains many natural 
curiosities. 

This literary institution was incorporated 
by the General Assembly of Connecticut. 
The first charter of incorporation was grant- 
ed to eleven ministers, under the denomina- 
tion of trustees, in 1701. The powers of 
the trustees were enlarged by the additional 
charter of 1723. And "by that of 1745, the 
trustees were incorporated by the name of 
" The president and fellows of Yale College, 
New Haven." By an act of the General 
Assembly " for enlarging the powers and 
increasing the funds of Yale College," passed 
in May, 1792, and accepted by the corpora- 
tion, the governor, lieutenant-governor, and 
the six senior assistants in the council of 
the State for the time being, are ever here- 
after, by virtue of their offices, to be trus- 
tees and fellows of the college, in addition 
to the former corporation. The corpora- 
tion are empowered to hold estates, con- 
tinue their succession, make academic laws, 
elect and constitute all officers of instruc- 
tion and government usual in universities, 
and confer all learned degrees. The imme- 
diate executive government is in the hands 
of the president and tutors. The present 
officers and instructors of the college are, 
a president, who is also professor of eccle- 
siastical history, a professor of divinity, and 
three tutors. The number of students, on 
an average, is about 130, divided into four 
classes. It is worthy of remark, that as 
many as five-sixths of those who have re- 
ceived their education at this university, 
were natives of Connecticut. 

The funds of this college received a 
very liberal addition by a grant of the 
General Assembly, in the act of 1792 



COLLEGES, OR SUPERIOR INSTRUCTION". 



065 



before mentioned ; which will enable the 
corporation to civet a new building for the 
accommodation of the students, to support 
several new professorships, and to make a 
handsome addition to the library, 

The course of education in this university 
comprehends the whole circle of literature. 
The three learned languages are taught, 
together with so much of the sciences as 
can be communicated in four years. 

In May and September, annually, the 
several classes are critically examined in all 
their classical studies. As incentives to 
improvement in composition and oratory, 
quarterly exercises are appointed by the 
president and tutors, to be exhibited by 
the respective classes in rotation. A pub- 
lic commencement is held annually on the 
second Wednesday in September, which 
calls together a more numerous and bril- 
liant assembly, than are convened by any 
other anniversary in the State. 

About two thousand two hundred have 
received the honors of this university, of 
whom nearly seven hundred and sixty have 
been ordained to the work of the gospel 
ministry. 

[Wansey, in his Journal of an Excursion 
to the United States of North America in 
1 794, thus speaks of the college: I went 
over to the college, which stands in the 
market-place. It consist of two brick 
edifices, one hundred feet long and three 
ntories high. It was founded in the year 
1700; it was but in bad condition when I 
saw it; very dirty, particularly the library. 
The books were numerous, but very old and 
in bad condition ; two large globes of 
Senex's, a large electrical apparatus, a good 
reflecting telescope, and a cabinet of curios- 
ities, with which I was much entertained ; 
viz., Indian helmets, curiously woven with 
feathers ; warlike dresses and belts of wam- 
pum. Two large teeth of the mammoth, 
found on the banks of the Ohio, in the 
shape of human cheek teeth ; I measured 
them with my handkerchief, and applied it to 
a foot rule, and found their dimensions to 
be twenty-two inches round horizontally, 
and twenty inches long when I measured 
longitudinally, over the tops and between 
the roots. The skins of two beautifully 
spotted snakes, eighteen feet long, from 
South America; an Indian calumet or pipe 
of peace ; a young alligator, preserved in 
spirits; instruments of war and of fishing, 
from Nootka Sound. Cloth made at 
51 



Otaheite. A curious frog, with ;i long tail 
lilce a lizard. Several pieces of asbestos 
found in that neighborhood. Bui what 
most particularly struck me, was a snake 
with two distinct heads; 1 asked the libra- 
rian whether this was not considered 
monster, a lu$us nature*} He assured mc 

not, and that in that neignborh 1 they 

had often been found alive. This one was 
preserved inspirits, in size, color, and shape* 
like our flow ivorm, about eight or nine 
inches long; the two heads were of the 
same size, and every way perfect, branching 
off equally from the trunk, in opposite direc- 
tions, one inch and a quarter in length. I 
afterwards saw at Philadelphia, in I Vale's 
museum, two others of this sort, only that 
one of them had three heads; neither of 
them in a straight direction with the body. 
I did not see Dr. Stiles, the president of the 
college, he was gone to New Fork that day. 
The students had all been dismissed to their 
respective homes, three months before, on 
account of the epidemic or putrid fever 
which then raged in the town.] 

New Jersey. — There are two colleges in 
New Jersey; one at Princetown, called Nas- 
sau Hall, the other at Brunswick, called 
Queen's College. 

The college at Princetown was first 
founded by charter from John Hamilton, 
Esq., President of the Council, about the 
year 17:38, and enlarged by Governor 
Belcher in 1747. The charter delegates a 
power of granting to "the students of said 
college, or to any others thought worthy of 
them, all such degrees as are granted in 
either of the universities, or any other col- 
lege in Great Britain." It has twenty-three 
trustees. The governor of the State, and 
the president of the college are <.r "metis, 
two of them. It has an annual income <>f 
about nine hundred pounds currency, of 
which two hundred pounds arise from 
funded public securities ami lauds, and the 
rest from the fees of the students. 

The president of the college i- also pro- 
fessor of eloquence, criticism and chronol- 
ogy. The vice-president is also professor 
of divinity and moral philosophy. There is 
also a professor of mathematics and natural 
philosophy, and two masters of langtt I 
The four classes in college contain commonly 
from seventv to one hundred students. 
There is a grammar-school ^f about twenty 

scholars connected with the college, under 
the superintendence of the president, and 



966 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



taught sometimes by a senior scholar, and 
sometimes by a graduate. 

Before the war, this college was furnished 
with a philosophical apparatus, worth five 
hundred pounds, which (except the elegant 
orrery constructed by Mr. Rittenhouse) was 
almost entirely destroyed by the British 
army in the late war, as was also the library, 
which now consists of between two and 
three thousand volumes. 

The college edifice is handsomely built 
with stone, and is one hundred and eighty 
feet in length, fifty-four in breadth, and 
four stories high, and is divided into forty- 
two convenient chambers for the accommo- 
dation of the students, besides a dining-hall, 
chapel, and room for the library. Its situa- 
tion is elevated, and exceedingly pleasant 
and healthful. It is remarkable, that since 
the removal of the college to Princetown, in 
1756, there have been but five or six deaths 
among the students. The view from the 
college balcony is extensive and charming. 

The college has been under the care of a 
succession of presidents, eminent for piety 
and learning, and has furnished a number of 
civilians, divines and physicians, of the first 
rank in America. 

The charter for Queen's College, at Bruns- 
wick, was granted [1770] just before the war, 
in consequence of an application from a party 
of the Dutch church. Its funds, raised 
wholly by free donations, amounted, soon 
after its establishment, to four thousand 
pounds, but they were considerably dimin- 
ished by the war. The grammar school, 
which is connected with the college, con- 
sists of between thirty and forty students, 
under the care of the trustees. The college 
at present is not in a very flourishing state. 

New York. — Until the year 1745, there 
was no college in the province of New York. 
The state of literature, at that time, I shall 
give in the words of the state historian : * 
" Our schools are in the lowest order ; the 
instructors want instruction, and through a 
long and shameful neglect of all the arts and 
sciences, our common speech is extremely 
corrupt, and the evidences of a bad taste, 
both as to thought and language, are visible 
an all our proceedings, public and private." 
This may have been a just representation 
at the time when it was written; but much 
attention has since been paid to education. 

Kings College, in the city of New York, 
was principally founded by the voluntary 



* Smith's History of New York, London, 1757. 



contributions of the inhabitants of the prov- 
ince, assisted by the General Assembly, and 
the corporation of Trinity Church ; in the 
year 1754, a royal charter (and grant of 
money) being then obtained, incorporating 
a number of gentlemen therein mentioned, 
by the name of " The Governors of the 
College of the Province of New York, in 
the city of New York, in America; and 
granting to them and their successors for 
ever, amongst various other rights and priv- 
ileges, the power of conferring all such de- 
grees as are usually conferred by either of 
the English universities. 

By the charter it was provided that the 
president shall always be a member of the 
church of England, and that a form of prayer 
collected from the liturgy of that church, 
with a particular prayer for the college, shall 
be daily used, morning and evening, in the 
college chapel ; at the same time, no test of 
their religious persuasion was required from 
any of the fellows, professors, or tutors ; and 
the advantages of education were equally 
extended to students of all denominations. 

The building, which is only one-third of 
the intended structure, consists of an elegant 
stone edifice, three complete stories high, 
with four stair cases, twelve apartments in 
each, a chapel, hall, library, museum, ana- 
tomical theatre, and school for experimental 
philosophy. 

The college is situated on a dry, gravelly 
soil, about one hundred and fifty yards from 
the bank of Hudson's river, which it over- 
looks; commanding a most extensive and 
beautiful prospect (now solid warehouses). 

Kings College is now called Columbia 
College. This college, by an act of the 
legislature passed in the spring of 1787, was 
put under the care of twenty-four gentlemen, 
who are a body corporate, by the name and 
style of " The Trustees of Columbia College 
in the city of New York." This body pos- 
sess all the powers vested in the governors 
of Kings College before the revolution, or in 
the regents of the university since the revo- 
lution, so far as their power respected this 
institution. No regent can be a trustee of 
any particular college or academy in the 
State. The regents of the university have 
power to confer the higher degrees, and 
them only. 

The college edifice has received no addi- 
tions since the peace. The funds, exclusive 
of the liberal grant of the legislature, 
amount to between twelve and thirteen thou- 



COLLEGES, OR SUPERIOR INSTRUCTION. 



967 



sand pounds currency, the income of which 
is sufficient for present exigencies. 

This college is now in a thriving state, 
and has about one hundred students in the 
four classes, besides medical students. The 
officers of instruction and immediate gov- 
ernment are a president, professor of math- 
ematics and natural philosophy, a professor 
of logic and geography, and a professor of 
languages. A complete medical school has 
been lately annexed to the college, and able 
professors appointed by the trustees in every 
branch of that important science, who regu- 
larly teach their respective branches with 
reputation. The number of medical stu- 
dents is about fifty, but they are increasing. 
The library and museum were destroyed 
during the war. The philosophical appara- 
tus is new and complete. 

[Union College, at Schenectady, received 
its charter from the Regents of the Univer- 
sity in 1795, but owing to inadequate means 
and the short administrations of its first 
three presidents, John Blair Smith, Jonathan 
Edwards and Jonathan Marcy, the institution 
did not develope into a college until its ad- 
ministration was committed to Rev. Elipha- 
let Nott, at the time pastor of the Presby- 
terian church at Albany.] 

Rhode Island. — At Providence is Rhode 
Island College. The charter for founding 
this seminary of learning was granted by the 
General Assembly of the State, by the name 
of the "Trustees and Fellows of the College 
or University, in the English colony of 
Rhode Island and Providence Plantations,"* 
in 17(54, in consequence of the petition of 
a large number of the most respectable 
characters in the State. By the charter, the 
corporation of the college consists of two 
separate branches, with distinct, separate, 
and respective powers. The number of 
trustees is thirty-six, of whom twenty-two 
are Baptists, five of the denomination of 
Friends, five Episcopalians, and four Con- 
gregationalists. The same proportion of the 
different denominations to continue in per- 
petuum. The number of fellows (inclusive 
of the president, wh is a fellow ex officio) 
is twelve, of whom eight are F.aptists, the 
others chosen indiscriminately from any 
denomination. The concurrence of both 
branches, by a majority of each, is neces- 
sary for the validity of an act, except ad- 

* This nnme to be filtered when any getierooi benefactor 
nrises, who by his liberal donntion shall entitle himself to the 
honor of giving the college u name. 



judging and conferring degrees, which ex- 
clusively belongs to the fellow-hip a- a 
learned faculty. The president musl be a 
Baptist: professors and other officer- of 
instruction are not limited to any particu- 
lar denomination. 

This institution was first founded at 
Warren, in the county of Bristol, and the 
first commencement held there in 17''.:». 

In the year 1770, the college wa.- rem 
to Providence, where a large, eleganl build- 
ing was erected for its accomi lation, by 

the generous donations of individuals, most- 
ly from the town of Providence. It is 
situated on a hill to the east of the town; 
and while its elevated situation render- it 
delightful, by commanding an extensive 
variegated prospect, it furnishes it with a 
pure, salubrious air. The edifice is of 
brick, four stories high, one hundred and 
fifty feet long, and forty-six wide, with a 
projection of ten feet each side. It has an 
entry lengthwise, with rooms on each side. 
There are forty-eight rooms for the accom- 
modation of students, and eight larger ones 
for public uses. The roof is covered with 
slate. 

From December, 1776, to June, 1782, 
the college edifice was used by the French 
and American troops for an hospital and 
barracks, so that the course of education 
was interrupted during that period. V> 
degrees were conferred from 1770 to 1788. 
From 1780, the college again became reg- 
ular, and is now very flourishing, contain- 
ing upwards of sixty students. 

This institution is under the instruction 
of a president, a professor of divinity, a 
professor of natural and experimental 
philosophy, a professor of mathematics and 
astronomy, a professor of natural history, 
and three tutors. The institution has a 
library of between two and three thousaad 
volumes, containing a valuable philosophical 
apparatus. Nearly all the fund- of the 
college are at interest in the treasury of the 
State, and amount to almost two thousand 
pounds. 

Pennsylvania. — The University of Penn- 
sylvania, by that name, was chartered iu 
1779 by an act which annulled the charter 
of the Academy and charitable School, ob- 
tained by Franklin in 1749, and en.. 
into a college in L755. By an act of 1789 

the trustees and faculty o( the old o 

were reinstated, and by an act of lT'.u the 
two institutions were united in the I'niver- 



968 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



sity of Pennsylvania. Winterbotham, 
writing in 1795, says: In Philadelphia is 
the University of Pennsylvania, founded and 
endowed by the legislature during the war. 
Professorships are established in all the lib- 
eral arts and sciences, and a complete course 
of education may be pursued here from the 
first rudiments of literature to the highest 
branches of science. 

The college and academy of Philadelphia 
was founded by charter between thirty and 
forty years ago, and endowed by subscrip- 
tion of liberal minded persons. Though 
this institution was interrupted in its prog- 
ress for several years during the late war, 
yet being re-established since the peace, it 
has rapidly recovered its former state of 
prosperity, and to the bench of professors 
has lately been added one of common and 
federal law, which renders it in reality, 
though not in name, an university. An act 
to unite these two institutions has passed the 
legislature. By their union they will consti- 
tute one of the most respectable semina- 
ries of learning in the United States. 

Dickinson College, at Carlisle, an hun- 
dred and twenty miles westward of Phil- 
adelphia, was founded in 1783, and has a 
principal, three professors, a philosophical 
apparatus, a library consisting of nearly 
three thousand volumes, four thousand 
pounds in funded certificates, and ten thou- 
sand acres of land ; the last, the donation 
of the State. In 1787, there were eighty 
students belonging to this college : this 
number is annually increasing. It was 
named after his excellency John Dickinson, 
author of the Pennsylvania Farmer's Let- 
ters, and formerly president of the Supreme 
Executive Council of this State. 

In 1787, a college was founded at Lancas- 
ter, sixty-six miles from Philadelphia, and 
honored with the name of Franklin college, 
after his excellency, Dr. Franklin. This col- 
lege is for the Germans, in which they may 
educate their youth in their own language, 
and in conformity to their own habits. The 
English language, however, is taught in it. 
Its endowments are nearly the same as 
those of Dickinson College. Its trustees 
consist of Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Cal- 
vinists, of each an equal number. The 
principal is a Lutheran, and the vice-princi- 
pal is a Calvinist. 

Maryland. — In 1782, a college was insti- 
tuted at Chestertown, in Kent county, and 
was honored with the name of Washington 



College, after President Washington. It is 
under the management of twenty-four 
visitors of governors, with power to supply 
vacancies and hold estates, whose yearly 
value shall not exceed six thousand pounds 
current money. By a law enacted in 1787, 
a permanent fund was granted to this insti- 
tution of one thousand two hundred and 
fifty pounds a year, currency, out of the 
moneys arising from marriage licenses, 
fines, and forfeitures on the eastern shore. 

St. Johns College was instituted in 
1784, to have also twenty -four trustees, 
with power to keep up the succession by 
supplying vacancies, and to receive an 
annual income of nine thousand pounds. 
A permanent fund* is assigned this college, 
of one thousand seven hundred and fifty 
pounds a year, out of the moneys arising 
from marriage licenses, ordinary licenses, 
fines and forfeitures, on the western shore. 
This college is at Annapolis, where a build- 
ing has been prepared for it. Very liberal 
subscriptions have been obtained towards 
founding and carrying on these seminaries. 
The two colleges constitute one university, 
by the name of " the University of Mary- 
land,* whereof the governor of the State 
for the time being is chancellor, and the 
principal of one of them vice-chancellor, 
either by seniority or by election, as may 
hereafter be provided for by rule or by law. 
The chancellor is empowered to call a meet- 
ing of the trustees, or a representation of 
seven of each, and two of the members of 
the faculty of each, the principal being one, 
which meeting is styled, "The Convocation 
of the University of Maryland," who are 
to frame the laws, preserve uniformity of 
manners and literature in the colleges, 
confer the higher degrees, determine ap- 
peals, &c. 

The Roman Catholics have also erected a 
college at Georgetown, [included in the 
cession for the District of Columbia] on the 
Potomac river, for the promotion of general 
literature. 

In 1785, the Methodists instituted a 
college at Abingdon, in Harford county, 
by the name of Cokesbury College, after 
Thomas Coke, and Francis Ashbury, bishops 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The 
college edifice is of brick, handsomely 
built on a healthy spot, enjoying a fine air, 
and a very extensive prospect. 

The students, who are to consist of the 



Repealed by Legislature in 1804. 




FUl'XHIMi OF DARTMOUTH COLLEGE 



COLLEGES, OR SUPERIOR INSTRUCTION. 



971 



sons of traveling preachers, of annual sub- 
scribers, of the members of the Methodist 
society and orphans, are instructed in 
English, Latin, Greek, Logic, Rhetoric, His- 
tory, Geography, Natural Philosophy and 
Astronomy ; and when the finances of the 
college will admit, they are to be taught the 
Hebrew, French, and German languages. 

The college was erected, and is supported 
wholly by subscription and voluntary dona- 
tions. 

The students have regular hours for ris- 
ing, for prayers, for their meals, for study, 
and for recreation : they are all to be in bed 
precisely at nine o'clock. Their recreations, 
(for they are to be " indulged in nothing 
which the world calls pl(ty") are gardening, 
walking, riding, and bathing, without doors; 
and within doors, the carpenter's, joiner's, 
cabinet-maker's, or turner's business. Suit- 
able provision is made for these several 
occupations, which arc to be considered, 
not as matters of drudgery and constraint, 
but as pleasing and healthful recreations 
both for the body and mind. Another of 
their rules, which though new and singular, 
is favorable to the health and vigor of the 
body and mind, is, that the students shall 
not sleep on feather beds but on mattresses, 
and each one by himself. Particular atten- 
tion is paid to the morals and religion of 
the students. 

New Hampshire. — The establishment of 
Dartmouth College [founded by Eleazer 
Wheelock, D. D., in 1769, at Hanover, in 
Grafton county, with special view to the 
education of young Indians] in the western 
border of the State, has proved a great ben- 
efit to the new settlements, and to the neigh- 
boring State of Vermont. During the late 
war, like all other seminaries of literature, 
it lay under discouragement ; but since the 
peace it is in a more flourishing situation. 

Its landed interest amounts to about 
eighty thousand acres, of which twelve hun- 
dred lie contiguous, and are capable of the 
best improvement. Twelve thousand acres 
are situate in Vermont. A tract of eight 
miles square beyond the northern line of 
Stuart town, was granted by the Assembly 
of New Hampshire in 1789, and in the ac1 
by which this grant was made, " the presi- 
dent and council of the State for the time 
being are incorporated with the trustees of 
the college, so far as to act with them in re- 
gard to the expenditures and application of 
this grant, and of all others which have been 



or may be hereafter made by New Ilamp- 
shire." 

The revenue of the college arising from 

the lands, amounts to < hundred and forty 

pounds per annum. By contracts already 
made it will amount in four years to four 
hundred and fifty; and in twelve years to -i\: 
hundred and tit'ty pounds. The income 
arising from tuition money is about six hun- 
dred pounds per annum more. 

The first building erected for the accom- 
modation of the students was a few yeaiB 
since burned. A lottery was granted l>v the 
State for raising the sum of Beven hundred 
pounds, which lias Keen applied to the erec- 
tion of a new building, much mure' conven- 
ient than the former; it was constructed of 
wood, and stands in an elevated situation, 
about half a mile eastward of Connecticut 
river in the township of Hanover, com- 
manding an extensive and pleasant prospect 
to the west. It is one hundred and fifty 
feet long, fifty feet wide, and thirty-six feet 
high, and contains thirty-six chambers for 
students. The number of students who 
were graduated in the first nineteen years, 
amounts to two hundred and fifty-two, 
among whom were two Indians. In the 
year 1790, the number of undergraduates 
was about one hundred and tit'ty. 

The students are divided into four classes, 
The freshmen study the learned languages, 
the rules of speaking and writing, and the 
elements of mathematics. 

The sophomores attend to the langu. 
geography, logic, and mathematics. 

The junior sophisters, beside the lan- 
guages, euter on natural and moral philoso- 
phy and composition. 

The senior class compose in English and 
Latin; study metaphysics, the elements of 
natural and political law. 

The principal hooks used by the students 

are Lowth's English Grammar, Perry's Dic- 
tionary, Pike's Arithmetic, Guthrie's G 
raphy, Ward's Mathematics. Atkinsons 
Epitome, Hammond's Algebra, Martin's and 
Enfield's Natural Philosophy, Ferguson's 
Astronomy, Locke's Essay, Montesquieu's 
Spirit of Laws, and Burlematpii's Natural 
and Political Law. 

Besides these studies, lectures are read to 
the scholars in theology and ecclesiastical 
history. 

Kkntuckv. — The legislature ^f Virginia, 
while Kentucky made a part of that State, 
made provision for a college in it, and en- 



972 



EDUCATION* AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



dowed it with very considerable landed 
funds ; and a library for its use was for- 
warded thither by the Rev. Mr. John Todd 
of Virginia, (after obtaining the consent of 
the Rev. Dr. Gordon) while an inhabitant 
of the Massachusetts State. This library 
was mostly formed in the following manner : 
An epistolary acquaintance having com- 
menced between Mr. Todd and Dr. Gordon, 
through the influence of their common 
friend, the Rev. Mr. Samuel Davis, long 
since deceased, a letter was received about 
the end of 1764, or beginning of 1765, from 
Mr. Todd, in which he expressed a desire 
of obtaining a library and some philosophi- 
cal apparatus, to improve the education of 
some young persons, who were designed for 
the ministry. Dr. Gordon being then set- 
tled at London, upon application obtained 
a few annual subscriptions, with several do- 
nations of money, and of books, which were 
not closed till after March, 1769. During 
that period he received in cash, including 
his own subscription, eighty pounds two 
shillings and sixpence. The late worthy 
John Thornton, Esq., contributed fifty 
pounds of it, by the hand of the Rev. Mr. 
(afterwards Dr.) Wilson, who also gave in 
boohs ten pounds. Among the contribu- 
tors still living, beside Dr. Gordon himself, 
are the Rev. Mr. Towle, Messrs. Fuller, 
Samuel, and Thomas Statton, Charles Jer- 
dein, David Jennings, Jonathan Eade, Jo- 
seph Ainsley, and John Field of Thames 
street. 

Of the money collected, twenty-eight 
pounds ten shillings was paid to the late 
Mr. Ribright, for an air-pump, microscope, 
telescope, and prisms, thorough good, but 
not new. Cases, shipping, freight, insur- 
ance, &c, at four different periods, came 
to eight pounds eleven shillings and six- 
pence. The forty-three pounds one shilling 
was laid out to the best advantage in pur- 
chasing a variety of books, which, with those 
that were given, are supposed to make the 
main part of the Lexington Library.* 

North Carolina. — The General Assem- 
bly of North Carolina, in December, 1789, 
passed a law incorporating forty gentlemen, 
five from each district, as trustees of the 
university of North Carolina; to this uni- 
versity they gave, by a subsequent law, all 
the debts due to the State from sheriffs or 

* As this account of the librnry is essentially different from 
that given by Mr. Morse, und every other writer we have met 
with, the editor thinks it right to inform the public, thnt he 
inserts the above at the desire of the Rev. Dr. Gordon himself. 



other holders of public money, and which 
had been due before the year 1783 ; they 
also gave it all escheated property within 
the State. Whenever the trustees shall have 
collected a sufficient sum of the old debts, 
or from the sale of escheated property, the 
value of which is considerable, to pay the 
expense of erecting buildings, they are to 
fix on a proper place, and proceed in the 
finishing of them ; a considerable quantity 
of land has already been given to the uni- 
versity, and the General Assembly, in De- 
cember, 1791, loaned five thousand pounds 
to the trustees, to enable them to proceed 
immediately with the buildings. 

[The first college edifice was opened at 
Chapel Hill for the reception of students in 
Feb., 1795, under the faculty composed of 
Rev. David Kerr, of Trinity College, Dublin ; 
Professor C. H. Harris, in the mathematical 
chair, a graduate of Princeton, and Prof. 
Joseph Caldwell, a native of New Jersey 
and a graduate of Princeton, in 1791. The 
latter was elected the first president in 1804.] 

South Carolina. — Gentlemen of fortune, 
before the late war, sent their sons to Eu- 
rope for education. During the late war 
and since, they have generally sent them to 
the middle and northern States. Those who 
have been at this expense in educating their 
sons, have been but comparatively few in 
number, so that the literature of the State 
is at a low ebb. Since the peace, however, 
it has begun to flourish. There are several 
respectable academies at Charleston ; one at 
Beaufort, on Port Royal Island ; and several 
others in different parts of the State. Three 
colleges have lately been incorporated by 
law ; one at Charleston, one at Winnsbor- 
ough, in the district of Camden, and the 
other at Cambridge, in the district of Ninety- 
six. The public and private donations for 
the support of these three colleges were 
originally intended to have been appro- 
priated jointly, for the erecting and support- 
ing of one respectable college. The division 
of these donations has frustrated this design. 
Part of the old barracks in Charleston lias 
been handsomely fitted up, and converted 
into a college, and there are a number of 
students ; but it does not yet merit a more 
dignified name than that of a respectable 
academy. The Mount Sion college, at 
Winnsborough, is supported by a respectable 
society of gentlemen, who have long been 
incorporated. This institution flourishes, 
and bids fair for usefulness. The college at 



COLLEGES, OR SUPERIOR INSTRUCTION. 



978 



Cambridge is no more than a grammar 
school. 

[The college at Charleston graduated its 
first class in 1794, but its organic connection 
with the grammar school repressed its 
growth to meet the wants of a collegiate ed- 
ucation, which was soon liberally provided 
for in the South Carolina College, chartered 
by the State in 1801, and was ever afterwards 
the favorite institution with both the legis- 
lature and the people.] 

Georgia. — The charter, containing their 
present system of education, was passed in 
the year 1785. A college, with ample and 
liberal endowments, is instituted in Louis- 
ville, a high and healthy part of the 
country, near the centre of the State. 
There is also provision made for the institu- 
tion of an academy in each county in tlie 
State, to be supported from the same funds, 
and considered as parts and members of the 
same institution, under the general super- 
intendence and direction of a president 
and board of trustees, appointed, for their 
literary accomplishments, from the different 
parts of the State, invested with the custom- 
ary powers of corporations. The institu- 
tions thus composed and united is denom- 
inated, " The University of Georgia." 

That this body of literati, to whom is in- 
trusted the direction of the general litera- 
ture of the State, may not be so detached 
and independent, as not to possess the 
confidence of the State; and, in order to 
secure the attention and patronage of the 
principal officers of government, the gov- 
ernor and council, the speaker of the House 
of Assembly, and the chief justice of the 
State, are associated with the board of trus- 
tees, in some of the great and more solemn 
duties of their office, such as making the 
laws, appointing the president, settling the 
property, and instituting academies. Thus 
associated, they are denominated, " The 
Senate of the University," and are to hold 
a stated, annual meeting, at which the gov- 
ernor of the State presides. 

The Senate appoint a board of commis- 
sioners in each county, for the particular 
management and direction of the academy, 
and the other schools in each county, who 
' are to receive their instructions from, and 
are accountable to the Senate. The rector 
of each academy is an officer of the univer- 
sity, »to be appointed by the president, 
with the advice of the trustees, and commis- 
sioned under the public seal, and is to attend 



with the other officers at the annual meeting 
of the Senate, to deliberate on the general 
interest- 1 if literature, and to determine on the 
course of instruction for the \ ear, throughout 
the university. The president baa the gen- 
era] charge and oversight of the whole, 
and is from time to time to \i-it them, t 
amine into their order and performances. 

The funds for the support <»(' their insti- 
tution are principally in lands, amounting 
in the whole to about fifty thousand H 
a great part of which is of the best quality, 
and at present very valuable. There an- also 
nearly six thousand pounds Bterling in bonds, 
houses, and town lots in the tow a of Augusta. 
Other public property to the am .nut of 
one thousand pounds in each county, has 
been set apart for the purposes of building 
and furnishing their respective academ 

[Vermont. — In the first organization of 
the State, in 1777, the constitution of Ver- 
mont enjoined on the Legislature the found- 
ing of a University. In 178S the Legisla- 
ture responded to a call from Dartmouth 
for aid, by a grant of a township of land to 
that institution. In 1791 the charter of a 
State University was granted in furtherance 
of a donation of land by Ira Allen in l 789 ; 
a president was elected with a salary of 
$600, a professor of mathematics with a 
salary of $350, and a tutor with $300, and 
from a prospectus issued at the time it was 
calculated that a poor scholar, by keeping 
school six months each winter at the a\ 
price of $10, could pay his college bills and 
board, and leave college with $3-2 in his 
pocket. The college asked only $12 a year 
for each student. Small as this sum was, 
there were academies in the State which 
claimed to give as good opportunities for the 
scholarship required by the time-, at as low, 
or at a lower rate, and allow the students to 
reside at home. 

Middlebury College was chartered in 
1800, and between the two institutions 
a local rivalry sprung up, which at times 
passed into belligerent legislation, and at no 
time rested -imply on offering a better 
article of collegiate culture to the young 
aspirants of science.] 

To the above account by Winterbotham, 
of the number, and general organization and 

condition of American colleges prior to 1 son, 

we shall, as in the case of Common Schools 
and Academies, throw lighl on the instruc- 
tion and discipline which prevailed in them 
from the communications of students. 



974 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



(2.) College Studies and Discipline about 1800. 

Judge Story, in a letter respecting the 
studies and discipline at Harvard between 
1794 and 1798, writes in 1810: 

" You express a desire to obtain some gen- 
eral views of the circumstances under which 
the students lived. 1 believe that this can 
be best done by giving you a brief sketch of 
the state of college, and the relation which 
the students had with the existing college 
government. Things are so much changed 
since that it is somewhat difficult to realize 
all the influences which then surrounded 
them. In the first place as to the course of 
studies. It was far m< tre confined and limited 
than at present. In Greek we studied Xeno- 
phon's Anabasis and a few books of the Iliad ; 
in Latin, Sallust and a few books of Livy ; 
in Mathematics, Saunderson's Algebra and a 
work on Arithmetic ; in Natural Philosophy, 
Enfield's Natural Philosophy and Ferguson's 
Astronomy ; in Rhetoric, an abridgment of 
Blair's Lectures and the article on Rhetoric 
in the 'Preceptor'; in Metaphysics, Watt's 
Logic and Locke on the Human Understand- 
ing ; in History, Millot's Elements ; in The- 
ology, Doddridge's Lectures; in grammatical 
studies, Lowth's Grammar. I believe this is 
near the whole, if not the whole, course of 
our systematical studies. The college library 
was at that time far less comprehensive and 
suited to the wants of students than at pre- 
sent. It was not as easily accessible, and, 
indeed, was not frequented by them. No 
modern language was taught except French, 
and that only one day in the week by a non- 
resident instructor. 

" The means of knowledge from external 
sources was very limited. The intercourse 
between us and foreign countries was infre- 
quent, and I might almost say that we had 
no means of access to any literature and 
science except the English. Even in respect 
to this we had little more than a semi-annual 
importation of the most common works, and 
a few copies supplied and satisfied the market. 
The English periodicals were then few in 
number, and I do not remember any one 
that was read by the students except the 
Monthly Magazine (the old Monthly), and 
that was read but by a few. I have spoken 
of our semi-annual importations, and it is lit- 
erally true, that two ships only plied as regu- 
lar packets between Boston and London, one 
in the Spring and one in the Autumn, and 
their arrival was an era in our college life. 



" In respect to academical intercourse the 
students had literally none that was not 
purely official, except with each other. The 
different classes were almost strangers to 
each other, and cold reserve generally pre- 
vailed between them. The system of ' fag- 
ging ' (as it was called) was just then dying 
out, and I believe that my own class was the 
first that was not compelled to perform this 
drudgery at the command of the Senior 
class in the most humble sendees. The stu- 
dents had no connection whatsoever with 
the inhabitants of Cambridge by private 
social visits. There was none between the 
families of the president and professors of 
the college and the students. The regime 
of the old school in manners and habits then 
prevailed. The president and professors 
were never approached except in the most 
formal way, and upon official occasions; and 
in the college yard (if I remember rightly) 
no student was permitted to be with his hat 
on if one of the professors was there." 

The system of fagging to which Judge 
Story alludes was one of the barbarisms 
which prevailed in the old medieval uni- 
versities,* and which still prevails in the 
" public schools," the great endowed board- 
ing schools of England, from which our 
fathers introduced it into the American 
college. In the laws for the government of 
Yale College, printed in Latin, in 1764, 
were appended in good plain Saxon English 
a code of college customs, entitled Fresh- 
man Laws, as follows : 

"It being the duty of the Seniors to teach Fresh- 
men the laws, usages and customs of the college, to 
tins end they are empowered to order the whole 
Freshman class, or any particular member of it, in 
order to be instructed or reproved, at such time and 
place as they shall appoint; when and where every 
Freshman shall attend, answer all proper questions, 
and behave decently. The Seniors, however, are 
not to detain a Freshman more than rive minutes 
after study-bell, without special order from the Presi- 
dent, Professor, or Tutor. 

" The PYeshmen, as well as all other undergradu- 
ates, are to be uncovered, and are forbidden to wear 
their hats (unless in stormy weather) in the front 
door-yard of the President's or Professor's house, or 
within ten rods of the person of the President, eight 
rods of the Professor, and five rods of a Tutor. 

'•The Freshmen are forbidden to wear their hats 
in college yard (except in stormy weather, or when 
they are obliged to carry something in their hands), 
until May vacation ; nor shall they afterwards wear 
them in college or chapel. 

"No Freshman shall wear a gown, or walk with 
a cane, or appear out of his room, without Being 



* See Bnrnnrd's "Superior Education in different countries 
— Medieval Universities, 1873." 



976 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



completely dressed, and with his hat; and whenever 
a Freshman either speaks to a superior, or is spoken 
to by one, lie shall keep his hat off, until he is bid- 
den to put it on. A Freshman shall not play with 
any members of an upper class, without bping 
asked ; nor is he permitted to use any acts of famili- 
arity with them, even in study-time. 

"In case of personal insult, a Junior may call up 
a Freshman and reprehend him. A Sophomore in 
like cases must obtain leave from a Senior, and then 
he may discipline a Freshman, not detaining hhn 
more than five minutes, after which the Freshman 
may retire, sven without being dismissed, but must 
retire in a respectful manner. 

'•Freshmen are obliged to perform all reasonable 
errands for any superior, always returning an account 
of the same to the person who sent them. When 
called, they shall attend and give a respectful answer; 
and when attending on their superior, they are not 
to depart until regularly dismissed. They are re- 
sponsible for all damage done to any thing put into 
their hands, by way of errand. They are not 
obliged to go for the undergraduates in study-time, 
without permission obtained from the authority; 
nor are they obliged to go for a graduate out of the 
yard in study -time. A Senior may take, a Fresh- 
man from a Sophomore, a Bachelor from a Junior, 
and a Master from a Senior. None may order a 
Freshman in one play-ground, to do an errand in 
another. 

" When a Freshman is near a gate or door, belong- 
ing to college or college yard, he shall look around, 
and observe whether aiij r of his superiors are com- 
ing to the same ; and if any are coming within 
three rods, he shall not enter without a signal to 
proceed. In passing up or down stairs, or through 
an entry or any other narrow passage, if a Fresh- 
man meets a superior, he shall stop and give way, 
leaving the most convenient side — if on the stairs 
the banister side. Freshmen shall not run in col- 
lege yard, or up or down stairs, or call to any one 
through a college window. When going into the 
chamber of a superior, they shall knock at the door, 
and shall leave it as they find it, whether open or 
shut. Upon entering the chamber of a superior, 
they shall not speak until spoken to; the}' shall 
reply modestly to all questions, and perform their 
messages decently and respectfully. They shall not 
tarry in a superior's room, after they are dismissed, 
unless asked to sit. They shall always rise when- 
ever a superior enters or leaves the room where 
they are, and not sit in his presence until permitted. 

" These rules are to be observed not only about 
college, but every where else within the limits of 
the city of New Haven." 

Even so late as in 1800, we still find it 
laid down as the Senior's duty to inspect the 
manners and customs of the lower classes, 
and especially of the Freshmen ; and the 
duty of the latter to do any proper errand, 
not only for the authorities of the college, 
but also within the limits of one mile, for 
resident graduates and for the two upper 
classes. By degrees the old usage sank 
down so far, that what the laws permitted 
was frequently abused for the purpose of 
playing tricks upon the inexperienced Fresh- 



men ; and then all evidence of its ever hav- 
ing been current disappeared from the college 
code. The Freshmen were formally ex- 
empted from the duty of running upon 
errands in 1804. 

That these provisions were not peculiar 
to Yale, but belonged to this class of insti- 
tutions in that and an earlier age, appears 
from the earliest laws for the government of 
Harvard College drawn up by President 
Dunstan in 1640. "They (the students) 
shall honor, as their parents, the magistrates, 
elders, trustees, and all who are older than 
themselves, as reason requires, being silent 
in their presence, except when asked a ques- 
tion, not contradicting, but showing all 
those marks of honor and reverence which 
are in praiseworthy use, saluting them with 
a bow, standing uncovered," <fec. The mode 
of discipline authorized by the seventeenth 
rule is a recorded proof of what otherwise 
might have rested on obscure traditions 
only, that our fathers, with their cotempora- 
ries generally, were not well informed upon 
the characteristics of human nature and 
heart. " If any student of this college, 
either from perverseness or from gross neg- 
ligence, after he shall have been twice ad- 
monished, he shall be scourged with rods, 
if not an adult ; but if an adult, his case 
shall be taken before the overseers, that 
notice may be publicly taken of him accord- 
ing to his deserts." " No scholar shall taste 
tobacco, unless permitted by the president, 
with the consent of their parents or 
guardians, or on good reason first given 
by a physician, and then in a sober and 
private manner." " None shall pragmat- 
ically intrude, or intermeddle in other 
men's affairs." 

Mr. Everett in an address at Cambridge, in 
1857, gives the following picture of college 
life as it was at Harvard in 1807 : 

" Let me sketch you the outlines of the 
picture, fresh to my mind's eye as the 
image in the camera, which the precincts of 
the college exhibited in 1807. The Com- 
mon was then uninclosed. It was not so 
much traversed byroads in all directions; 
it was at once all road and no road at all, — 
a waste of mud and of dust, according to 
the season, without grass, trees, or fences. 
As to the streets in those days, the ' Appian 
Way ' existed then as now ; and I must 
allow that it bore the same resemblance 
then as now to the Regina Viarum, by 
which the consuls and proconsuls of Rome 



COLLEGES, OR SUPERIOR INSTRUCTION'. 



977 



went forth to the conquest of Epiras, 
Macedonia, and the East. 

"As to public buildings in the neighbor- 
hood of the university, with the exception 
of the Episcopal church, no one of the 
churches now standing was then in exist- 
ence. The old parish church has disap- 
peared, with its square pews, and galleries 
from which you might almost jump into the 
pulpit. It occupied a portion of the space 
between Dane Hall and the old Presidential 
House. I planted a row of elm and oak 
trees a few years ago on the spot where it 
stood, for which, if for nothing else, I hope 
to be kindly remembered by posterity. The 
wooden building now used as a gymnasium, 
and, I believe for some other purposes, then 
stood where Lyceum Hall now stands. It 
was the county court-house; and there I 
often heard the voice of the venerable Chief 
Justice Parsons. Graduates' Hall did not 
exist ; but on a part of the site, and behind 
the beautiful linden trees still flourishing, 
was an old black wooden house, the resi- 
dence of the professor of mathematics. A 
little further to the north, and just at the 
corner of Church street, which was not then 
opened, stood what was dignified in the 
annual college catalogue (which was printed 
on one side of a sheet of paper, and was a 
novelty) as 'The College House.' The 
cellar is still visible. By the students this 
edifice was disrespectfully called ' Wiswall's 
Den,' or, for brevity, 'the Den.' I lived in 
it in my freshman year. Whence the name 
of ' Wiswall's Den' was derived, I hardly 
dare say ; there was something worse than 
'old fogy' about it. There was a dismal 
tradition that, at some former period, it had 
been the scene of a murder. A brutal 
husband had dragged his wife by the hair 
up and down the stairs, and then killed her. 
On the anniversary of the murder — and 
what day that was no one knew — there were 
sights and sounds — flitting garments drag- 
gled in blood, plaintive screams, stridor 
ferri tractccque catenae — enough to appall 
the stoutest sophomore. But, for myself, 1 
can truly say, that I got through my fresh- 
man year without having seen the ghost of 
Mr. Wiswall or his lamented lady. I was 
not, however, sorry when the twelvemonth 
was up, and I was transferred to the light, 
airy, well-ventilated room, No. 20 Hollis; 
being the inner room, ground-floor, north 
entry of that ancient and respectable edifice. 

"Such was the physical aspect of things 



within the university. With the exception 

of a medical department, of which the 
germ only existed, all the professional 
schools have been added Bince mj gradua- 
tion; and within the college proper the 
means of education have been multiplied, 
and the standard of attainment raised in 
full proportion to the progress of the 
country in all other respects. When I en- 
tered college, four tutors and three profess- 
ors formed the academic corps, — men never 
to be mentioned but with respect and grati- 
tude; but composing an inadequate (acuity, 
compared with the numerous and distin- 
guished bod\ by which instruction is now 
dispensed. There was no instruction in 
any of the modern language.-, except in 
French to those who chose to pav f«>r it. 
The professors were those of divinity, math- 
ematics, and Hebrew; and this venerable 
language was, I think, required to be studied 
by every student whatsoever his destination 
in life. A classmate of mine used to beat 
us all in this department, though I believe 
it sometimes happened to him to gel hold 
of the wrong line in the Latin translation at 
the bottom of the page in the Bebrew 
psalter, and so made a misfit all the way 
down. I do not hesitate to assure our 
younger brethren that they enjoy far greater 

advantages in the means and ei o 

incuts to improvement, and more important 
than any other, a far higher standard of ex- 
cellence than were ever enjoyed by their 
fathers. And this in any department of 
knowledge, in the study of the ancient and 
modern languages, in exact science, the 
kingdoms of nature, in ethics, and the phi- 
losophy of mind." 

Dr. Dwight, in a letter written in 1-1 :; . 
and included in his Travels in New England 
and New York, published in 1822, gives the 
following Bummary of collegiate and Buperior 
education in New England in 1-11': 

The eight Colleges of New England arc \ 
and designated as follows: 

Harvard College, now styled the University, in 
Cambridge. 

Yale College, at New Hav. n. in < '. m> client. 

Dartmouth College, at Hanover, in New Hamp- 
shire. 

Brown University, at Providence, Rhode Island. 

Williams College, at Williamstown, Massachu- 
setts. 

Tho University of Vermont, at Burlington in that 
State 

Kfiddlebury College, at Mlddlebnry in the same 

State, and 

Bowdoin College, at Brunswick in the District of 

Maine. 



978 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



You observe that some of these seminaries aro 
styled Universities, and some of them Colleges. 
.You will not from this suppose that the name Uni- 
versity indicates any superior importance, or any 
more extensive scheme of education, The Univer- 
sity at Cambridge, is, in some respects, the most 
considerable ; and in every respect the University of 
Vermont is the least of all these literary%stablish- 
ments. 

The state of these institutions in the year 1812, 
was the following: 

The University of Cambridge. — A President; 
seven Professors Academical; seven Professors Med- 
ical ; three Tutors ; a Librarian ; a Regent ; a Proc- 
tor; an instructor in the French language. 
The Academical Professors are, 

Of Theology; of Logic, Metaphysics, and Ethics; 
of Rhetoric and Oratory; of the Hebrew, other 
Oriental, and English languages; of Latin ; of Mathe- 
matics and Natural Philosophy; of Greek; and of 
Natural History. 

The three Tutors teach, 

The senior Tutor, Geography, Geometry, Natural 
Philosophy and Astronomy ; the second, Greek ; and 
the third, Latin. 

Of the Medical Professorships, 

The first is of Anatomy and Surgery; the second, 
of the Theory and Practice of Medicine; the third, 
of Chemistry and the Materia Medica; and the 
fourth, of Clinical Medicine. 

The two remaining ones are Assistants, or Ad- 
juncts, to that of Anatomy and Surgery, and that 
of Chemistry, and the Materia Medica. 

The number of students the same year, was 281. 

Yale College. — A President; five Professor- 
ships Academical; and three Medical. 

The Academical Professorships are, 

Of Theology; of Law, Natural and Political; of 
Mathematics and Natural Philosophy ; of Chemistry 
and Mineralogy ; and of Languages and Ecclesias- 
tical History. 

The Medical, are 

Of Anatomy and Surgery ; of the Theory and Prac- 
tice of Physic; and of the Materia Medica and Botany. 

Here also is one Professorship adjunct. 
Six Tutors. 

The particular provinces of these Instructors have 
been sufficiently explained ; [two assigned to each 
of three lower classes, to conduct the three daily 
recitations in each. J 

The number of students was 313. 

Dartmouth College. — A President ; five Pro- 
fessorships Academical; one Medical; and two 
Tutors. 

The Academical Professorships, are 

Of Theology; of Civil and Ecclesiastical His- 
tory ; of Mathematics, and Natural Philosophy ; of 
Languages; and of Chemistiy. 

The Medical Professorship, is 

Of Medicine. 

The number of students was about 150. 

The number of Medical students, exceeded 50.* 



* By the Catalogue of 1821, the number of students in Dart- 
mouth College, was 

Under Graduates 157 

Resident do 8 

Medical Studeuts 65 



Brown University in 1811. — A President; 
three Professorships Academical; and two 
Medical. 

Tlie Academical Professorships, are 

Of Law, of Moral Philosophy, and Metaphysics; 
and of Chemistry. 

Tue Medical Professorships, are 

Of Anatomy, and Surgery; and of the Materia 
Medica, and Botany. 

Two Tutors ; and a Preceptor of a Gravnmar 
school, connected with the University. 

The number of students was 128. 

Williams College. — A President, a T ice- 
President; a Professor of Mathematics, and Nat- 
ural Philosophy; two Tutors. 

The number of students was 95. 

Middlebury College, 1812. — A President; 
three Academical Professors. 

One of Law; one of Mathematics and Natural 
Philosophy; one of Languages; two Tutors. 

The number of students was 1 13. 

University of Vermont. — A President ; a Profes- 
of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy ; a Professor 
of the Learned Languages; a Medical Professor. 

There are also four other Professorships on paper. 

The number of students from 30 to -40. 

The means of medical instruction in New Eng- 
land will be seen sufficiently in this account of its 
seminaries. 

The Law School, heretofore mentioned in the de- 
scription of Litchfield, as being under the instruc- 
tion of Judge Reeve and James Gould, Esquire, 
would not, it is believed, do discredit to any 
country. Law is here taught as a science ; and not 
merely, nor principally, as a mechanical business; 
not as a collection of loose, independent fragments, 
but as a regular, well-compacted system. At the 
same time the students are taught the practice by 
being actually employed in it. A court is consti- 
tuted ; actions are brought, and conducted through 
a regular process : questions are raised, and the stu- 
dents become advocates in form. 

Students resort to this school from every part of 
the American Union. The number of them is 
usually about 40. 

Every Theological Professor in these Seminaries 
is destined to instruct such students as apply to him 
in the science of Theology. But the Theological 
Seminary at Andover has already engrossed most 
of the young men in New England, designed for the 
desk. Three Professors, one of Theology, one of 
Sacred Literature, and one of Sacred Rhetoric, are 
already established here ; and two or three more 
will probably be added to their number within a 
short time. Fifty students may be considered as the 
average number for three years past. As this 
Seminary is richly endowed, and as the gentlemen 
employed in its instruction, are pursuing their busi- 
ness with spirit and vigor, there are the best reasons 
to believe that it will hold a high rank among insti- 
tutions of the same nature. 

There are, also, in New England the following 
Medical societies : 

The Massachusetts Medical Society. 

The Connecticut Medical Society. 

The New Hampshire Medical Society. 

The objects of these institutions are to unite the 



COLLEGES, OR SUPERIOR INSTRUCTION. 






gentlemen of the Faculty in friendship, and in one 
common pursuit of medical science; to discourage 
by their united influence empiricism in every form; 
to furnish a centre of correspondence for the recep- 
tion and publication of medical discoveries; and, 
universally, to elevate and improve the art of heal- 
ing. 

A Historical Society was formed at Boston in the 
year L-791, and incorporated in the year 1 T ; »4, by the 
name of the Massachusetts Historical Society. The 
object of this institution is to collect and publish 
whatever authentic documents may illustrate the 
past and present state of this country. Twelve 
volumes of its collections for this purpose have been 
already published ; which in a very honorable man- 
ner prove the utility of the design. 

An Agricultural Society has been formed in Con- 
necticut, and another in Massachusetts. A small 
collection of papers, published by each, has been 
favorably received. 

There are, also, two Philosophical Societies in New 
England. The American Academy of Arts and 
Sciences in Massachusetts, which holds its sittings 
at Boston; and the Connecticut Academy of Arts 
and Sciences, which meets in New Haven. The 
latter was incorporated in the year 1800. The 
American Academy has published three volumes. 
The Connecticut Academy has completed one volume 
of Memoirs, and also has begun the publication of 
a statistical account of the State Both of these in- 
stitutions are, it is believed, advancing. 

I have here given you a summary, and. as I be- 
lieve, an exact account of the means provided and 
employed for the purpose of diffusing literature, 
science, and general information among the inhabi- 
tants of New England. 

It ought, however, to be added, that in a great 
part of the towns and parishes, there are social 
libraries established. In some places they are con- 
siderable ; and in all, are of material use to the little 
circles in which they exist. The information which 
they spread is of importance. They also excite a 
disposition to read, and this employment naturally 
becomes a substitute for trifling, vicious, and gn >ss 
amusements. It also contributes to render society, 
and its intercourse, in a good degree, intelligent and 
retined, while thought takes place of sense and pas- 
sion; civility, of coarseness; and information, of 
scandal. It also enables parents to give their chil- 
dren better instruction, and to govern them more 
rationally, and at the same time it renders the chil- 
dren more dutiful and more amiable. 

In tli is brief historical survey of the 
American College and University, founded 
on cotemporaneous exposition, coupled with 
other facts which can not here be presented 
for want of space in such a summary, it 
appears that : 

1. The main purpose set forth in their 
foundation was " the glory of God," ''Christ 
and the Church," "the upholding of the 
Protestant religion by a succession of a 
learned and orthodox ministry," and "the 
qualifying youth for public employment in 
church and civil state." ' To this end all the 
earlier colleges were avowedly denomina- 



tional, and all the later (except n few based 

"ii the national land grants, or oil large 
individual endowments), are practically de- 
nominational in the constitution ot the 
governing body by which the t, achera 
appointed and the departments and stihjccts 
of instruction determined. 

2. The instruction of the colleges, even 
the oldest and best, down to 1800 was given 
by the president and at most two professors, 
and two assistants, in theology (dogmatic and 
practical), the Latin ami Greek grammars, 
and a little reading of Latin authors am 

of Greek, a little geography, arithmetic, 
geometry, and logic, with disputations and 
declamations, and no natural science. 

3. Gradually the curriculum of instruc- 
tion was modified so as to drop tin ele- 
mentary studies, and include medicine and 
law, first by special professorships, and then 
by independent schools. 

4. Still later, and recently with amazing 
rapidity, the natural sciences, and the appli- 
cation of mathematics and these Bciencea to 
agriculture the mechanic arts and man- 
ufacturing purposes, have been recognized 
as legitimate subjects of college education. 

5. Quite recently the entire circle of 
language, science, and the arts both ideal 
and industrial, are included in the curriculum 
of several colleges; but as yet there is not a 
single institution out of the 400 so called 
colleges and universities chartered and en- 
dowed for purposes of superior instruction, 
in which the governing board and teaching 
corps are brought into unity of organiza- 
tion, administration, and instruction, and in 
which a broad sweep of optional Btudies in 
every department of existing knowledge ami 
original research i^ open t" those, and to 
those only, who shall prove themselves qual- 
ified before an independent board of ex- 
amination to enter on such studies. 

6. Following the course of secondary 
schools, the advantages <^' superior instruc- 
tion arc now beginning to be opened to both 
sexes on equal terms. 

The tables appended will show, not strict- 
ly speaking, only our institutions of superior 
instruction, and not quite all which call 
themselves colleges and universities ; but 

nearly all which are chartered by the 
latures of the States in which they are 
located "to confer the usual academic, col- 
legiate ami university degress." Most of 

them should ! ! with institutions 

of secondary instruction. 



9S0 



EDUCATION' AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



IV. PROFESSIONAL AND SPECIAL EDUCATION. 

INTRODUCTION. 

Professional and Special Schools consti- 
tute a distinct class of institutions either in 
the studies pursued, or the persons pursuing, 
and while they are not always supplement- 
ary to the colleges, and indeed some of 
them hardly supplementary to the second- 
ary schools, they can not with propriety be 
considered except by themselves. Under 
this head we specify Military, Theological, 
Medical, and Law Schools ; Normal 
Schools, and Teachers' Institutes ; Agricul- 
tural, and Commercial, or Business Colleges 
and Schools ; Scientific Schools, i. e., for in- 
struction in physical science, applied mathe- 
matics, Organic and Inorganic Chemistry, 
Practical Surveying, Natural History, Geol- 
ogy and Palaeontology, Anthropology, and 
Ethnology ; as well as schools of Language 
and Literature, i. e., Philology, Linguistics, 
Oriental and Semitic languages and Litera- 
ture, Modern languages and Literature ; 
History, Political Economy, Ethics, and 
International Law ; Schools of Engineering, 
Mining, Metallurgy, Technology and Archi- 
tecture ; Schools of Drawing, Painting, Sculp- 
ture, and Music ; Schools and Asylums for 
Orphans; Schools and Colleges for Indians 
and Freedmen ; Philanthropic Schools and 
Asylums, viz., for the Deaf and Dumb, the 
Blind, and the Idiotic, and with some 
reference also to attempts to instruct the 
Insane and the Inebriates ; and finally to 
Schools and Asylums for Juvenile offenders 

Numerous as the special schools and 
institutions now are in this country, num- 
bering in all very nearly 1,000, they have 
all, with a single exception of a Medical 
School in Philadelphia, been organized 
within the past hundred years, and with 
but few exceptions since the commencement 
of the present century, and the most im- 
portant in the past half century. We will 
consider them in the order given above.* 

I. MILITARY AND NAVAL SCHOOLS. 

The experience of the Revolutionary war 
occasioned a very general conviction among 
the officers of the American army, of the 
necessity for such a provision for the military 
education of native officers as would relieve 
the United States from a dependence upon 

* For detuils, see Barnard's Special Schools, Vol. II., United 
States. 



professionally trained soldiers of foreign 
birth. The idea of a military school of 
some kind, to be connected with each United 
States arsenal, was entertained at the close 
of the war, among the officers. 

In the spring of 1783, General "Washing- 
ton requested from a number of leading offi- 
cers, statements of their views on all subjects 
connected with the peace establishment of 
the United States army. In reply to this 
request, Colonel Timothy Pickering, then 
quartermaster-general, drew up an able and 
interesting memoir, which contains, it is be- 
lieved, the first suggestion of a single central 
government military academy, and he also 
suggested West Point as a proper location 
for it. 

President Washington's annual address to 
Congress of December 3, 1793, asks 
" whether a material feature in the improve- 
ment of a system of national defense ought 
not to be to afford an opportunity for the 
study of those branches of the military art, 
which can scarcely ever be attained by prac- 
tice alone." 

An act of Congress of May 9, 1794, au- 
thorized a corps of four battalions of artil- 
lerists and engineers, to each of which were 
to be attached eight cadets. This was the 
first introduction into the military service of 
the United States of this term, which may 
be defined to signify a grade of officers be- 
tween the highest non-commissioned officer, 
a sergeant, and the lowest commissioned one, 
an ensign. For the use of this corps and 
cadets, the secretary of war, Colonel Picker- 
ing, was authorized to procure the necessary 
books and apparatus. The secretary, in 
1796, reports that this organization is im- 
portant, and should be as stationary as prac- 
ticable, with a view to instruction. 

President Washington's last annual speech 
to Congress, December, 1796, again urged 
strongly the establishment of a military 
academy. In April, 1798, the corps of artil- 
lerists and engineers was increased by an 
additional regiment, and the number of 
cadets enlarged to fifty-six. In July follow- 
ing, four teachers were by Congress author- 
ized to be employed in that regiment for in- 
struction in science and art. Some officers 
and men were collected at West Point, and 
a sort of military school opened, which, how- 
ever, acted with little efficiency, owing to 
the want of preparatory training, and of or- 
ganization. 

Secretary of War McHenry, in a report 



PROFESSIONAL AND SPECIAL EDUCATION. 



981 



on the organization of the army, made dur- 
ing the expectation of a war with France, 
dated December 24, 1798, lamented the 
want of engineers and artillerists trained at 
home. Tn January, 1800, the same officer 
laid before the President, who transmitted 
it to Congress, a plan for establishing a mili- 
tary academy. After referring to the im- 
perfect steps already taken in this direction, 
he proceeds to suggest that the proposed 
academy shall consist of a " fundamental 
school," to instruct in such departments of 
science as are necessary in common in all 
the arms of the military force; and three 
special schools, one of engineers and artil- 
lerists, one of cavalry and infantry, and one 
of the navy. The institution was to be in 
charge of a director-general, four directors, 
twelve professors, and nine other instructors. 
This school, so far as Secretary McIIenry 
recommended its immediate establishment, 
was to accommodate annual classes of one 
hundred. pupils each, for courses of four and 
five years 

(1.) Military Academy at West Point. 

The Military Academy at West Point, ac- 
cording to Colonel Williams' report in 1808, 
was first opened in 1801, as a "mathemati- 
cal school for the few cadets that were then 
in service," and under a private citizen. In 
1802, an act of Congress separated the artil- 
lerists and engineers, distributing the cadets 
of the former class among the twenty com- 
panies of that arm, and constituted the en- 
gineers the Military Academy, making it 
consist of seven officers and ten cadets. 

The operations of the school continued to 
be deficient in order and efficiency for some 
years, mainly from want of proper and encr 
getic administration, and a well-adjusted 
course of study. In 1812, it was much en- 
larged, and its organization quite changed. 
The period from 1817 to 1824, however, dur- 
ing which a thorough course of theoretical 
and practical studies, properly adapted to the 
military profession, was for the first time in- 
troduced, marks the establishment of the 
academy as a military and scientific school 
of high grade and value. There have been 
several modifications of the course of stud- 
ies and regulations since 1818, increasing 
the studies, and raising somewhat the 
standard of admission which is still, how- 
ever, too low. In 1859, the course of study 
was extended to five years, and the classes 
which graduated in 1859, 1860, and May, 



1861, received five years instruction. But 
the exigencies of the war demanded a I 
number of young officers who bad a military 
training, and accordingly the class next in 
order were graduated in June, L861, and 
since that time the course of study basbeen 
only four years. The superintendent of the 
academy is always an officer of not lower 
rank than colonel, a graduate of the acad- 
emy who had ranked bigh on bis gradua- 
tion, and who has seen much active service. 
Beside the superintendent there were, in 
1872, 49 professors, instructors and other 
officers employed in the work of instruction. 
The Academic Board is composed of twelve 
— ten professors, and the superintendent 
and commandant of cadets. 

The number of cadets who may be ap- 
pointed annually is one from each Congres- 
sional district and territory, and ten ap- 
pointed by the President, at large. The 
applicants must not be under seventeen or 
over twenty-one years, (except volunteers or 
regulars in the late war who had served 
faithfully not less than one year, who arc 
eligible till they are twenty-fi\e. All appli- 
cants must be unmarried, and are not al- 
lowed to marry before graduation. Bach 
candidate must be able to read and write 
the English language correctly, and to per- 
form with facility and accuracy the various 
operations of the four ground rules .if arith- 
metic, of reduction, of simple and com- 
pound proportion, and of vulgar and deci- 
mal fractions; and have a knowledge of the 
elements of English grammar, of descriptive 
geography, particularly of the United States 
of America, and of the history of the United 
States. They are examined in June, but 
are not admitted to full eadetship until the 
following January, when they are required 
to sign an agreement that they will serve in 
the army of the United States for eight 
vears, unless sooner discharged by compe- 
tent authority, and take the following oath, 
the phraseology of which has been some- 
what modified since the commencement ^i 
the late civil war: "1 solemnly swear that 
I will support the Constitution of the United 
States, and hear true allegiance to the Na- 
tional Government ; that 1 will maintain the 
sovereignty of the United States, paramount 
to any and all allegiance, sovereignty, oi 
fealty 1 may owe to any State, county, oi 
country whatsoever; and that 1 will at all 

times obey the loyal orders ^( my supenoi 

officere, and the rules and articles governing 



982 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



the armies of the United States." The al- 
lowance to the cadet by the Government is 
about $610 per annum, which is all paid out 
by the Treasurer of the academy, and 
charged to the cadets, no money being al- 
lowed in the hands of the cadets during the 
entire course. The regulations are very 
rigid, and while about 28 per cent, of the 
applicants for admission are rejected, the 
the demerit system which regulates the 
class-standing of the cadet results in the 
dismission of nearly forty per cent, in 
the four years. 

(2.) TJie United States Naval Academy. 

After years of agitation in Congress, go- 
ing back to the Continental Congress of 
1775, and the recommendations of nearly 
every President, and the secretary in charge 
of naval affairs, the Naval Academy at An- 
napolis, Maryland, was organized in October, 
1845, by the efforts of Hon. George Ban- 
croft, then Secretary of the Navy.* Prior 
to the letter of Mr. Bancroft, which concen- 
trated all the midshipmen then attached to 
vessels at sea under a schoolmaster, or col- 
lected at the Naval Asylums at Philadelphia, 
or stationed in the Navy yards of Boston, 
New York, and Norfolk, much was done to 
familiarize the young aspirants with the 
practical duties of their profession. During 
the infancy of the academy several plans of 
an experimental character were tried, which 
led gradually to. the adoption of the system 
of instruction now in operation. Midship- 
men who had made a cruise at sea, were 
first sent to the academy for a term of nine 
months, to prepare for their final examina- 
tion, which practice was continued until 
1847. In that year a board of officers re- 
commended a course of four years at the 
academy, viz., two years before, and two 
years after a cruise at sea. This plan went 
into operation, but it was soon abandoned, 
owing to the constant demand for midship- 
men at sea during the Mexican war, and it 
was not until 1851, that the present unin- 
terrupted course of four years at the acad- 
emy was inaugurated. 

Candidates are appointed upon the rec- 
ommendations of members and delegates 
in Congress, to the Secretary of the Navy, 
on precisely the same terms as candidates 
for the Military Academy, and the Presi- 
dent appoints ten, at larsxe, as in the course 
of the 'candidates for West Point. They 

* Barnard's Military Schools, p. 895. 



are admitted between the 20th of Septem- 
ber and the 1st of October of each year, 
and if successful in the preliminary exam- 
ination, are permitted to assume the naval 
uniform, and in the capacity of acting mid- 
shipmen begin their career on the school- 
ship " Dale," a third rate, sailing vessel of 
675 tons, now stationed at Annapolis. The 
requirements for admission are now the same 
as at West Point, and the ages for admis- 
sion from 16 to 18 years. In the autumn 
of 1872 the whole number was 260, and 
this included a class of 34 naval engineers. 
During the summer vacation two of the 
classes are drafted on board the practice- 
ship, to make a cruise at sea, to aid them in 
acquiring the duties of an officer and a sail- 
or, and becoming familiar with the rigging 
and evolutions of a ship. They are sub- 
jected to eight severe examinations, and if 
successful in all, they receive a midshipman's 
warrant, and after two years of sea service 
they return for a final examination, which, 
if successful, gives them the warrant of 
passed midshipman ; and further promotion 
depends for its speediness upon good con- 
duct, the existence of war, naval expendi- 
tures, &c. The Superintendent of the Naval 
Academy is selected from officers not below 
the rank of commodore, and is assisted by 
an executive officer and twenty professors, 
and assistant professors. There is a valua- 
ble library of 20,000 volumes, and scientific 
apparatus, belonging to the academy. 

Connected with the Naval Academy, a 
special course of instruction for a class of 
assistant engineers, was organized in 1865, 
under an act of Congress (July 4, 1864), 
and suspended in 1868, to be again instituted 
under regulations of the Secretary of the 
Navy issued in 1871. 

(3.) Slate, Incorporated and Private Schools. 

In 1820, Captain Alden Partridge, who 
was one of the earliest graluates of the Na- 
tional Military Acaden.y, and associated 
with its instruction and administration, as 
assistant professor, professor, and superin- 
tend from 1808 to 1815, began to agitate 
the subject of a union of military and sci- 
entific studies with the ordinary literary 
curriculum of the American College, and in 
September of that year opened at Norwich the 
American Literary, Scientific, and Military 
Academy, which received in the course of 
the four years following, 480 pupils, repre- 
senting twenty-one out of the twenty-four 
States. In 1824 the institution was re- 



PROFESSIONAL AND SPECIAL EDUCATION. 






moved to Middletown, Conn., and after 
1828, twelve hundred pupils were instruct- 
ed, for periods averaging two years, in such 
courses as they had the privilege of elect inn- 
— but all were trained in the theoretical 
part of military science, and in the practical 
duties of the soldier, and in graduation were 
qualified to discharge the duties of a com- 
pany officer, and, if necessary, to command 
a battalion in any corps of the army. Every 
year a military march was performed, in 
some cases extending to several hundred 
miles, and frequent scientific surveys, and 
reconnaissances, were made under the direc- 
tion of the professor of civil engineering. 
The various military schools which subse- 
quently sprung up in different parts of the 
country originated for the most part with 
Captain Partridge's pupils, lie was himself 
connected with the Military Institute at Ports- 
mouth, Va., in 1839, and with the Military 
College at Brandywine Springs, near Wil- 
mington, in the State of Delaware, in 1853, 
and with the revival of the Seminary at 
Norwich, Vt., after the incorporation of the 
Wesleyan University at Middletown, in 
which the Literary, Scientific, and Military 
Institute was merged. 

The most successful of the State Mili- 
tary Institutes is that at Lexington, Va., 
which was organized by Colonel Francis H. 
Smith, a graduate of the Military Academy 
at West Point, in the class of 1813, and 
professor there from 1834 to 183G. The 
State makes an annual appropriation of 
$1 5,000 for its support, on the basis of which 
36 cadets are admitted without charge, in 
•consideration of which they are required t<> 
teach in some school of the State for two 
years after graduation. Any commissioned 
officer of the militia of the State of Vir- 
ginia, can become a student for a period not 
exceeding ten months, and receive instruc- 
tion in any or all of the departments of 
Military science taught there, without charge 
for tuition. In the war of the Rebellion one 
tenth of the Confederate armies was com- 
manded by the students of this school, em- 
bracing three major-generals, thirty briga- 
dier-generals, sixty colonels, fifty lieutenant- 
colonels, thirty majors, one hundred and 
twenty-five captains, and over two hundred 
lieutenants. To the same armies, the Mili- 
tary Institute at Frankfurt, K\\, the Cadet 
corps connected with the State arsenals in 
Norfolk, Richmond, Charleston, and other 
Southern cities, and the State Military In- 
52 



Btitutes in Alabama and Louisiana, furnished 
a large number of subordinate ofl 
which facilitated the early and bettei Of 
ganization of the confederate for.-. -. 

(■4.) Military T 

In the act of Congress (July, 1862), mak- 
ing grants of public lands to the several 

States for the endowment of State Schools 
of Agriculture, and the mechanic aits, it is 
provided that military tactics shall be in- 
cluded in the system of instruction*; and 
by an act of March, L869, the President is 
authorized to detail an arm\ officer to each 
institution, to instruct in BUch tactics. With 
these two provisions, and more efficient 

legislation, State and National, a 
tern of military instruction associated with 
scientific studies generally, will be devel- 
oped, which will at once develop the ph\ Bical 
powers of the pupil, an. I train up a large 
body of well-educated men, ready to met, 
the exigencies of the public service as 
against foreign invasion, or domestic in- 
surrection. 

II. THEOLOGICAL SCHOOLS OR SEMINAUIES. 

Before the Revolutionary war, and indeed 
for some years after, no distinct school or 
institute for theological training was known 
in this continent. In New England, New- 
York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania the 
most eminent clergymen of the Congi 
tionalist, Presbyterian, and Reformed 
(Dutch) churches, and later of the Baptist 
and Methodist churches, were in the habit 
of receiving into their families several 

students, usually graduates of th< i 

who served an apprenticeship under their 
direction in exegesis, the composition and 
delivery of sermons, and in the observation 
and practice of pastoral duties. Sometimes, 
if the clergyman was very eminent cither as 
a preacher or a theologian, he would have a 
Considerable number of students in his 
family at the same time, and his instructions 
assumed a more formal and systematic 
character. The most noted of these gath- 
erings', suggestive of the subsequent organ- 
ization <>f theological school-, were Rev. Dr, 
Bellamy's classes at his home in Bethlem, 

Conn., and a little later those of Dr. Hop 
kins in Hadley, and Dr. Emmons in Frank- 
lin, Mass. ; the '• Log < !ollege "' of K. v. 

• Fur nn ncooanl of the intern tdnpted in the Cornell l"ni- 
rertily e.1 Ithece,N V.. the State Agricultural College nl Am- 
Kent, Men, the Suite I'ihotmiv in I".. rnenrt 

"Military ffoflVw/r* " I" the earae rolume will In- found no- 
tice* of vurious private military schools oj E. L. Molineui. 



984 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



William Tennent at Neshaminy, Bucks Co., 
Pa., opened about 1728; a preparatory 
school opened by Rev. John Smith, and 
afterward conducted by Rev. Dr. Anderson, 
in Western Pennsylvania, about 1778; the 
instruction given to Baptist theological 
students in the early years of the present 
century by Rev. Dr. Staughton at Philadel- 
phia, and by Rev. J. Chaplin, D.D., at 
Danvers, Mass. The colleges, too, it must 
be remembered, provided for more theology 
than they now do. William and Mary 
College, Virginia, had a Professorship of 
Divinity as early as 1693; Harvard, the 
Hollis Professorship of Divinity in 1721 ; 
and Yale, the Livingston Professorship in 
1746. The college of New Jersey had a 
Theological Professor in 1769, Dartmouth 
College in 1782, and Brown University in 
1791. 

The first independently organized Theo- 
logical Seminary was that of the Reformed 
(Dutch) Church at New Brunswick, founded 
in 1784 or 1785; the next was the Seminary 
of St. Sulpice (Roman Catholic) at Balti- 
more, Md., founded in 1791; a year later 
the Associated (Presbyterian) Church 
founded one at Canonsburg, Pa., now we 
believe extinct. In 1794 another branch of 
the same church (now United Presbyterians) 
established one at Xenia, Ohio. These 
were all the theological seminaries in the 
United States before 1800. In that year 
the very large Roman Catholic Seminary 
connected with Mt. St. Marys College, 
Emmittsburgh, Md., was organized. An- 
dover Theological Seminary, the largest and 
oldest of the Congregationalists, was estab- 
lished at Andover, Mass , in 1807, and the 
Moravian Seminary at Bethlehem, Pa., the 
same year. The Cambridge Divinity 
School, Cambridge, Mass., (Unitarian,) was 
founded in 1811. The Princeton Theolog- 
ical Serniuary (Presbyterian) dates from 
1812; the Hamilton Theological Institute, 
Hamilton, N. Y., (Baptist,)*" in 1820; the 
General Theological Seminary (Episcopal) 
at New York City, in 1817; Hartwick 
Seminary (Lutheran) at Hartwick, N. Y., in 
1816; Mercersburg, now Lancaster, Pa., 
Seminary (German Reformed) in 1825; the 
General Biblical Institute (Methodist Epis- 
copal) at Concord, N. II., in 1847; the 
Seminary at Lewiston, Me., (Free Will 
Baptist) in 1830; the Bible Department of 
Eureka College (Christian or Disciples), 
Eureka, 111., in 1852 ; and the Canton Theo- 



logical School at Canton, N. Y., (Universa- 
list) in 1858. There are now (about) 120 
Theological Seminaries in the L T nited States, 
with 400 Professors and (about) 3,400 
students. 

III. LAW SCHOOLS. 

The legal profession during the colonial 
period were, with few exceptions, very 
poorly qualified for the practice of the law. 
A few young men of the wealthier classes 
visited the mother country and entered at 
the Inner or Middle Temple in London, and 
having been admitted to the bar there, 
returned to the colonies and practiced their 
profession, and most of these received 
students in their offices, who gained some 
practical knowledge of law in the course of 
a long apprenticeship, but very few were 
familiar with the great principles which 
underlie all law, or their practical applica- 
tion to the cases which came up in their 
practice. Most of the eminent lawyers of 
the Revolutionary period (and some of them 
were men of great ability) were educated 
abroad. In 1784 the first law school in the 
United States was established at Litchfield, 
Conn., by Judge Reeve, who associated 
Judge Gould with him in 1798, and the two 
maintained the school together till 1823, 
when Judge Reeve died. In 1827 Judge 
Gould retired, and the school was given up. 
Messrs. Reeve and Gould were both men of 
great learning and tact, and by their in- 
structions seven hundred and fifty lawyers 
were trained in the legal profession, many 
of whom have reflected the greatest honor 
upon it. There had been a Professorship 
of Law in William and Mary Colleges estab- 
lished about 1730; Brown University had 
one in 1790, but there was no law school 
connected with any college or university till 
1817, when the Dane Law School of Har- 
vard University was established. The Yale 
Law School was founded in 1820, and 
reorganized in 1843. In 1825 a law school 
was organized as a department of the 
University of Virginia, and in 1826 one at 
Washington, as a department of the 
Columbian College. There arc now in the 
United States 40 law schools, with 140 
professors and nearly 2,000 students. 

IV. MEDICAL SCHOOLS. 

During the colonial period a few physi- 
cians were educated abroad, in the medical 
schools of Edinburgh, London, and Paris, 
and some who had already obtained a 



PROFESSIONAL AND SPECIAL EDUCATION. 



98J 



medical education emigrated to the colonies 
to practice. Among the latter was John 
Winthrop, the first physician of the New 
Haven Colony, and more than our of the 
early celebrities of New York, Philadelphia 
and Boston. Among the former were Dr. 
Shippen and Benjamin Rash of Philadel- 
phia, Drs. Bard and W. P. Smith of New 
York, Drs. John Brockett and the Elder 
Munson of New Haven, and other of the 
New England Colonies. But the greater 
part of the physicians of that period re- 
ceived their only training in the offices and 
practice of the more eminent members of 
the profession, and were licensed either by 
the legislature or where these existed by 
county or colonial societies of physicians. 
The tendency of this practice of licensing 
was evident in the gradual lowering of the 
tone and culture of the profession, and its 
more eminent members lamented it. In 
1762, Dr. Shippen of Philadelphia com- 
menced lecturing on Anatomy to a class of 
young men who were studying medicine, 
and in 1765 he succeeded in making a 
sufficient degree of interest among the 
physicians of the city to organize the 
Medical Department of the University of 
Pennsylvania. Attempts were made soon 
after to organize a medical school in New 
York, but no permanent establishment was 
effected there till some years later. In 1782 
or 1783, the Medical Department of Har- 
vard University was established in Boston. 
In 1796, the Hanover Medical School, a 
department of Dartmouth College, was 
founded. Two or three short lived schools 
were set up in New York City, but none 
which had much reputation till the incor- 
poration of the College of Physicians and 
Surgeons in 1807. There are now 57 
medical schools or colleges of the regular 
practice in the United States, with about 
100 professors and 6,000 students. About 
1835 the pupils of Hahnemann began to 
introduce the Homoeopathic practice into 
this country, and there are now six schools 
of this practice, with 80 professors and 
about 500 students. There are also four 
Eclectic and two Botanic Medical schools, 
with 40 professors and nearly 500 students. 
Of the regular medical schools four are 
exclusively for women, and two others 
admit both sexes. Of the Homoeopathic 
schools, one is for women and one admits 
both sexes. Under the general head of 
schools of medicine must be named, also, 



the Dental Schools or Colleges, of which 
there are nine, with 70 teachers and about 
300 Btudents ; and the Schools or Coll 
of Pharmacy, of which there are sixteen, 
with 50 professors and aboul 600 students. 
The tables appended give full particulars 
of all these schools. 

V. NORMAL SCHOOLS AND TEACHF.Ks' IN-TIP 

Although teaching is not admitted with as 

to the rank of a learned profession, there has 
long been a conviction in the minds of the 
most eminent teachers and scholars thai a 
process of careful training and instruction 
in the art of teaching was necessary, or at 
least desirable, for those who proposed to 
follow it as a calling. Three centurii 
Richard Mulcaster, upper-master <>f St. 
Paul's school, and afterwards head-master 
of Merchant Taylors' school, in his " Posi- 
tions" published a plea for a college for the 
training of teachers, including a plan which 
in latter times has been but little amended. 
The teachers of the colonial period, as we 
have already shown, were not trained to 
their work in any institution dea 
specially for the instruction of teachers, and 
for the want of this training, while many 
became eminent by natural aptitude, the 
majority were less successful than with their 
remarkable natural qualities they should 
have been. 

The first suggestion in this country looking 
toward the establishment of schools analo- 
gous to our Normal School,* was made in 
the Massachusetts Magazine for June. 1789, 
in an article by Elisha Ticknor, advocating 
the establishment of county schools "to fit 
young gentlemen for college and school 
keeping." 1 It was just fifty years after 
(1839) that this suggestion bore fruit in a 
resolution which authorized the establish- 
ment of Normal Schools in Massachusetts. 
In 1816, Denison Olmsted, subsequently 
Professor of Mathematics in Yale College, 
in his Master's Oration proposed the estab- 
lishment by the State of Connecticut of an 
academy to train schoolmasters for the State 
common schools. In 1828, the Rev. 
Samuel Read Hall opened a select school 
at Concord, Yt , in which he advertised to 
give a course <>\ instruction adapted to 
teachers. In 1825, two Series Of articles 

were published almost simultaneously, 
in Hartford, Conn., by Rev. Thomas II. 



1! ' irj of Normal Behooh in Barnard's .1 
Journal of Education, Vul. 13, p. ToG. 



986 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



Gallaudet, and the other in Boston by 
James G. Carter, Esq., proposing, cadi 

without any knowledge of the other's views, 
among other things the establishment of a 
seminary or institution for the education of 
teachers. These two series of papers were 
soon after published in pamphlet form. In 
1827, Mr. Carter,* with some assistance from 
the town of Lancaster, Mass., established 
there a private seminary for the instruction 
of teachers. From 1830 to 1842 a sem- 
inary for the instruction and training of 
teachers was maintained in connection with 
Phillips Academy, Andover, under the 
charge of Rev. Samuel Read Hall.* In the 
same year, (1826,) W. R. Johnson,* then re- 
siding in Germantown, Penn., without any 
knowledge of the views of Messrs. Gallaudet 
and Carter, published a pamphlet entitled 
" Observations on the Improvement of Sem- 
inaries of Learning" in which he set forth 
the necessity and advantages of schools for 
the special training of teachers. The same 
year Governor DeWitt Clinton, in his an- 
nual message to the Legislature of New 
York, commended to their consideration the 
education of competent teachers, and in 
1826 recommended the establishment of a 
seminary for this purpose, in which the 
methods of Lancaster should be adopted. 
For several years following, this matter occu- 
pied the attention of the committees of 
education in the New York Legislature, 
and efforts were made in 1835 to provide 
normal instruction through the academies 
of the State by appropriations for that pur- 
pose from the literature fund, but these 
failing in producing the desired result, the 
State Normal School in Albany was estab- 
lished in 1844, and in 1867 provision was 
made for four more in different parts of the 
State. But Massachusetts preceded New 
York in the establishment of Normal Schools 
by five years. 

After twelve years of agitation in Mas- 
sachusetts by James G. Carter, George B. 
Emerson, Charles Brooks, f the Secretary of 
the Board of Education, Hon. Horace Mann, 
andthe noble gift ($10,000) of Hon. Edmund 
Dwight, seconded by other devoted friends 
of education, three Normal Schools, at Lex- 
ington (afterward removed to West Newton, 
and later to Framingham), Westfield, and 

* Barnard's Normal Schools nnd other Institutions for the 
Professional Training of Teachers. 

t For special notice of the lahors of Rev. Charles Brooks- 
tee Barnard's American Journal of Education, Vol. I., p. 507 ; 
XVI., p. 89; XVII., p. 721. 



Bridgewater, the first exclusively for women, 
the other two for both sexes, were established 
in 1839. In 1854, another, also for women 
only, was established at Salem. There are 
now in the United States between eighty 
and ninety institutions designated Normal 
Schools, aside from city training schools, 
and normal departments in colleges and 
seminaries which profess to give instruction 
in the art of teaching. In these schools 
and departments there are about 475 teach- 
ers, and nearly 12,000 pupil-teachers. The 
location, special character, and attendance 
of the more prominent of these institutions 
will be found in the table appended. 

The course of study in these schools 
extends over two or three years for those 
who wish to graduate, though those who. 
are qualified to do so can enter the ad- 
vanced classes. Generally there is no in- 
struction in either ancient or modern 
languages, except English ; but in some of 
the Western Normal Schools, Latin, Greek, 
and German are optional studies. Aside 
from the languages (which are pursued by a 
very small number) the course comprises 
the studies of our best High Schools, Avith 
extra drilling on the elementary branches 
and the art of teaching. The instruction in 
all the branches is twofold in its character; 
aiming to impart a thorough knowledge of 
the subjects taught to the teacher pupils, and 
displaying also the best methods of com- 
municating this knowledge to children. As 
theory and practice should go together, 
experimental and model schools arc usually 
connected with the Normal Seminary in 
which the students learn by observation 
and actual practice how to organize, man- 
age, and teach ordinary graded schools. 

Normal Schools have accomplished a 
great amount of good in raising the stand- 
ard of qualifications required of the 
teachers of our public schools, and the 
range of studies taught in them, and there 
is a fair ground of hope for their still 
greater usefulness in the future; but to this 
end certain improvements in their manage- 
ment are necessary, which we may briefly 
indicate here : 1st, There should be a 
materially higher and uniform standard of 
attainment required for admission to them. 
At present very little more than the most 
elementary knowledge of reading, writing, 
arithmetic, and primary geography, gram- 
mar, and history are demanded. With this 
advanced standard of admission, the two or 






PROFESSIONAL AND SPECIAL EDTJ CATION. 



987 



three years course would be of much greater 
service. 2d, The pupils should be induced, 
if possible, to remain through the entire 
course, as whatever maybe their previous 
scholarship, they can not in a shorter time 
acquire the best methods of teaching what 
they may know very well. 3d, The Ger- 
man language, and perhaps also a moderate 
knowledge of Latin and French should 
form a part of the complete course. There 
should also be a more extensive or post 
graduate course, to qualify teachers for the 
higher positions, such as principals of 
higher schools or academies, professors in 
colleges, similar in character to the philo- 
logical and pedagogical seminaries on the 
continent of Europe, and at least one for 
the training of teachers and professors of 
scientific schools. It is perhaps too early 
for the organization of training schools for 
the technical arts and trades, such as for 
first-class printers, booksellers, <fec, like 
those of Leipsic and the other German 
cities. 4th, The faculty of instruction is in 
most of these institutions too small for the 
number of pupils, and for efficient instruc- 
tion. 5th, There is a great necessity for en- 
dowments or of scholarships to reduce the 
expense of the prolonged residence of poor 
but promising pupils. 6th, There should 
be a better defined gradation of the pupils 
and a minimum standard of attainment pre- 
scribed in each grade, failing to attain which 
the pupil should not receive the diploma of 
his grade, whether as a teacher of primary, 
intermediate, grammar, or high schools. 
7th, The examinations should be by papers, 
and very thorough and searching, accom- 
panied by trial-lessons in the model school, 
or any ordinary public school. 

Teachers 1 Institutes and Associations. 
Another less perfect but highly bene- 
ficial method of improving teachers in their 
work is the Teachers' Institute. A 
Teachers' Institute is a voluntary assembling 
of the teachers of a county, assembly, con- 
gressional or judicial districts at some 
central point, for instruction for one, two, 
three, or even six weeks, by competent in- 
structors or lecturers in the best methods of 
teaching the studies pursued in our public 
schools. The exercises are also varied by 
singing, readings, and recitations, discussions 
on school topics, and the reading of essays 
on the various methods of imparting in- 
struction, in which parents and citizens take 
part. 



The firsl assembly of teachers of this 
kind was held at Bartford, Conn., in 

1839, solely at the expense and on the 
suggestion of the then Secretary of the 

Board <<\' <' missioners of Common 

Schools in Connecticut.* It was remarka- 
bly successful, and was repeated in the 
spring of 1840. The beneficial results 
these gatherings were s.. evidenl that they 
were booh adopted and provided for by the 
Legislatures of mosl of the Northern and 
Western State-. In Pennsylvania they 
were held in each county, ami gatherings 
for a longer term (from six to twelve week-) 
under the title of Normal Institutes, were 
held in each judicial district, 'lie-. 
semblages, though not fully a substitute for 
Normal Schools, yet in some respects exert 
even a more beneficial influence. They 
enlist the interest and sympathies ofpai 
and citizens, as well as of the children; 
bring the teachers of a county or district 
into more intimate acquaintance with each 
other, rouse a healthy spirit of emulation, 
and develop an esprit de corps among the 

teachers which will lead to better views of 

their profession and greater zeal in it. 
Probably not less than 50,000 teachers 
annually enjoy the benefits of this inex- 
pensive course of instruction. 

Another class of organizations for the 
advancement of the teachers' profession is 
found in the State and other Teachers' As- 
sociations. One of these have been in 
existence over forty years, but the greater 
part have come into being within thirty 
vears. They occupy their sessions largely 
with the discussion of methods and Bysteras 
of teaching, text-books, apparatus, period- 
icals, &C, but find some leisure for the pro- 
motion of the financial, social, and moral 
advancement of the profession. Mosl of 
these associations own or control an educa- 
tional periodical, in which teachers dis- 
cuss methods of instruction with great 
freedom, and with constantly increasing 
ability. 

VI. SCHOOLS OF APPLIED ! 

1. Agricultural S 
There have not been wanting for the 

last two thousand years writers who have 
made it their business to impart instruction 
to their readers in regard to the culture of 

their fields, the rearing of cattle, the suc- 
cession ^'( crops, and the care of the vine. 



* Set Uiicnnrd'j .imcrican Journal of Education, Vol. 17, 
p. tf04. 



988 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



The writings of Cato, Virgil's Georgics, the 
Essays of Pliny, Varro and Columella, and 
later Virgil Polydore, Sir Anthony Fitzher- 
bert, Thomas Tusser, Barnaby George, 
Walter Blithe, Richard Westen, Jethro 
Toll, Arthur Young, and Albrecht von 
Thaer, are full of instruction in regard to 
agriculture, both as a science and an art. 
The first suggestion of a school or college 
for instruction in agriculture, so far as can 
now be ascertained, was made by Samuel 
Hartlib, in an essay published in 1651. 
This was seconded by Abraham Cowley in 
1661, in a treatise on the foundation of a 
Philosophical College, and an essay on 
agriculture. These suggestions bore no 
fruit for nearly one hundred and fifty years. 
An attempt was made to establish an agri- 
cultural school in the park of Chambord in 
France, by the Abbe Rosier, in 1775, but 
owing to the impending revolution in France 
it was unsuccessful. l)e Fellenberg's Agri- 
cultural School at Hofwyl, Switzerland, pro- 
jected in 1799, but not fully organized till 
1806 or 1807, was really a Normal School, 
with its course of lectures on agriculture 
forming one of its branches of instruction, 
and its practice of agricultural labor by the 
pupils of the school. An agricultural 
school of higher order and more directly 
devoted to instruction in both the science 
and the art, was that founded in 1799 by 
Prince Schwartzenberg at Krnmau, in 
Bohemia, and which is still in existence. 
Albrecht von Thaer founded an agricultural 
school at Celle, in Hanover, in 1799, which 
was subsequently transferred to Moglin, 
and with greatly enlarged facilities became 
in 1810 the Royal School of Agriculture in 
Prussia, and is still continued. He was 
Professor of Agriculture in the University 
of Berlin from 1810 to 1828. Its course 
of instruction is very thorough, and its 
illustrative collections ample. There are 
now more than four hundred agricultural 
schools in Europe, about thirty of them of 
the highest grade, among which the most 
celebrated are those of Hohenheim in 
Wurtemberg, Schleissheim in Bavaria, 
Poppelsdorf, Glasnevin in, Ireland, Plagwitz 
in Saxony, and Cirencester, England.* 

In the United States, though there had 
been much discussion and the desirableness 
of agricultural schools was generally admit- 
ted, there was no successful effort for their 

* A full description of the schools designated will be found 
in Barnard's Scientific and Industrial Education. New 
York. Stkiger, 1872. 



establishment till about 1854, though the 
" Cream Hill Agricultural School at West 
Cornwall, Conn, a private boarding school 
for boys, in which agricultural studies were 
mingled with those of the usual course of. 
the secondary schools, had been in existence 
since 1845; and there had been an annual 
course of about 30 lectures on agriculture 
given in Yale College since 1 847. The 
Michigan State Agricultural College at 
Lansing was projected in 1850, but was not 
opened till 1857. The Farmers' High 
School of Pennsylvania, now the Pennsyl- 
vania Agricultural College, near Bellefonte, 
Center Co., Pa., was projected in 1 854, 
opened in 1856, and reorganized in 1859. 
The Farmers' College, at College Hill, near 
Cincinnati, and the Agricultural College at 
Cleveland, Ohio, both commenced their 
course of instruction about 1856, as did 
also the Westchester Farm School, a private 
institution, under the charge of Messrs. 
Henry S. Olcott and Henry C. Vail. The 
New York State Agricultural College at 
Ovid, after a struggle of four or five years, 
broke down completely, and finally was 
succeeded by Cornell University, which has 
a flourishing agricultural department. 
Maryland founded a State Agricultural Col- 
lege at Hyattsville in 1857. Iowa estab- 
lished a "State Agricultural College and 
Model Farm" in 1858, but it was in an 
embryonic state for several years. These 
were, we believe, all the agricultural colleges 
or schools giving direct instruction in the 
science of agriculture previous to 1863. 

On the 2d of July, 1862, the President 
of the United States signed an act of Con- 
gress known as the Agricultural College 
Land Grant, which provided that there 
should be granted to each State thirty 
thousand acres of the unsold and unreserved 
lands of the United States for each Senator 
and Representative such State was entitled 
to in Congress, said lands to be sold by each 
State or its assigns, and the proceeds of 
such sale to constitute a fund which should 
be safely invested, the interest to be used to 
aid in the maintenance " of at least one 
college where the leading object shall be, 
without excluding other scientific and clas- 
sical studies, and including military tactics, 
to teach such branches of learning as are 
related to agriculture and the mechanic 
arts, in such manner as the Legislatures of 
the States may respectively prescribe, in 
order to promote the liberal and practical 



PROFESSIONAL AND SPECIAL EDUCATION. 



989 



education of the industrial classes in the sev- 
eral pursuits and professions in life." * 

The passage of this act gave a powerful 
impulse to the organization of Agricultural 
Schools or Colleges. In 1871 thirty-four 
States had accepted the national grant, and 
thirty of these had taken measures either 
for the endowment of an agricultural de- 
partment in some existing institution or for 
the establishment of a new College of 
Agriculture and the Industrial Arts. In 
New England, four of the States, Vermont, 
New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode 
Island bestowed their share of the national 
grant on already existing historic institu- 
tions in their respective bounds, — the 
University of Vermont, Dartmouth College, 
Yale College, and Brown University, in 
each of which departments of agriculture 
and the mechanic arts have been established. 
Maine founded a "State College of Agri- 
culture and the Mechanic Arts " at Orono ; 
and Massachusetts, dividing her grant, gave 
one-third to the Institute of Technology at 
Boston, and two-thirds to a new Agricultural 
College founded at Amherst, but having no 
direct connection with the existing college 
there. Iu New York, after some experi- 
ments in other directions, the magnificent 
grant of 990,000 acres of land was be- 
stowed as an endowment upon the new but 
already nourishing Cornell University, 
whose curriculum embraces the widest pos- 
sible diversity of studies. In Ohio, In- 
diana, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Oregon, 
aud West Virginia new institutions have 
been founded, though that of Minnesota 
was subsequently made a part of the State 
University already in existence. In Indiana, 
the Purdue College, and in Illinois, the 
Illinois Industrial University are liberally 
endowed, and give promise of becoming 
efficient institutions. Pennsylvania, Michi- 
gan, Maryland, and Iowa, have bestowed 
their grants upon Agricultural Colleges 
already existing in their respective States, 
greatlv to their advantage and usefulness. 
New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, North 
Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, 
Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Wisconsin, 
and California have intrusted theirs to 
literary institutions already existing to form 
in them departments of Agriculture and the 

• The credit of originating and conducting iliis not through 
Congrats belongs to Hon. J. 8. Morrill, on in tir-t introduction 
n member of the House, and subsequently of the Senate, from 
Vermont. In 1873 he secured nn additional net by which n 

portion of the land sales hereafter is unsigned annually to the 
6tate Agricultural Colleges. 



Mechanic Arts. In all, thru, there are 
thirty of these agricultural colleges, schools, 
or departments already in operation, which 
have r ived the national grants, and sev- 
eral others, in which agricultural science 
forms an important though somewhat sub- 
ordinate section of a scientific course. 

The course of study in agriculture varies 
in these institutions from a variety of 

causes. In b< .it is wholly theoretical ; 

in others, theory and practice of agricul- 
ture are mingled in diverse proport 
In some the highest scientific principles, the 
analysis of soils and products, the adapta- 
bility of natural and artificial manures to 
particular soils, the geology, mineralogy and 
botany of particular sections, the mathe- 
matics of agriculture, the requirements of 
temperature, the influence of locality upon 
crops, the laws of forest growth, and the 
sciences of draining and irrigation, occupy 
the time of the student; others, with an 
eye to more immediate result-, devote their 
time and instruction more fully to practical 
details, such as the rearing of cattle, Bheep, 
and swine ; the diseases to which each are 
subject; the best methods of fattening and 
marketing them; the culture of the vine, 
and of small fruits; of the different grains ; 
market gardening ; the cultivation of fruit, 
or the methods of silk, hop, or tea culture. 
Each of these Bystems has its advantages, 
and the accomplished agriculturalist should 
attain a knowledge of all. Agricultural 
schools, it will be seen from this brief re- 
view, are yet in their infancy in this country,' 
and there is yet great room for progress in 
their management and instruction. 
2. Commercial Schools or Business C> 

These are entirely of modern creation, 
the oldest of them having !>ccn organised 
in 1850. Considerably more than one-halt' 
of them, and among thennmber those most 
widely advertised and most largely attended, 
are private enterprises, adventure schools as 
they would be termed in Great Britain, 
started purely as business speculations. 
The time required for their course of in- 
struction varies from thirty days to two 
years. They give instruction in penman- 
ship, book-keeping in all its branches, busi- 
ness forms and technicalities, and some <>( 
them in banking and finance, exchange, 
insurance, postal regulations and service, 
custom-house brokerage, and telegraphy. 
In a very few, instruction i- given in French 
and German to an extent sufficient for busi- 



990 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



ness correspondence. Most of these studies 
should come into the regular course of our 
Grammar or Secondary Schools, and these 
should be supplemented by evening schools 
for those who are unable to attend in the 
daytime. In the absence of this legitimate 
school instruction they have undoubtedly 
prosed of advantage to many of those who 
sought a business training. There are in all 
about ninety of these commercial schools. 
The number of teachers in them is nearly 
or quite 200, and of students about 8,000. 

3. Scientific Schools Proper* 

Under this head we include Schools of 
Technology or Science, in its applications to 
the useful arts and business; Schools of 
pure Science, as higher mathematics, nat- 
ural history, physical science ; Schools of 
Engineering, civil or military ; Schools of 
Mines and Mining Engineering ; Schools of 
Philology and Linguistics; Schools of Arch- 
itecture, and Schools of the Fine Arts 
(drawing, painting, sculpture, and music.) 

The first of these scientific schools in the 
order of time, and one of the first in the 
order of merit, is the Rensselaer Polytechnic 
Institute at Troy. This institute grew out 
of the efforts of the " patroon," late Stephen 
Van Rensselaer, to promote the diffusion of 
practical science among the farmers and 
mechanics of the State of New York. In 
1820 and 1821 he had caused a geological 
and agricultural survey of the counties of 
Albany and Rensselaer to be made at his own 
expense, and had also procured the services of 
the late Prof. Aner Eaton, and the late Profes- 
sor and President of Amherst College, Dr. 
Edward Hitchcock, to survey a transverse 
section from Boston to Lake Erie, noting 
its geological structure, the varieties of soil 
and analyzing the soils and crops of this 
section. In 1823 and 1824 he employed 
Prof. Eaton and a number of •competent 
assistants to traverse the State on the line 
of the Eric Canal and deliver popular lec- 
tures on philosophy, chemistry, &c, with 
experiments. In the autumn of 1824 he 
founded the Rensselaer Institute at Troy, 
for the purpose at first of giving instruction 
in Natural History, Geology, and Chemistry, 
as well as in the higher Mathematics and 
Physics. For fifteen years he sustained this 
school in great part from his own ample 
means, giving free tuition to one student 
from each county, on the recommendation 

* For details, see Burnurd's Scientific Schools, Vol. II. 



of the County Clerk, but requiring that 
these students should teach for one year in 
their own counties. After Gen. Van Rensse- 
laer's death, Civil Engineering was made a 
prominent feature in the course of study, 
and with the pecuniary aid of the Van 
Rensselaer family, it continues its high 
position as a school of science and en- 
gineering. 

In many instances the schools organized 
under the national grants of lands, or re- 
ceiving aid from these grants, include one 
or more of these classes of schools with 
their instruction in agriculture. Instruction 
in mechanics, by the terms of the act, 
is included in all or nearly all of them ; 
and where the endowment has been be- 
stowed upon a scientific school already in 
operation, physical science, engineering, 
mining, &c, have also been included. 
There are a considerable number of schools 
which do not participate in these national 
grants, but are more or less liberally en- 
dowed from other sources. Among those 
most largely endowed we may name 
Lehigh University at South Bethlehem, 
Penn., which has received from Hon. Asa 
Packer, in all about one million dollars ; 
the Stevens Institute of Technology at 
Hoboken, N. J., whose endowment, aside 
from land and buildings, is §500,000; the 
Scientific Department of Lafayette College, 
Easton, Pa., amply endowed by Mr. Pardee; 
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 
largely endowed by Dr. Walker and others ; 
the Worcester Free Institute, endowed 
by Messrs. Boynton and Washburne ; the 
Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard 
University, and the Street School of 
Fine Arts of Yale College ; the Chand- 
ler Scientific School and the Thayer En- 
gineering School of Dartmouth College, 
are among the most conspicuous. One of the 
most remarkable in its practical efficiency 
for the free education of the working 
classes in mathematical and technical science 
is the Cooper Union of New York. This 
magnificent foundation, the gift of a man 
of the people, whose days were spent in 
hard and severe labor from youth to old 
age, provides for the free instruction of 
large classes in all departments of practical 
mathematics, in the various branches of 
mechanics, in chemical technology, the 
principles of natural philosophy and physics, 
in drawing and designing, in engraving, in 
painting and architecture. More than two 



PROFESSIONAL AND SPECIAL EDUCATION. 



991 



thousand students, of both sexes, are con- 
stantly attending its classes and lectures, and 
great numbers are necessarily turned away 
for want of room for their instruction. The 
Rensselaer Institute at Troy, N. Y., the 
Polytechnic College of Philadelphia, Cor- 
nell University, the Purdue College in 
Lafayette, Indiana, the Illinois Industrial 
University at Urbana, 111., and the Scien- 
tific Department of Washington College, 
St. Louis, as well as some of the younger of 
the national endowed colleges, are giving 
courses of scientific and technical instruc- 
tion which will prove of great service. As 
yet, however, very few of our scientific 
schools are prepared, to give the best prac- 
tical teaching. Ten or twenty years hence. 
with still more liberal or more available 
endowments, with museums and cabinets 
replete with the material for illustrative 
instructions, and above all with thoroughly 
competent instructors in the highest depart- 
ments of scientific research, men who 
have dedicated their lives to science 
without the apprehension of an old age of 
poverty, we may expect results unsurpassed 
in the best scientific schools of Europe. 

Civil Engineering is taught in quite a 
number of our scientific schools, and is be- 
coming a very important department of 
higher education; Military Engineering is 
taught, of course, in the Military Academy 
at West Point, and Civil Engineering also 
with great thoroughness, many of our best 
civil engineers having been graduates of 
this academy, and of the State military 
institutes of the south and west. Mining 
Engineering and Metallurgy are taught in 
the Columbia College School of Mines, the 
Polytechnic College of Philadelphia, 
Lehigh University, South Bethlehem, Pa., 
and, we believe, in one of the St. Louis 
scientific schools. Philology is only made a 
distinct branch of instruction at Yale Col- 
lege, New Haven ; at Cambridge, and at 
Lafayette University, Easton, Pa. Archi- 
tecture is not generally taught in the scien- 
tific schools, the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology being, perhaps, the only excep- 
tion, though a department of it, Landscape 
Gardening, is beginning to receive attention 
in some of them; but the Institute of 
American Architects in New York, and 
other similar bodies elsewhere, have estab- 
lished schools for instruction in this branch. 
Drawing, Painting and Sculpture are taught 
in the School of Fine Arts at New Haven, 



in the srli,,,, u of t| l( . American Academy of 
Design, and the Cooper Uiiion at New 
York, the Brooklyn Academy of Design, 
and in kindred institutions in Boston, Phil- 
adelphia, Baltimore, Cincinnati, St. Louis 
and Chicago. Music in its higher develop- 
ments is tanghl in the Peabody Institute 
at Baltimore, and in the Conservatories of 
Music found in most of our large cities, 
which depend mainly on the reputation of 
some eminent private teachers. 

Some departments of Natural Bistory are 
taught successfully at Cambridge in connec- 
tion with the magnificenl Museum "f Com- 
parative Zoology, collected by the indefati- 
gable labors of Prof. Agassiz, hut for the 
most part the prosecution of these Btudies 
is most profitably conducted in connection 
with the institutes and academies of natural 
science, of which we may mention the 
Boston Natural History Society, the Essex 
Institute of Natural History at Salem, the 
State Natural History Rooms at All. any, 
the Metropolitan Museum so auspiciously 
begun in New York, the Lyceum of Natural 
History in the same city, the American 
Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadel- 
phia, and for this and technology the 
Franklin Institute in the same city, the 
Smithsonian collections at Washington, and 
lesser but considerable collections at Wil- 
liams College and Amhersl College, Mass., 
Cornell and Rochester Universities, New 
York, in Cincinnati, Chicago, St. Louis, and 
elsewhere. 

VII. ORPHAN ASYLUMS A2TO BCHOOL& 

In all the av.'es since the Christian Era 
there has been manifested a tenderness 
toward the orphan, and foundations for the 
care and education of children bereft of 
one, or both parents haw been established 
throughout Christendom in great numbers. 
The Roman Catholic Church, t>oth in Europe 
and the United States has been partic- 
ularly regardful of these children, and 
ha- established its asylums wherever there 
was a sufficient number of orphans who 
could be gathered into them. The Mora- 
vians, Lutherans, and Reformed Churches 
on the Continent, and Churchmen and Dis- 
senters in England vied with each other in 
promoting the same good work. One of 
the largest Orphan Souses in Europe to-day 
is that "i' George Muller, one ^( the Ply- 
mouth Brethren, at Ashley Downs near 

Bristol. It i- i'\ great extent, supported 

wholly by voluntary charity, no contribu- 



992 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



tions being ever directly solicited, and 
furnishes care, food, lodging, clothing, and 
education annually to nearly 3,000 orphans. 

In the United States, Orphan Asylums 
were established by the Moravians in Penn- 
sylvania and Georgia early in the eighteenth 
century. In 1740, the celebrated preacher 
George Whitfield laid the foundation of his 
Orphan House at Bethesda, ten miles from 
Savannah, Ga. Several other Orphan Asy- 
lums were established in New England, Penn- 
sylvania, and Maryland before 1800, but the 
whole number in existence in the United 
States at that time did not exceed six or 
seven. It was the practice to a very great 
extent, among the wealthy families, to 
adopt and bring up orphan children, and 
this practice obviated in ordinary times and 
with the sparse population, the necessity of 
asylums. The first Orphan Asylum in New 
York City was organized in 1806. It was 
at first attempted to place the children in 
families, as is still done in some of the in- 
stitutions for orphans in the German States, 
but the number of orphans rendered this 
difficult, and they rented and subsequently 
erected an asylum in Bank street, whence 
they removed in 1840 to their present 
spacious edifice on the banks of the Hud- 
son, between Seventy-third and Seventy- 
fourth streets. The Lake and Watts Or- 
phan Asylum, endowed largely by the 
gentlemen whose names it bears, is a large 
and admirably managed institution. There 
are now thirteen orphan asylums in New 
York city, aside from the Randall's Island 
Nursery, where 1,700 or 1,800 children — 
orphans, half-orphans, or children of intem- 
perate or criminal parents, are cared for ; 
aside from 8,000 children, the Home for 
the Friendless, the Five Points House of In- 
dustry, Children's Aid Society, and other 
preventive institutions, a large proportion 
of whose inmates are orphans. There 
are two asylums for colored children, and 
one specifically for soldiers' orphans. In 
Brooklyn there are five asylums, all well 
sustained. In all of these institutions there 
are schools under the supervision of the 
city schools' authority, which receive their 
share of the public school money. 

Philadelphia is renowned for her munifi- 
cent foundations for the care and instruction 
of orphans. The Girard College, whose 
buildings and lands cost nearly two millions 
of dollars, and which has an endowment of 
almost a million and a half, received from 



its wealthy founder, has about five hundred 
orphans constantly under instruction. It 
was opened in January, 1848. Its course 
of instruction extends over seven years. The 
amount of annual expenditure is about 
$80,000. Several other orphan asylums and 
schools in Philadelphia are largely endowed ; 
the Burd Orphan Asylum, founded in 1859, 
for orphans between four and eight years of 
age, has an endowment of about half a 
million. The Lincoln Home for Orphans in 
Philadelphia is believed to have been the 
first endowed institution for soldiers' orphans 
in the country. There are now thirty 
orphan asylums for these children specifically 
in the State. Boston has a number of 
orphan asylums and schools, generally ad- 
mirably arranged. All our large cities have 
from two to six, and there are few towns of 
10,000 inhabitants in the country which have 
not at least one, generally in connection 
with some religious organization. It has 
proved impossible hitherto to obtain any 
full or accurate statistics of them. Not 
less than 75,000 children receive both sup- 
port and education in them, and though 
objections may be made to them on the 
ground of their formality and want of the 
family element, they relieve a vast amount 
of destitution, and impart elementary in- 
struction to a large class of children who 
would otherwise perish, or grow up in 
ignorance to vice and crime. 

VII. SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES FOR INDIANS. 

From the first settlement of the colonies 
which now constitute the United States, 
there has been on the part of benevolent 
christian men a desire to educate the 
Aborigines, or at least such of them as could 
be induced to devote their attention to 
study. Like all savages, the Indian is nat- 
urally intolerant of confinement and re- 
straint, and soon wearies of unremitting 
application to either study or mechanical 
employment. There have been exceptions 
to this rule, but they are so few as to prove 
its general truth. But the efforts of good 
men were unceasing to teach them the 
elements of learning aud the rudiments of 
those arts which accompany civilization. 
While the Indian continued a nomad it was 
impossible to make any permanent impres- 
sion on him. Civilization requires as its 
basis a fixed home. Hence, though Eliot 
and the Mayhews, the Jesuit Fathers in 
Canada, at Detriot, Kaskaskia, St. Louis, 
Natchez, and other points, and later Couut 



PROFESSIONAL AND SPECIAL EDUCATION. 



993 



Zinzendorf and the Moravians, took great 
pains to acquire the Indian languages, and 
to teach them the rudiments of science and 
religion, they were only successful when 
they could gather the wandering tribes into 
permanent settlements, — missions, the Jesuit 
Fathers called them, — and then erecting the 
requisite churches and school-houses, accus- 
tom them to a fixed home. In New Mexico, 
in Texas, in California and Oregon, the 
Jesuit Missionaries planted many of these 
missions, some of which are still in exist- 
ence. The education imparted, except in 
the arts of civilized life, was not extensive. 
A few were taught to read and write, most 
of them learned to repeat the prayers of the 
church, and occasionally one of their number 
more ambitious and intelligent than the rest, 
would receive sufficient education to become 
the cure of a pueblo, or Indian village. In 
the English colonies the earliest effort 
for the instruction of the Indians was made 
in Virginia in 1618. For this purpose an 
appeal was made to England by the Virginia 
Company, and the Queen (Elizabeth), and 
many of the nobility and clergy contributed 
to the fund. At Cambridge, Mass., a 
school for the instruction of Indian youth 
was founded before Harvard College, and 
was in some sense the germ of that first of 
American Colleges. In Connecticut, there 
were schools for Indian children and youth 
as early as 1648 to 1660, at several points, 
as at Farmington, Podunk, Hartford and 
Branford, and some of these schools were 
maintained for more than a hundred years. 
In 1725 there was a school for Mohegans at 
Norwich, and the education of Samson 
Occum, an Indian, and afterward a preacher, 
in the family of Rev. Elcazur Wheelock at 
Lebanon, Conn., in 1743-1750, led to the 
founding of Moor's Indian Charity School 
in 1754, which sixteen years later was 
practically merged in Dartmouth College.* 

About the beginning of this centurv svs- 
tematic efforts were commenced, mostly by 
the general government, for the instruction 
of the Indian tribes within what were then 
the boundaries of the States. The Iroquois, 
or Six Nations, who had established them- 
selves on reservations in the State of New 
York, the fragments of the Orono, Pequot, 
and Mohegan tribes who remained in Maine 
and Connecticut, and the considerable 
tribes of Cherokees, Creeks and Choctaws, 
who inhabited the northern portions of 



* See Burnard's History of Education in Connecticut. 



Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, and the 
Seminoles of Florida, all received mission' 
aries and teachers, and made but prog 
in learning and civilization. < , 
a Cherokee, invented an alphabet, and re- 
duced the language of his tribe to writing. 
But the rapid influx of white settlers into 
the Gulf States, and their jealous] of these 
peaceful Indian tribes led to peremptory 
demands for their expatriation to lands be- 
yond the Mississippi. This removal seemed 
unjust at the time, and was carried out with 
unnecessary harshness and hardships, but 
in the end it proved of great advantage to 
the tribes which were removed, and they 
have formed the nucleus of an Indian terri- 
torial settlement in which the larger portion 
of the nomadic tribes of the western plains 
have found or will find a home and a per- 
manent settlement. The Cherokees, Creeks, 
and Choctaws have attained to a very re- 
spectable civilization; they have numerous 
good schools, some of them of the second- 
ary grade, and have entirely abandoned 
their nomadic habits. There are now 
schools, sustained in part by the government 
and in part by the different religious de- 
nominations, in all the tribes which < rjpy 

distinct reservations, even though these 
tribes have not fixed settlements. There 
were in 1871, as nearly as could be ascer- 
tained, 294 schools among the Indians, with 
about 300 teachers, and about 8,000 schol- 
ars, the total Indian population being cli- 
mated at 383,130* 

VIII. SCHOOLS FOR THE AFRICANS AKD FRFEnMEX.f 

Very early in the history of the colonies 

which afterwards became slave Mate-, there 
was evident a determination to withhold 
both from the slaves and the free people of 
color all facilities for education ; and though 
for a time the instruction of house servants, 
who were often allied by blood to their 
masters, was tolerated and sometimes en- 
couraged by influential people, yet as early 
as the beginning of this century, in most of 
the slave states, it was forbidden under pen- 
alty of fine and imprisonmenl to teach a 
Blave to read or write. This prohibition 
was in some, perhaps in man\ cases, I vaded ; 
the children of a slaveholder often teaching 



• For H in""' pnrtieolu 100000! of the attempt! !■• .~uil>lish 
gohnoli for 'I"' Indiana, lee Bernard's contributions to the 
Hittory of Education ntfa Unit 

f A spaeiaJ Report on Behooh for Ookwod Children nml tlie 
educational statue of the oolorad population in the d 
States, will be found in Barnard '1 8 

trict n/ CWhqiAm winch constitutes Vol. MX il tiic Ameri- 
can Journal of Educutiou. 



994 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



a favorite slave what they themselves had 
been taught, but the law remained on the 
statute books, and was enforced whenever 
there was any excitement in regard to the 
slaves. As the free colored people were 
supposed to be most forward in teaching the 
slaves, the same prohibition was in many of 
the States extended to them, and in others 
the terms of a public opinion which re- 
garded, or professed to regard, the free 
colored people as nuisances, was invoked to 
prevent their instruction also. This was 
generally effected, except in three or four 
States. In the District of Columbia there 
have been schools for free negroes in exist- 
ence constantly from 1807 till the present 
time, and most of the time two, three, or 
more at the same time. The first was 
founded by the efforts of George Bell, aided 
by Nicholas Franklin and Moses Liverpool. 
These three men had been slaves but had 
attained their freedom, but neither of the 
three could read or write. Yet they built a 
school-house, and for some years sustained 
a school. In 1809, or thereabouts two 
others were started, one by a colored 
woman, Mrs. Anne Maria Hall, the other 
by an Englishman, Mr. Henry Potter. In 
1818, the free colored people formed an 
association under the name of " Resolute 
Beneficial Society," and established a very 
good school which was sustained -for several 
years. The best of these early schools was 
one taught by Rev. John F. Cook, a eolored 
Presbyterian minister, self-educated, but a 
man of rare ability and talent, who con- 
ducted an excellent school — " The Union 
Seminary" — for about twenty years, from 
1834 till 1855, and it was maintained by his 
sons, with some intermissions, till 1867. 
There were also two or three schools main- 
tained under the direction of Father Van- 
lomen and other Catholic priests, taught by 
colored women of remarkable talent. The 
Wesleyans had also a seminary from 1833 
to 1865. But the most noteworthy of these 
schools was that founded and conducted 
from 1851 to 1866 by Miss Myrtilla Miner, 
a lady of Brookfield, N. Y. This was a 
seminary of the higher class for colored 
girls. We have not space to go into the 
history of this school and her connection 
with it, but it is sufficient to say that she 
deserves as much honor, and perhaps even 
higher consideration than Mary Lyon, the 
founder of llolyoke Female Seminary. Her 
devotion to her work was as great,' her sac- 



rifices were greater, and she passed through 
a fiery trial of persecution, while her life 
was one of constant and intense suffering. 
At the time of the emancipation of the 
slaves there must have been in Washington 
and Georgetown some ten or fifteen of these 
colored schools. In Delaware, the Friends 
had had in Wilmington two good schools 
for colored children since 1840. In Mary- 
land there was a Catholic seminary for col- 
ored girls, established in 1831, in connection 
with the Oblate Sisters of Providence Con- 
vent. The Wells school, endowed by a 
man of color, established in 1835, and some 
others. In Kentucky, the Berea College, 
founded in 1858 by Rev. John G. Fee, for 
the higher education of white and colored 
youth, was the only institution of its grade 
in the slave States for colored persons pre- 
vious to the war. 

In the Northern States there were 
schools for colored children exclusively in 
many of the large cities. One of these in 
New York was established in 1704. In 
1788 or 1789, the Manumission Society es- 
tablished colored schools which were con- 
tinued till 1834, when they were merged in 
those of the Public School Society. In 
Boston, a colored school was established in 
1798, and a public school for colored 
children in 1800. In Cincinnati they were 
established as early as 1820. A school of 
higher grade established there in 1835 
evoked a storm of persecution, but was 
maintained steadily until the public pro- 
vision for the higher education of colored 
youth was sufficient to render its further 
continuance unnecessary. 

In Philadelphia the efforts for the educa- 
tion of the colored race, of Anthony Ben- 
ezet in 1750, and subsequently of the 
Friends in 1770, and of the Pennsylvania 
Abolition Society in 1794, aided and sup- 
plemented by other benevolent organiza- 
tions at a later period, provided for the 
people of color in that city exceptional ad- 
vantages of education. In the country the 
few colored children generally attended the 
same public schools with the white children, 
though they were in most cases jealously 
excluded from the private schools. In the 
deaf mute, blind and orphan asylums they 
were generally admitted on equal terms with 
white children. But up to 1850, and in 
some of the Northern States still later, there 
was so strong a prejudice against giving to 
the colored people any opportunities for 



PROFESSIONAL AND SPECIAL EDUCATION. 



995 



higher education that no school for that 
purpose was tolerated. In 1833, Miss Pru- 
dence Crandall, a member of the Society 
of Friends and a teacher of high reputation, 
received a young colored girl into her 
boarding and day-school at Canterbury, 
Conn., that she might qualify herself to be- 
come a teacher to her own race. The girl 
was not in any way objectionable ; she was 
of pleasing appearance and manners, and of 
most exemplary conduct, a member of the 
Congrcgationalist church in Canterbury. 
Objection was made by the parents of some 
of the white children attending this school, 
and Miss Crandall, firm in her principles, 
determined to make it a test question, and, 
therefore, gave notice of the -opening of a 
school for colored girls. This was soon 
largely attended, but the people of that and 
adjacent towns were greatly excited in con- 
sequence, and an influential citizen, afterward 
a member of Congress, and Judge of the 
United State District Court, procured the 
passage of a law by the legislature in 1833 
which prohibited such a school, under pen- 
alty of heavy fine or imprisonment. Under 
this law Miss Crandall was arrested, com- 
mitted to the Windham County jail, and 
subsequently tried ; the first time the jury 
disagreed; the second, on Judge Daggett's 
charge, she was convicted, but an appeal 
being taken to the Supreme Court of Errors 
the action was quashed. Her school was, 
however, broken up by the constant assaults 
made . on the teacher, scholars, and the 
school, building. 

In 1850, Avery College, founded by 
Rev. Charles Avery, was opened at Alle- 
ghany City, Penn., as a collegiate and 
academical school for persons of color 
of both sexes. It has about 75 students, is 
well endowed, and has an efficient faculty. 
Lincoln University at Oxford, Chester 
County, Penn., originally called Ashmun 
Institute, was founded in 1854 by the Pres- 
bytery of Newcastle, Pa., for the scientific, 
classsical and theological education of young 
men of color. It was not opened till Dec. 
31, 1856, and had in 1871, 158 Btudents. 
It is moderately well endowed. Wilber- 
forcc University near Xcnia, Ohio, founded 
in 185G as a collegiate institution for young 
men of color by the Cincinnati Conference 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was by 
that conference transferred to the African 
Methodist Episcopal Church, and is now 
sustained by the people of color, one of 



their bishops, Rev. Dr. I). A. Payne, being 
Presidenl and Professor of Theology. It 
had in 1871, 176 students of both ( 
and 7 instructors. These three institutions, 
and Berea College, Ky., were all in exist- 
ence previous to the war, and their students 
were wholly or mainly persons of color. 

Several other colleges, however, admitted 

Colored students to their ehisses rCgU lall V, 

and still others occasionally, Oberlin has, 

since 1836, always had colored students. 

The escape of many who had previously 

been slaves from their masters in the first 

year of the war, and the Proclamation of 
Emancipation in January, 1863, Boon de- 
monstrated the necessity of furnishing edu- 
cational advantages to these new cil 
The Freedmen, as the emancipated - 
were now called, were clamorous for ele- 
mentary education. They flocked to the 
schools which the various philanthropic and 
religious societies established for their in- 
struction, in great numbers, and though 
among the adults, whose minds had been 
hitherto wholly untrained, progress was very 
slow, yet by dint of the most undaunted 
perseverance, great numbers learned to 
read, and the colored children, in most 
cases, proved apt scholars. Great hostility 
was manifested toward these Bchools in 
the late slave States by a class of 
the white population, who were for 
the most part themselves illiterate, and 
jealous of the improvement of the blacks; 
and many school-houses were burned, and 
some teachers as well as a Considerable 
number of the pupils were beaten, wounded 
or killed. Put this opposition eventually 
died away, and now the education of the 
colored children goes on without let or 
hindrance. The amount expended by the 
various benevolent societies in the main- 
tenance of these schools can only be stated 
approximately. In the ten years ending 
October, 1871, the American Missionary 
Association reported an expenditure for this 
purpose of $1,563,756.99. The Fivedm. n's 
Aid Society of Cincinnati, before it was 
merged in the American Missionary Asso- 
ciation, $134,840.63, beside large amo 
of clothing ; the General Assembly of the 
Presbyterian Church, for live years ending 
Mav 1, IsTl', ^l'l'ii.Toi : the American 
Baptist Free Mission Society, from 1862 to 
1870, when its organization ceased, about 
1166,000; the American Baptisl Home 
Mission Society, in all about $260,000; the 



996 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



Unitarian Association, directly and through 
the Zion Methodist Church, over 1 100,000; 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, about 
$110,000; the Friends, directly and indi- 
rectly, over $150,000 (including a con- 
siderable amount of supplies and clothing) ; 
the Protestant Episcopal Church, not far 
from $80,000. The Freedmen's Department 
of the Western Sanitary Commisson also 
expended large sums in aid of these schools 
in the Mississippi Valley. The Freedmen's 
Bureau, from May 20, 1865 to October, 
1871, expended in cash on these schools 
$4,711,235.04, and in other things than 
cash $1,551,276.22. The Catholics have 
also expended very considerable sums for 
the establishment of schools for freed men, 
and have organized a system of schools for 
colored children; and there have been many 
private enterprises sustained by individual 
contributions, which are not reported. Tak- 
ing into the account all these sums, together 
with what had been done by the Freed- 
men's Bureau, the expenditure for the educa- 
tion of freedmen (including a small amount 
for refugees and poor whites) has exceeded 
nine millions. This is aside from the en- 
dowment which has been given generally 
by bequest to several schools of higher 
education for colored youth — such as the 
Howard University at Washington, Lincoln 
University at Oxford, Va., Leland and 
Straight Universities at New Orleans, 
Alcorn University at Jackson, Miss., Fisk 
University, Nashville, Tenn., the Hampton 
Normal and Agricultural Institute at 
Hampton Roads, Va., and Atlanta Uni- 
versity, Atlanta, Georgia. There are in all 
over twenty of these schools of higher 
education for young men of color ; some of 
them aiming to give substantially the ordina- 
ry college course, others only a limited Eng- 
lish and theological course to train those 
who are expecting to preach to their own 
race either here or in Africa. The Howard 
University at Washington has a theological, 
medical, and law school connected with it. 
It is but slenderly endowed, $100,000 only 
being raised for endowment purposes, though 
it receives in addition to tuition fees con- 
siderable sums in annual subscriptions. 

The munificent fund for the promotion 
of education in the South presented by the 
late George Peabody, the noblest gift ever 
made by one man to popular education, 
properly comes under consideration here, as 
in some of the States grants are made from 



it for colored schools. Mr. Peabody, who 
must rank as the greatest benefactor to 
education in ancient or modern times, and 
whose large gifts to other objects are stated 
more at length elsewhere in this volume, 
visited the United States in 1866, just after 
the close of the war, and deeply impressed 
with the condition of the Southern States 
and the great need of greater facilities for 
elementary and secondary education, then 
resolved to devote a portion of his large 
fortune for this purpose. Having matured 
his plans, he placed in the hands of trustees 
bonds and securities of the value of 
$2,000,000, the interest and a portion of 
the principal of which, if necessary, was to 
be used for the promotion of education in 
the South without regard to race or color. 
Rev. Barnas Sears, D.D., LL.D., formerly 
Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of 
Education, and at this time President of 
Brown University, was selected by the 
trustees, with Mr. Peabody's approval, to 
apply this large sum, and has done so 
with great wisdom and fairness. In 1869, 
Mr. Peabody again visited the country, and 
was so much gratified at the good accom- 
plished by his gift, that he added $1,400,000 
more to it. The revenue from this fund, 
somewhat more than $200,000 per annum, 
is divided among the schools of the South- 
ern States in such a way as to encourage 
them to greater exertions, and to confer a 
lasting benefit on the communities upon 
which it is bestowed. 

IX. CHURCH AND DENOMINATIONAL SCHOOLS. 

In discussing the character and progress 
of schools of secondary instruction and 
colleges, we have not given any special ac- 
count of those institutions which come 
under the head of Church and Religious 
Schools, partly because it is a matter of 
difficulty to separate them from the others, 
and partly because the greater part of those 
cla'm'ng these specific titles are of compar- 
atively recent origin. In New England, in 
the early history of the Colonies and States, 
all the schools were religious. The district 
or elementary schools had the Bible or 
Testament for their text-book, almost their 
only text-book. They read in it, parsed 
from it, often had their spelling lessons in 
it, and though they could not prosecute 
their arithmetical studies from it very well, 
yet occasionally a knotty problem in figures 
was drawn from it. The Lord's Prayer, tho 



PROFESSIONAL AND SPECIAL EDUCATION. 



997 



Creed, and the Assembly of Divines' 
Shorter Catechism were taught to the 
children from the New England primer, and 
many a bard-headed theologian of the 
former class acquired his theological training 
almost wholly in the district school. The 
Grammar schools were equally religious in 
their purpose and their teachings, and the 
colleges all had for their ultimate obj%ct and 
aim the sentiment emblazoned on the first 
seal of Harvard College, Pro Christo et 
JZcdesice—" For Christ and the Church." 
This was equally true also of Kings (now 
Columbia) College, New York, and of the 
two New Jersey colleges at Princeton and 
New Brunswick. Farther South the col- 
legiate instruction had more of the secular 
and less of the theological character, but 
many of the schools were established by 
particular churches, and taught their doc- 
trines with the studies of a more general 
character. This was true of the Catholic 
Conventual and other schools of New York, 
Pennsylvania and Maryland, the Moravian 
schools of Pennsylvania and North Caro- 
lina, and the schools of the Friends or 
Quakers. As colleges were organized in the 
newer States they very generally (except in 
the case of State institutions and sometimes 
even then) were under the patronage of a 
particular denomination, and their faculty 
belonged to that denomination. Of the 375 
nominal colleges in the United States there 
are not more than thirty which are not 
directly or indirectly denominational. 

Among the schools of secondary instruc- 
tion nearly all the Female Seminaries, and a 
large majority of academies and other in- 
corporated schools in which higher studies 
are pursued, are avowedly denominational 
in their boards of government and in- 
struction. 

X. PHILANTHROPIC SCHOOLS. 

(1.) Schools for Deaf Mutes. 

The first efforts for the instruction of 
Deaf Mutes in England were made between 
1742 and 1760. J. R. Pereira, a Spanish 
Jew, but long resident in France, and a man 
of remarkable genius, instructed a consid- 
erable number of pupils, in 1 743-1 760, by 
what is now known as the method of artic- 
ulation, teaching them to pronounce words 
by imitating the motion of the lips as the 
words were uttered, lie communicated to 
them also instruction in regard to the 
meaning of these words and their colloca- 



tion, and was so successful that his pupils 
conversed freely, and even bad copied from 
their teacher the Spanish accenl of French 

words. His system was unfortunately kept 
secret, and in the Revolution in France all 
knowledge of bis method was lost. Bamnel 
Heinicke, a German teacher, instructed the 
deaf and dumb, from 17">t to 1780, also by 
the method of articulation. There were 
others before and after these men who had 
attempted the instruction of deaf-mutes by 
this plan, but none of them very successful- 
ly. In 1755, the Abbe de I'Epee, a French 
philanthropist, attempted to teach deaf 
mutes by the natural language of Bigns,and 
proceeding from the known to the unknown, 
to indicate to them abstract ideas by the 
same method, lie also invented a si'_Mi 
alphabet, by means of which they were 
taught the alphabet and enabled to spell out 
the words they wished to utter, to those 
who did not understand the language of 
signs. His processes, improved greatly by 
the Abbe Sicard, one of bis teachers and 
his successor, and by Bebian, a pupil of 
Sicard, are those mosl generally practiced 
in the instruction of deaf mutes throughout 
Christendom. Some of the English scl 
and a few of the German however, adhere 
to the system of articulation which was in- 
troduced in England in 1760 by Thomas 
Braidwood, who may have been a pupil of 
Heinicke. Braidwood kept his pr< i sees a 
profound secret, suffering none but his im- 
mediate family and relatives to know them 
for 60 years. He died in 1806, and his 
willow and her grandsons, and other rela- 
tives maintained the school and the secret 
many years. One of the grandsons came 
to the United States in 1811, under the 
invitation of a former pupil from Virginia, 
to establish a school for deaf mutes in that 
State, but he did not succeed. 

The first successful attempt to instruct 
deaf mutes in the United States was made 
at Hartford, Conn., in April. 1817. Its 
history was as follows: In lsit. Rev. 
Thomas fit. Gallaudet, a young clergyman 
of Hartford, was led by his interest in Alice 
swell, the little daughter of Dr. Mason 

F. Cogswell, who had l"st her hearing in 
infancy, to investigate the number and 
dition o( the deaf mutes in the State, and 
determined to devote his life to the amelior- 
ation of their condition. Dr. Cogswell, 
Ward Wbodbridge, David Wadsworth, and 
other gentlemen in Hartford, furnished the 



993 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



means for a visit to England to learn 
the best methods of teaching these un- 
fortunates. He sailed for Liverpool, May 
25, 1815, and on arriving in England 
found that the Braidwood family, who 
held the monopoly of deaf mute instruc- 
tion in Great Britain, would not give 
him any training in their processes except 
on condition that he should pay fifteen hun- 
dred dollars, remain from one to three years 
without salary, as an assistant in their 
schools, and take a member of the family 
as a partner in the institution to be estab- 
lished in America. Mr. Gallaudet promptly 
rejected these terms, and after repeated un- 
successful efforts to obtain more favorable 
propositions, was about to return to the 
United States when he met in London the 
Abbe Sicard, by whom he was invited most 
cordially to visit his institution in Paris. 
Accepting the invitation, the good Abbe at 
once made him acquainted with all his 
processes of instruction, and after three 
months of close study, in which the Abbe 
gave him every possible assistance, he re- 
turned to America, accompanied by M. 
Laurent Clerc, an educated deaf mute, and 
one of the Abbe Sicard's most successful 
teachers. A school for deaf mutes was 
chartered by the Connecticut Legislature in 
May, 1816, and Messrs. Gallaudet and Clerc 
traveled extensively to explain the system 
of instruction and to raise the necessary 
funds for its establishment. It was opened 
in rented buildings, at Hartford, in April, 
1817, and soon after received from Congress 
a grant of a township of land in Alabama, 
when its corporate name was changed to 
" The American Asi/lum for the Deaf and 
Dumb.' 1 '' By careful management this grant 
produced a fund of over 1300,000, which 
enabled the directors to furnish board and 
tuition at a very moderate price to pupils 
from any part of the country. Until quite 
recently the New England States made ap- 
propriations for the support of their deaf 
unites whose friends were unable to support 
them exclusively in this institution. 

The American Asylum was prosperous 
from the first. Mr. Gallaudet, its founder, 
was a man of rare genius and originality, 
and possessed great tact and skill in impart- 
ing instruction to a class of pupils whom it 
had been before considered impossible to 
educate. He was ably seconded by M. 
Clerc, who retained his connection with the 
institution for almost fifty years. The 



teachers whom Mr. Gallaudet drew around 
him were all men of remarkable ability ; 
and among them such men as William C. 
Woodbridge, Lewis Weld, Harvey P. Peet, 
Isaac Orr, William W. Turner, Luzern Rae, 
Samuel Porter, John A. Jacobs, O. W. 
Morris, Collins Stone, and others. His two 
sons, Thomas and Edward M. Gallaudet, 
have devoted themselves to the develop- 
ment of this class of institutions, and the 
moral and intellectual culture of deaf mutes. 

As this asylum has been directly the 
parent of all, or nearly all, the institutions 
for deaf mutes in the United States, and its 
methods have been followed with, at most, 
very slight modifications, by all the others, 
it is perhaps necessary that we should show 
in what particulars the American methods 
of deaf mute instruction differ from the 
European. It was a great blessing to the 
deaf mutes that the work of establishing a 
system of instruction for them fell to the lot 
of a man of such genius and ability as Mr. 
Gallaudet. Had he been merely a routinist, 
following implicitly the system of De l'Epee, 
Sicard, and Bebian, their intellectual culture 
to-day would be vastly below what it now is. 

The system of Pereira, Heinicke, and the 
Braid woods had for its basis the dogma that 
ideas could only be expressed or communi- 
cated by means of spoken or written 
language ; and hence the deaf mute was 
taught, with great difficulty and pains, to 
articulate words whose meanings he did not 
understand, and then, as step by step he 
connected ideas with the simplest of them, 
these were made the means of conveying to 
him the meaning of those more abstract and 
difficult. In this way three or four years 
were consumed before the pupil was pre- 
pared to acquire the facts of science or the 
knowledge of his moral obligations. 

The fundamental principle of the system 
of De l'Epee, as modified by Sicard and 
Bebian, was that " words have no natural or 
necessary connection with the ideas of 
which they are the signs, and that in the 
natural language of signs or pantomime, 
improved and enlarged as it can be, there is 
a complete substitute for them." No 
special attempt was made at teaching artic- 
ulation, but words were taught by means of 
signs, and these once acquired, were made 
the medium of further instruction by ordin- 
ary text-books. In order to teach words 
more readily, M. Sicard introduced what he 
denominated methodical signs, that is, a 



PROFESSIONAL AND SPECIAL EDI/CATION. 



999 



peculiar gesture for each word, which the 
pupil was taught. It is obvious that if the 
vocabulary of the deaf mute was to be as 
large as that of ordinary intelligent Bpeaking 
persons, the number of these arbitrary 
signs (for it is to be understood that these 
differed almost as much from the ordinary 
signs as the latter from words, the natural 
signs representing ideas, and the methodical 
signs single words) must be very great, some 
thousands at least, and to retain them in 
memory was a very fatiguing task for both 
pupil and teacher. 

The American system of deaf mute in- 
struction differs materially from both these, 
and the difference originating in its funda- 
mental principles with Mr. Gallaudet and 
the teachers trained up under him, has been 
extended and amplified as a result of the 
experience and observations of the very 
eminent teachers who have been and still 
are engaged in the work of deaf mute in- 
struction. 

In establishing the American Asylum, 
Mr. Gallaudet combined the principle of 
Heinicke, of the connection of ideas with 
words, with that of De TEpee, that the 
uatural language of signs must be elevated 
to as high a degree of excellence as possible 
in order to serve as the medium for giving 
the ideas clearly and explaining them ac- 
curately ; but he added to these another 
which had never before been applied to 
deaf mute instruction, viz., that the process 
of learning words might be greatly facili- 
tated by leading the pupils to reflect on 
their own sensations, ideas, and mental 
processes. With the earliest lessons he im- 
parted in the names of sensible objects, he 
was accustomed to endeavor to open com- 
munication with them, by means of the 
si^n-lano-ua^e, in regard to the feelings ami 
emotions excited by these objects, and, if 
possible, to connect them with something 
in the pupil's past experience. From this. 
the deaf mute was naturally led on to think 
of the feelings and emotions of others, 
thence, by a natural transition, to the idea 
of God as a Creator and benefactor, and 
finally to a knowledge of his law, and the 
final destiny of man. The result of this 
has been that pupils in this country (for this 
plan has been generally adopted in onr 
American institutions) are made acquainted 
with the simple truths of religion ami 
morality in one year, a period in which, in 
the European institutions, they have scarce- 
53 



ly advanced beyond the knowledge of 
sounds and the names of sensibl 
qualities, and actions, or the most common 
phrases. Apart from the high r. Il_ 
importance of this process, it brings moral 
motives to bear earlier, and renders the 
government of the pupils easier, while it 
aids them in the formation of correcl habits. 
The conducting of the daily and weekly 
devotional exercises in the' Bign-langt 
was another peculiarity introduced bj Mr. 
Gallaudet 

Methodical si^ns were nsed to a COl 

erable extent h\ Mr. Gallaudel and the 
earlier instructors of American institutions, 
but were not regarded as so indispensable 
by them as by the French teachers. Of 
late years they are less employed than 
formerly, and are made to indicate phrases 

rather than words, while the manual alpha- 
bet is regarded as of more value in teaching 
than it was thirty years ago. An advance 
has also been made, of great importance, 
by the introduction, by Mr. I. Lewi- Peet, 
of the New York Institution, of manual 
and written symbols for those ultimate con- 
stituents of the sentence which form so con- 
siderable a portion of spoken and written 
language. By this means written lan- 
is taught with much greater facility than 
formerly. The idioms and forms of ex- 
pression induced by thi' use of the natural 
language of signs, differ so much from those 
of our written language, which is t" a 
greater extent than mosl people are aware, 
artificial in its construction, that it ha- Keen 
difficult for deaf mutes, in attempting to 
obtain a higher education to attain to that 
complete mastery of English, which is ac- 
quired with comparative readiness, by those 
who have not the idioms of a native lan- 
guage to unlearn; for to the deaf mute this 
natural language is in some BOrt their 
mother tongue. 

The New York Asylum was chartered in 
April, 1817, mainly through the active exer- 
tions of Drs. s. L Mitchell and Samuel 
Akerlv, I >c\\'itt Clinton, Sylvanus Miller, 
Peter sharpe, and Rev. Dr. James Milnor, 
It was not opened till May, 1818, and the 
first twelve years of its history were years 
of struggles and difficulties, partly from the 
lack 01 competent teacher- and assist 

and partly from injudicious management. 
In 1880 it was removed to buildings 

specially erected for it on the block between 
49th and .".nth streets, and Fourth and 



1000 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



Madison avenues, and Mr. (afterward Dr.) 
Harvey P. Peer, one of the ablest of the 
teachers of the American Asylum was elected 
Principal. Dr. Pcet had much to contend 
with at first, but he was grandly successful, 
and the present asylum on Washington 
Heights, overlooking the Hudson, with its 
noble buildings and its fine park of thirty 
acres, with accommodations for six hundred 
pupils and every advantage for successful 
instruction, is a monument to his ability and 
fidelity both as a teacher and executive 
officer. Dr. Peet remained at the head of 
the institution till 1867, when he resigned, 
and his son, Isaac Lewis Peet, was elected 
his successor; but he retained his official 
connection with the institution until his 
death, January 1, 1873, The number of 
pupils in 1871 had reached 580, under 30 
teachers. 

The Pennsylvania institution was founded 
at Philadelphia in 1820, and in 1822 Mr. 
Lewis Weld, another of the Hartford teach- 
ers, became its principal. In 1830, on Mr. 
Gallaudet's resignation as principal of the 
American Asylum, Mr. Weld was recalled 
to Hartford as his successor, and was suc- 
ceeded at Philadelphia by Mr. Abraham B. 
Hilton, who proved a highly successful 
teacher for 40 years, until his death in 
1870. The institution has been prosperous 
from the start. 

The Kentucky institution was founded in 
1823, and located at Danville. It received 
a grant of public land from Congress, but 
no considerable fund was realized out of it. 
Its first principal, who was at its head for 
forty-five years, was Mr. John A. Jacobs, 
who was previously one of the teachers of 
the American Asylum. At his death, in 
1868, his son succeeded him. 

The Ohio institution, founded in 1827, 
has been very prosperous. Its first and 
third principal, Messrs. Hubbell and Stone, 
were from the American Asylum, and its 
second, Mr. Cary, from the New York In- 
stitute, who was succeeded in 1855 by Mr. 
Collins Stone, at the time a teacher in the 
institution at Hartford, to which he returned 
to become principal in 1868, and where he 
died in 1871. 

The Virginia institution, at Staunton, Va., 
founded in 1839, and long officered from the 
Hartford institution, was the first in this 
country to combine the instruction of the 
deaf mutes and the blind under one board 
of officers and teachers. There are now 



nine asylums in the United States where 
these two classes are educated together. 

There are in the United States thirty- 
eight distinct schools or institutes for Deaf 
Mutes, five or six of them, however, are 
small, and three day schools in Chicago, 
Boston, and Pittsburgh; two or three teach 
by the system of articulation only, while 
most of the others give instruction in artic- 
ulation to classes of semi-mutes, i. c, those 
who have learned to speak but have become 
deaf in childhood. For those who were 
deaf and dumb from birth, the ablest 
teachers believe the time spent in teaching 
articulation can be spent in acquiring 
ideas and and the power of expressing 
them. What will be the ultimate result of 
the general use of the Bell system of Visi- 
ble Speech, introduced into the Clarke In- 
stitution at North Hampton, and to a limited 
extent in the American Asylum at Hartford, 
and the private school of A. Graham Bell at 
Boston, since 1871, can not be safely predict- 
ed. With a class of semi-mutes, it proves 
highly useful in facilitating articulation. 

Twenty-nine of the States, and the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, have each one or more 
institution for the deaf and dumb. In most 
of these the course of instruction occupies 
seven years, and those who are unable to 
pay their board and tuition are supported 
by the several States. In the American 
Asylum and the New York institution an 
advanced course occupying three years was 
established in 1854; and in 1864 the 
National Deaf Mute College was organized, 
as a department of the Columbia institution 
at Washington. It has the usual college 
classes, with a course of study occupying 
four years, closely following that of our 
best colleges. The success of the institu- 
tion in Washington, and the establishment 
of the National College, is mainly due to a 
son (E. M. Gallaudet, LL.D.) of Thomas H. 
Gallaudet. 

By the census of 1870, the number of 
deaf and dumb persons in the United 
States returned that date (July, 1870,) is 
16,205, of whom 14,869 were native, and 
1,336 of foreign birth. This is probably 
considerably below the actual number, which 
is probably not much below 20,000, or one 
to every 2,000 inhabitants. Of these 4,000, 
or a fraction more, were under instruction 
at that time, probably nearly all who were 
of school age — for the per centage of illit- 
erate deaf mutes is verv small. 



ALPHABET OF THE DEAF AND DUMB. 

a b c d • 








f g 








k 1 m 










u v 







xf 





1002 bell's visible speech. 



In 1865, Mr. A. Melville Bell, Professor of Vocal Physiology in England, announced in a pamphlet en- 
titled "IV.v//</< Speech: A New Fact Demonstrated," that he had discovered the true organic relations of 
speech sounds, and had invented a universal alphabet based upon his discovery. His new method of 
•writing he termed " Visible Speech," from a peculiarity in the formation of the letters, in this method, 
every letter, and every part ot a letter, has a definite physiological meaning. The elementary lines and 
curves are pictorial of parts of the mouth ; and these are capable of being grouped together into a com- 
pound form, just as the various parts of the mouth are arranged in uttering sound. In this way, the 
inventor claimed he could represent anv sound the human voice could make, so that another person should 
be directed how to utter it. The following diagrams will illustrate the elements of this Alphabet. 
The darkened parts of the diagram (Fig. 1,) are the Visible Speech symbols for the organs of which they 

\ are the outlines. These symbols arc written sepa- 

\ rately, and in one line, at the lower part of the 

\ diagram. They indicate respectively, as they 

stand, beginning at the left hand, the throat, the 
back of the tongue, the top of the tongue, the point 
of the tongue, the lower lip, and the nose. 

The sign for the throat, (the straight line) repre- 
;' sents a mere chink or slit in the throat, and is 

\j\ ', pictorial of the vocalizing condition of the glottis. 

>^ '' \s it is therefore used to denote " voice." 

The sign for the nose is, in reality, pictorial of 

j ,'»'~^ the uvula, the pendulous extremity of the soft 

^ y J palate. When the soft palate is depressed, the 

breath passes up behind it, and escapes through 

the nostrils. When it is raised, the communication 

/ between nose and mouth is cut off. 

Hence the application of a symbol originally 

---"' pictorial of the soft palate to the nose. 

Its strict scientific meaning is, — " soft palate de- 
pressed ;" but it will be more popularly under- 
stood as " air passing through the nostrils." 

At the lower part of Fig. 1 are two additional 



)> 



c 



(i " v __ f^ \ j. f _ [J '• back of the tongue." The combination 

~ N w^ " " V-^ / k— ' k—/ indicated by the plus sign stands after the 

sign of equality, being a crescent protracted 



If \ i symbols, like parenthesis laid horizontally. The 

( ^^ > ^_ | ^ J ) first of these is intended to convey the idea of a 

pipe ; and the second exhibits this pipe closed at 

om end. The first is used to denote a narrow pas- 

/ ^ mm ^ ^"l sage in the mouth, through which the breath may 

^_ ^ •>*_•! pass ; and the second, complete closure of 'the passage. 

"Figure 2 illustrates the combination of these signs. The first compounded symbol indicates " a narrow 

passage" for the breath, over (plus) the 
u back of the tongue." The combination 
indicated by the pins sign stands after the 
sign of equality, being a crescent protracted 

)i^— v , l^\ t0 " three-fourths of a circle. This is the 

+ + 4" i = i "J position of the mouth in sounding ch (Ger- 

l> — ■"' ' ' N»- • man), in the word nUc%. 

The second symbol (lip plus closure) directs Us to "close" the "lips." This position is assumed by 
the mouth in uttering: a word commencing with^j, — e. g., paper. The third symbol (lip plus closure plus 
voice plus nose) indicates that the "lips" are to he "closed," and the voice passed through the "nose." 
The symbols in Figure 3, describe certain positions of the mouth which yield sounds. The reader can, 

3 it is presumed, readily analyze them from 

/ \ /^\ f~^ the preceding figures. 

\_jJ \ J \^, Key words are so variously pronounced 

Blowing r (French) h (English) ch (German) by different .speakers, as to be, in many 

to cool. theatre. Aue. nacft. eases, worthless as a means ot identifying 

3 \ ^TN •— sounds. 

/ ■ 1 ff) t_ They are, therefore, omitted in the pres- 

VlX V ' V— ' ent instance, except in those cases where 

■to (German) r (English) y(English) — they will be likclv to assist the reader. 

wie - run - y° a - The fact that the Visible Speech symbols 

1 — T *+<l •"S exhibit to the eye all the relations the 

\\j \ ' / ("" J sounds themselves do to the ear, ami that 

^■^ ^ ' ■ — ■* the organic relations are just as clearly 

pin pen. t in tea. ft in fcey. g^own, W JV] De obvioUS by a comparison 



exhibit to the eye^ all the relations the 

D D Q a 



of the characters for 

P B M 

T D N 

K G NG. 



6in6ay. din day. g- in g-ay. 

Comparing these ns thus plated, Visible Speech 



3 © CD G-wsg 

^-^ ^"^ ^—l- As B is to M 



in in some. 



signs sny thut- 

is to B, so is T to D, and K 10 G. 

D to N. ami G to NG. 
As P is to T, so is B to D, and M to N. 
As P is to K, so is B to G, and M to NG., &c, &c. 



P, B, and M have the "lip" and "shut" signs in common; and in sounding all, the lips are shut. 

T, D, N, agree in shutting oil' the breath by means of the point of the tongue, and K, G, NG, in the 
■closing action being performed by the back of the tongue. 

Furthermore, the sounds P, T, K (represented by the same symbol turned in different directions | are 
made by the same organic action performed at different parts of the mouth; so with B, D, G, and M, A, AG. 



PROFESSIONAL AND SPECIAL EDUCATION. 



1003 



(2.) Schools and Institutions for the Instruction of 
the Blind. 

The instruction of the blind had never 
been attempted on any considerable scale, 
in any part of the world, before the Abbe 
Valentin Ilaiiy, in 1784, commenced in 
Paris, France, his private school for 
blind pupils. Individuals who were blind 
had indeed educated themselves by the 
assistance of friends ; but the great ma- 
jority of those who suffered from this 
affliction were left to a life of depend- 
ence and depression, and often became beg- 
gars. The efforts of Ilaiiy, and his inven- 
tion of an embossed alphabet, to enable the 
blind to read, led to the foundation of a 
scliool for the blind in Paris, supported by 
the French government, in 1791, and to the 
organization of similar schools in England, 
Prussia, Austria, and Russia, about the same 
period. In these schools, reading and 
music, and some of the simpler mechanic 
arts, such as knitting, mat-weaving, basket- 
making, etc., were taught. 

The first systematic efforts for the educa- 
tion of the blind in the United States were 
made in Boston in 1829. Dr. John D. 
Fisher, a young physician of that city, while 
studying his profession in Paris had visited 
repeatedly the Institute for the Blind, and 
was inspired with the determination to at- 
tempt their instruction at home. On his 
return to America he associated himself 
with a half-dozen benevolent gentlemen of 
Boston, among whom was William H. 
Prescott, the eminent historian, who was 
himself partially blind. These gentlemen 
having heard Dr. Fisher's narrative of what 
had been accomplished in the institution at 
Paris, procured from the Massachusetts 
Legislature in March, 1829, a charter for an 
institution to be called "The New England 
Asylum for the Blind," and at once under- 
took to raise money for buildings and en- 
dowment. The gift by Col. Thomas II. 
Perkins of his valuable mansion house and 
lands in Pearl street, Boston, to the asylum, 
on condition that *o0,000 should be raised 
by others, soon led to its liberal endowment, 
and to the change of its corporate name to 
* "The Perkins Institution and Massachusetts 
Asylum for the Blind." It was not formal- 
ly opened until 1831, when Dr. Samuel (i. 
Howe, another young physician of Boston. 
who had been actively engaged in extending 
succor to the Greeks in their efforts to throw 



off the Turkish yoke, and who passing 
through Paris on his return from the I 
had devoted careful attention to the 
methods of the French Institute for the 
Blind, took charge of it. and has continued 
in its superintendence for more than forty 
years, The institution received grants from 
the Massachusetts and other Neu England 
Legislatures in proportion to the number 
of beneficiaries received. These granti 
now amount to about $37,000 per annum. 
The genius and ability of I »r. El owe in the 

management of the institution, and in in- 
spiring other men with his own enthusiasm, 

and his remarkable success in educating 
Laura Bridgeman, a blind deaf mute, has 
secured for the instil ution the continued sup- 
port of the benevolent and the Legislature, 
tor all needful modifications of the Bystem. 

In 1831, Dr. Samuel Akerly, already 
well-known for his efforts in behalf of the 
deaf and dumb, Mr. Samuel Wood, a benev- 
olent member of the Society of Friends, 
and several other gentlemen of New York, 
became interested in the condition of blind 
children in the alms-house, and made appli- 
cation to the New York Legislature for an 
act of incorporation for an institution for 
for the blind, which was granted. Securing 
the services of Dr. John D. Russ, another 
young physician whose aggressive benevo- 
lence, like that of Dr. Qowe, had enlisted 
him in the cause of the Greeks, they com- 
menced at first in a very humble way the 
instruction of the blind pauper children in 
the city of New York. This institution, like 
that of Boston, has grown to be one of the 
largest in the world. Dr. Buss withdrew 
from its superintendence after a few j 
but is still its warm and efficient friend. 

In Philadelphia, Robert Vaux, a wealthy 
and benevolent Friend, and others who were 
like-minded, after two or three years of ex- 
ertion succeeded in 1833 in establishing an 
institution for the blind, which was at first 
under the charge of an able ami intelligent 
Prussian, Mr. Julius Friedlander, who had 
been one of the teachers of the blind in 
Berlin under the direction of the celebrated 
Zeune. -Mr. Friedlander'a death, in l 
was a severe blow to the institution, and tor 
the next ten years, under a variety of super- 
intendents, it did not attain to a great suc- 
cess, but with the appointment of its present 
able and efficient superintendent, William 

Chapin, LL1>, it common 1 a new career, 

and is now second to no institution for the 



1004 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



Llind in the world in its successful manage- 
ment, and the great amount of good it is per- 
forming. It has connected with it an Indus- 
trial Home for the Blind, intended for the in- 
firm and aged as well as for those who are ca- 
pable of partially supporting themselves. It 
is open under certain restrictions to graduates 
of blind institutions — those of the Philadel- 
phia institution having the preference. The 
pupils of the Philadelphia institution are 
very well educated in music, and its weekly 
concerts are largely attended by the best 
musical connoisseurs of the city, and have 
proved a considerable source of revenue. 

In 1837, the Ohio institution was estab- 
lished at Columbus, and though passing 
through many changes and vicissitudes, it 
now takes a high rank. The department 
for the blind in the institution for the deaf, 
dumb and blind at Staunton, Va., was or- 
ganized, January, 1840. Between 1842 and 
1850, six more institutions for the blind 
were established, viz., the Kentucky Insti- 
tution at Louisville in 1842, the Tennessee 
Institution at Nashville in 1844, the North 
Carolina Institution at Raleigh in 1846, the 
Indiana Institution at Indianapolis in 1847, 
the Illinois Institution at Jacksonville in 
1849, and the South Carolina Institution for 
the Deaf, Dumb and Blind at Cedar Springs 
the same year. The Wisconsin Institution 
was founded at Janesville, in 1850. There 
are now twenty-seven of these institutions 
in the United States, having an aggregate of 
about 2,200 pupils. 

The whole number of blind persons in 
the United States, according to the census 
of 1870, is 20,320, of whom 17,043 are 
natives and 3,277 of foreign birth. This 
includes, of course, many persons who have 
become blind in adult age, and who there- 
fore were not suitable candidates for in- 
struction in this class of institutions. Still 
it is believed that the proportion of blind 
youth who receive instruction to the whole 
number is not nearly so great as of the deaf 
mutes. Begging is so ready and profitable 
a resource for the blind that a very consid- 
erable proportion, especially of those of 
foreign birth or parentage adopt it. The 
table appended gives many particulars in 
regard to the blind institutions in this 
country. 

The education of the blind in the Euro- 
pean institutions is for the most part con- 
fined to the mere rudiments of knowledge 
except in music, which is in some of them 



taught very successfully. They are gener- 
ally instructed in some handicraft by which 
they may partially or wholly support them- 
selves. In the United States, while the 
technical and musical education have not 
been neglected, they are generally very well 
taught in the studies which belong to what 
we are accustomed to call secondary educa- 
tion. The period of instruction varies in 
the different institutions from five to eight 
years. In most of the larger and older 
institutions it is eight years, and includes a 
course of mathematics and belles-lettres, 
but does not usually include the languages, 
though in two or three French is taught. 
There is usually much attention given to 
musical instruction, both vocal and instru- 
mental, for which most of the blind possess 
a remarkable aptitude. Work-rooms are 
attached to all the institutions, in which the 
pupils are employed for some hours every 
day in the manufacture of mattresses, mats, 
tidies, baskets, paper-boxes, brooms, 
brushes, or the simpler articles of cabinet 
work. 

The first efforts of the American instruct- 
ors of the blind were devoted to the im- 
provement of the alphabet of raised letters, 
used in printing for the blind, with a view 
to the preparation of books for them. 
There were considerable difficulties to be 
overcome in the accomplishment of this 
work ; the letters must have salient angles ; 
each letter must differ sufficiently from 
every other to be easily recognized by the 
touch ; yet the size of the letters must be 
small, or the books printed for the blind 
would be too cumbrous and expensive. 
The forms of letters used in Europe did not 
answer these requirements satisfactorily. 
Haiiy's type, if well embossed, could be 
read with tolerable facility, but it was m ch 
too large, and its size could not be reduced 
without impairing its legibility ; Guillie's 
was not legible at all ; Gall's varied too 
much from the ordinary form of letter to be 
desirable, and the other attempts at uniting 
the requisite qualities failed. Each of the 
three American superintendents devoted his 
leisure to the work. Mr. Friedlander de- 
vised an alphabet, known in England as the 
Allston or Sans-serif Alphabet, neat in form 
and easily read, but somewhat too large ; 
Dr. Russ invented one combining the ad- 
vantages of Gall's triangular alphabet with, 
the lllyrian letter, and with characters to 
make it phonetic, but it was somewhat de- 






PROFESSIONAL AND SPECIAL EDUCATION. 



1005 



fcctivc in legibility; and Dr. Bowe, after 

repeated trials, constructed what is now 
known as the Boston letter, which in size, 
distinctness, and legibility so far surpassed 
every previous effort, that it lias now come 
into general use in Europe and America. 

The great cost of printing, or rather em- 
bossing, works for the blind has rendered 
the supply scanty, and the number of books 
small. The American Bible Society has 
printed an edition of the Scriptures in the 
Boston letter, a benevolent gentleman hav- 
ing made a bequest to cover the cost of the 
plates, and from time to time grants are 
made to institutions for the blind. The 
American Tract Society has also printed a 
few of its smaller books in the same letter. 
Aside from these there are less than one 
hundred books printed or embossed for the 
blind. Among this small number are some 
text-books, a cyclopaedia to be completed in 
twenty volumes, but not yet, we believe, 
quite finished, some volumes of poems, <fcc. 

Owing, probably, to their high cost and 
great bulk, the blind after leaving the insti- 
tutions seldom use any of the books in the 
raised letter except the Scriptures, their te- 
nacious memory enabling them to retain 
most of what is read to them by others. 

Writing has always been a difficult and 
irksome task to the blind ; and various de- 
vices have been proposed to facilitate this 
labor, but hardly any of them have proved 
satisfactory. The plan adopted by the late 
William H. Prescott of using a frame of 
wires over the paper, enabled him to write 
in straight lines, but no corrections could be 
made, nor could the scribe read what he 
had written. The use of inks which would 
leave an elevated surface has been tried, 
but without much satisfaction ; small print- 
ing machines have also been used, but are 
not convenient. 

Within a few years past another process 
has been introduced, which, despite the ap- 
parent objections to it, proves far more 
serviceable and convenient than any other 
yet devised. By this invention, known as 
"Braille's system," from its inventor, M. 
Louis Braille", a French teacher of the blind, 
or rather by an American modification of it, 
they are soon enabled to read and write 
with great facility, and by the addition of a 
single character, music can be printed or 
copied by the blind far more readily than a 
seeing person can do it in the ordinary way. 
The plan is based upon a series of funda- 



mental Bigns, comprising the firsl ten letters 
of the alphabet ; none of these consist 

less than two nor •.■ than four d..ts. \ 

second series is formed by placing one dot 
at the left of each fundamental Bign ; a third 
by placing two dots under each sign; a 
fourth by placing one dol under the right 
of each. These signs designate, besides 

the alphabet, the double V0Wel8, peculiar ' 

compound Bounds like //,, and the marks of 
punctuation. By prefixing a sign consisting 
of three dots, the fundamental Bigns are 
used as numerals; by prefixing another the 
last seven represent musical characters, and 
by a sign peculiar to each octave the neces- 
sity of designating the key to each musical 
sentence is avoided. It consists of a board, 
in a frame like that of a double slate, the sur- 
face of which is grooved horizontally and ver- 
tically by lines one-eighth of an inch apart; 
on this the paper i> fastened by shutting 
down the upper half of the frame, and the 
points arc made with an awl or bodkin, 
through a piece of tin perforated with bix 
holes, an eighth of an inch apart. The 
perforations are made from righl to left, in 
order that the writing when reversed may 
read from left to right Books ami m 
arc now printed for the blind on this Bystem. 
Most of the larger institutions have adopt- 
ed it. 

Dr. John D. Ruse, the first superintendent 
of the New York institution, has invented 
an "improved Braille system," which Beems 
to possess some advantages over this, 
but it has not been adopted, 80 far a- we 
have learned, b\" anv of the school- for the 
blind. 

Attempts have been made to furnish em- 
ployment on a large scale to the blind and 
pay wages which should be sufficient for 
their support, or equalize their condition 
with that of seeing persons engaged in 
mechanical labor; bul such efforts have 
always failed, ami in the nature of the 

must do so; for the deprivation of Bight, 

though partially compensated by the greater 
activity of other senses, is too serious a 

defect to allow the blind an even start in the 
race for a livelihood with the seeing, and BO 
long as the rate of wages are BUch that 
only an exceptionally active and enter- 
prising mechanic, who has hi-- eyesight, 
can make anything more than a liveli- 
hood, the blind, laboring under so many 
disadvantages, musl ly fall behind 

in the race. 



1006 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



(3.) Institutions for the Education and Training of 
Idiots and Imbeciles. 

These institutions are wholly the out- 
growth of the philanthropy of the nineteenth 
century. No successful attempt had ever 
been made before the year 1838 to rouse 
and bring into activity the arrested mental 
development of the idiotic child. It is true 
that the benevolent and philanthropic St. 
Vincent de Paul, the founder of the order 
of Lazarists, gathered into his monastery a 
number of idiotic and imbecile youth, and 
by care and tenderness sought to improve 
their wretched condition, but he had no idea 
of their real condition or of the principles 
on which alone a successful treatment of 
their cases was possible. Itard, Pinel, Es- 
querol, and other names illustrious in psy- 
chological science, had all grappled with 
this difficult problem of the true method of 
reaching the idiot and raising him up to 
self-control, and all had failed. It was re- 
served for a young French physician, Dr. 
Edouard Seguin, a pupil of Itard, to solve 
this problem. He gathered a few idiotic 
children in Paris, and proceeding on the 
principle that idiocy was an arrested devel- 
opment, a prolonged infancy, in which the 
infantile grace and intelligence having passed 
away, the feeble muscular development 
and mental weakness of that earliest 
stage of growth alone remained, he ques- 
tioned nature as to her processes of devel- 
opment of the infant, and of elevation and 
education of the physical, mental, and moral 
powers. He found in idiot children the in- 
fantile fondness for bright colors, and availed 
himself of it to teach them the distinctions 
of color and form ; he noticed their liking 
for playthings, and furnished them with 
builders' blocks, cups and balls, and other 
toys, by which he could instruct them in 
numbers, shape, and size ; he developed vo- 
lition, by simple physical movements, by 
molding the hand to grasp objects, the lips 
to utter sounds, by moving the lower limbs 
up, down, backward, forward, and laterally, 
by compelling them to take a step or raise 
hand or foot, at a signal or word of com- 
mand ; by the use of dumb-bells, and an in- 
finite variety of processes repeated almost 
an infinite number of times ; then words 
were taught with the aid of pictures, and 
new ideas, at first concrete, and afterward 
those of an abstract character, were instilled 
into their minds as fast as they could com- 



prehend them. With all these, and beyond 
them, the moral nature was gradually roused 
by the simplest instruction and the influence 
of a pure example. The process was slow, 
and the difficulties to be conquered many, 
but Dr. Seguin persevered and triumphed. 
His processes were submitted to the most 
careful scrutiny by a committee of the 
French Institute, and by numerous teachers 
and psychologists who had become inter- 
ested in it; but all resulted in the convic- 
tion that he alone had hit upon the philo- 
sophic and only practicable mode of rousing 
and developing these dormant natures. He 
continued to teach idiotic children in Paris 
with great success for ten years, and pub- 
lished several works on the subject of their 
education. His " Moral Treatment, Hygiene, 
and Education of Idiots," published in 1846, 
was recognized by all psychologists as the 
ablest and most philosophical work on that 
subject. In 1848, Dr. Seguin came to the 
United States, and of his labors here we 
shall speak further on. In 1836, Dr. Louis 
Guggenbiihl, a Swiss physician, commenced 
his experiments on the education and train- 
ing of cretins in Switzerland ; the cretin 
being a somewhat deformed and physically 
helpless creature, his mental and moral de- 
velopment arrested in consequence of dis- 
ease, impure air and water, but really a more 
tractable subject than the idiot. These ex- 
periments were conducted on the Abend- 
berg, near the Interlaken, for fifteen or twenty 
years, with considerable success, and a num- 
ber of institutions for cretins were started ; 
but Dr. Guggenbiihl seemed to fail in com- 
prehending the true principle of rousing 
these cases of arrested development, and 
after a time his institution was given up, and 
some of his cretins went back to their old 
life of squalor and mendicity. In England 
and Scotland the fruits of Dr. Seguin's phi- 
losophical treatises and successful teaching 
were seen in the organization of schools and 
asylums for idiots at Highgate, Colchester, 
Baldovan, Edinburgh, and elsewhere. 

In the United States, attention was first 
called to the subject by the eloquent letters 
of Mr. George Sumner to one of the Boston 
papers, describing his visits to the schools 
of Dr. Seguin and M. Vallee, in Paris. 
These letters were published in 1845, and 
the attention of Dr. S. 13. Woodward, of 
Worcester, Dr. F. F. Backus, of Rochester, 
N. Y., and Dr. S. G. Howe, of the Blind 
Institution at Boston, were called to them. 



PROFESSIONAL AND SPECIAL EDUCATION-. 



1007 



Dr. Backus, then a State senator in the New 
York legislature, brought in a bill to the 
Senate for the establishment of an institu- 
tion for the training of idiots, during the 
session of 1846, and Dr. Howe procured tin' 
appointment of a commission to investigate 
the condition of idiots in Massachusetts, the 
same winter. Both these movements event- 
ually resulted in the establishment of insti- 
tutions for the training of idiots. — in Massa- 
chusetts in 1848, and in New York, by rea- 
son of opposition, not until 1851. Mean- 
time a young physician of Barre, Mass., Dr. 
Ilcrvey B. Wilbur, had opened a private 
school for idiot children in his own house, 
in July, 1848, and was endeavoring to put 
in practice the principles of Seguin. The 
Massachusetts Experimental School, which 
in 1851 became a permanent " School for 
Idiotic and Feeble Minded Youth," was first 
organised in South Boston in October, 1848. 
As we have said, Dr. Seguin visited the 
United States in 1848, and after spending a 
little time at South Boston and at Barre, re- 
turned to France, but in 1851 came again 
to this country, which has since been his 
home. The New York institution, started 
at Albany in 1851, was organized by Dr. 
Wilbur, who has been for almost twenty- 
two years (1873) its head, while Dr. George 
Brown succeeded him at Barre. The pres- 
ence and aid of Dr. Seguin in these schools 
at their beginning was of inestimable value. 
He imbued the superintendents and teachers 
with his enthusiasm and patience as well as 
with his principles of education, and the 
really remarkable success of the American 
schools for training idiot children, a success 
vastly greater than has been attained in 
other countries, is due, in large measure, to 
the admirable w 7 orks and still more admira- 
ble drill of the teachers and pupils in their 
presence, by Dr. Seguin. Undoubtedly he 
found in these teachers and superintendents 
those who were apt to learn, and who pos- 
sessed the ability to carry out successfully 
the principles which he had imparted ; but 
very few have the good fortune to be in- 
structed by so skillful a teacher. After de- 
voting several years to the promotion of 
these institutions, and the still wider intro- 
duction of the physiological method of edu- 
cation, Dr. Seguin settled in the practice of 
his profession, at first in Portsmouth, Ohio, 
and subsequently in New York city ; but 
that he has not lost his interest in the edu- 
cation of idiots is evident from his publica- 



tions on that subject — "Idiocy and its 

Treatraenl b\ the Physiological Mel 

(180ti) ; and - New Facta Concerning Id- 
iocy" (1868). lie is now engaged in ap- 
plying the same principles toihe education 
of children generally. 

The "Pennsylvania Training School for 
Feeble Minded Children," at Media, was or- 
ganized at first at Germantown, in I 853, by 
Mr. .J. B. Richards, \\ bo was fora time a teach- 
er in the South Boston school, and was as- 
sisted, after its establishment in the building 
erected by the State for its accommod 
at Media, by Dr. Seguin. It is now one of 
the largest of this class of institutions. 

The ( Miio Asylum for [mbecile and I 
Minded Youth," at Columbus, was founded 
in 1857, and the Kentucky Institution, at 
Frankfort, about the same time. The Con- 
necticut Institution (private), at Lakeville, was 
opened in 1858, by Dr. Knight ; and the Illi- 
nois Asylum for Idiots, at Jacksonville, in 
1865. There are now in actual operation, 
under State organization or aid, nine insti- 
tutions, and others will soon be formed. 

Dr. Seguin lays down in his work on 
" Idiocy " a distinction which is worth ob- 
serving, viz., that the imbecile, though appa- 
rently more promising, is really a more 
hopeless subject for treatment than the help- 
less and wholly undeveloped idiot. Epilepsy 
too, which often accompanies imbecility, and 
sometimes idiocy, is an almost fatal harrier 
to improvement. It is, then, an encouraging 
result that, taking, as the State institutions 
do take, all classes, from seventy to eighty 
per cent, are very greatly improved, and 
from twenty-five to thirty peT cent, become 
self-supporting, and as intelligent and sound 
of mind as the average of working men. 
Several have distinguished themselves by 
fidelity and good conduct in very trying po- 
sitions. About 3,000 have been disn 
as decidedly improved and benefited since 
the opening of these institutions, and more 
than nine hundred are now under instruction. 

The census i<i' 1870 gives the whole num- 
ber of idiotic persons in the United v 
as 24,ol'7, but on this subject the returns 
are D01 ven reliable. The demented and 
fatuous are included, and probablj 

many who, though, to use an old Saxon 
word, undervrittea, are vet far from being 
idiotic. On the other hand, man] occentrio, 
feeble-minded, ami perhaps really idiotic 

children, are omitted in conseqnen f the 

pride and sensitiveness of parents and 



1008 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



friends. The table appended gives many 
particulars of the Idiot Asylums. 

(4.) Hospitals and Asylums for the Insane. 

We shall not discuss here the influence 
which Education exerts in producing or in- 
creasing insanity ; that it does exert some 
influence to that effect is universally admit- 
ted ; but it will be found to be mostly in 
two directions ; one, where the culture of 
the faculties is not uniform in its character, 
and the mind is, consequently, not well bal- 
anced, some faculties being overstrained, 
and others comparatively undeveloped ; the 
other, where from too close application, or 
inordinate ambition for acquiring knowl- 
edge, the physical powers are neglected, and 
disease or infirmity of the body, induced by 
insufficient exercise and recreation, commu- 
nicates itself to the overwrought brain and 
causes the worst and most hopeless form of 
insanity. We do not believe, however, that 
hard study ever killed a man or made him 
insane unless it was coupled with violation 
of the physiological laws of life and health. 

But it is not these connections of insanity 
with intellectual culture that we have here 
to discuss. We are only called to notice the 
instances, still rare, though much more com- 
mon than they were, where the prosecution 
of some studies, the exercises of a school, or 
the use of what may be called educational 
appliances or adjuvants, have been resorted 
to as means of " ministering to a mind dis- 
eased ;" and, we may be pardoned if we 
allude incidentally to the great and benefi- 
cial influence which the wide diffusion of 
education, especially of scientific education, 
has had in the amelioration of the treatment 
of the insane, within the past fifty years. 

The cruelty with which the insane were 
treated from fifty to eighty years ago may 
well excite our wonder and horror. The 
poor unfortunate, bereft of reason, was, 
while in that condition, an object of both 
terror and loathing ; the notion had gained 
credence that the mortification of the body 
by whipping and beating was the readiest 
cure for the affliction, and blows and lashes 
were rained upon him till his tormenters 
were weary with their exertions; the poor 
victim was chained, exposed to the intense" 
cold of winter and the equally intense heat 
of summer with but scanty and filthy rai- 
ment ; their food was coarse and repulsive, 
and their whole condition one fitted to ex- 
cite the pity of the hardest heart. The 
few asylums for lunatics, and they were very 



few in this country, resorted to chains and 
handcuffs, to harsh treatment and prison 
fare, though they were better than the alms- 
houses, jails, and private pens in which the 
great mass of the insane were confined. 
But under the lead of Dr. Eli Todd, in the 
Connecticut Retreat for the Insane, in 1823, 
a wiser system of treatment was inaugurated, 
and the blessed results of kindness and ten- 
derness, combined with a better knowledge 
of the nervous system, and its connection 
with the abnormal manifestations of insanity, 
has revolutionized the condition of institu- 
tions devoted to this class of unfortunates. 
Great efforts have been made within a few 
years past to draw the thoughts away from 
the delusions and hallucinations connected 
with its disordered condition, and to cause 
it to occupy itself with some form of study 
or mental exercise. In some of the Insane 
hospitals there are classes, where often both 
teacher and taught are patients ; in others 
there are courses of scientific lectures ; in 
others the study of our own literature and 
that of other nations is encouraged ; some 
pursue art studies, or practice drawing, 
painting or designing; others are pursuing 
philological studies ; for still others, physi- 
cal science in some of its branches is a favo- 
rite pursuit ; while to many horticulture, the 
care and rearing of plants and flowers, or 
the exercises and games of the gymnasium, 
afford the needed recreation. Libraries and 
reading-rooms have come to be a necessity 
for these hospitals, and in most cases nearly 
all the patients avail themselves of them. 
One result of this great change in the meth- 
ods of treatment has been to increase greatly 
the number of cures of insane persons. 
Another apparent but probably not real re- 
sult has been the increase of the number of 
insane patients. New Asylums or Hospitals 
for the insane are constantly erected, and no 
sooner are they completed than they are 
filled to overflowing. Yet it is not so much 
that there is such a rapid increase in the 
number of the insane, as that old cases, 
hitherto concealed, are constantly coming to 
light, under this humane treatment. There 
is undoubtedly a considerable increase in 
the number of the insane, the ratio of in- 
crease being probably somewhat greater 
than that of the general population, a con- 
sequence of the existing fast, pushing life of 
our people; but many thousands of the in- 
sane are now treated in hospitals, who, 
under the old regime, would have been con- 



PROFESSIONAL AND SPECIAL EDUCATION. 



1009 



ccaled in their homes, and their disease, and 
even their existence hardly known to the 
most intimate friends of the family. The 
great desideratum now is a Training School 
for attendants and nurses for this class of 
patients, as was suggested by Dr. Todd in 
1830, and the introduction of Charitable 
Orders into their management, like that 
which has charge of the Mount Hope in- 
stitution near Baltimore, Maryland. 

The census of 1870 gives the whole num- 
ber of insane persons in the United States 
as 37,382, of whom 26,161 are natives and 
11,221 of foreign birth. This is probably 
not far from the truth, certainly not in ex- 
cess of it. The number of insane hospitals 
in the United States in 1870 was 58, and 
four or rive have been opened since. The 
number of patients was in 1870 15,598. It 
is probably now (1873) at least 17,000. 
Very many incurable cases, where the in- 
sanity is of a mild type, are at large, and 
many more are in alms-houses. In Massa- 
chusetts and New York, as well as in some 
of the Western States, there are in many of 
the larger alms-houses departments for in- 
curable insane paupers. 

XI. PREVENTIVE AND REFORMATORY SCHOOLS AND 
INSTITUTIONS. 

Although there are occasional indications 
that individual philanthropists, like the be- 
nevolent Cardinal Odescalchi at Rome, and 
Sir Matthew Hale in England, had clear per- 
ceptions of the evil of leaving vagrant and 
morally endangered children as well as ju- 
venile delinquents, exposed to the tempta- 
tions to a vicious life, yot apart from a school 
established partially for them by the former 
in 1586, there seems to have been no serious 
movement in their behalf prior to the es- 
tablishment of the school and home for 
vagrant and vicious boys at Rome, by 
Giovauni Borgi, (better known as Tata 
Giovanni, or Papa John,) in 1786 or 1787, 
and the organization of the "Philanthropic 
Society for the Prevention of Crime " at 
London in 1788. This last, originally es- 
tablished on the family plan, soon became a 
large establishment, in which a great number 
of boys were congregated and employed in 
different branches of manufacture, having 
also a probationary school of reform for the 
more vicious and criminal of its inmates. 
In 1846, a large farm was purchased at Red 
Hill, near Keigate, Surrey, agriculture and 
horticulture were substituted for mechanical 
and manufacturing pursuits, aud the family 



system for the congregated. Since that 
period the number of family reformatories, 
as they are called, has greatly increased in 
J Ireal Britain. < >n the continent the em- 
inent success of the agricultural and horti- 
cultural reformatories of Mcttray, Born, 
Ruysselede, and many others of morer 
origin, has attracted general attention. 

In this country the firsl institution in- 
tended for the reformation of vicious and 
criminal children, was the " New York 
House of Refuge tor Juvenile Delinqm 
incorporated in L 824, and opened January 
1,1825. Its founders were John Griscom, 
Isaac Collins, James W. Gerard, and li 
Maxwell, all at the time members or a 
"Society for the Prevention of Pauperism 

and Crime," which had I u formed in 

1818. The institution thus founded has 
had a steady growth, as the rapid inci 
of population in the city has Keen attended 
by a more than corresponding augmenta- 
tion of the number of juvenile delinquents. 
At the end of forty-eight years from its first 
opening it occupies a tract of thirty-seven 
and a half acres on the southern end of 
Randall's Island, in the East River, and its 
colossal buildings, erected at an expense of 
over five hundred thousand dollars, furnish 
ample accommodations for school-rooms, 

lodging-rooms, dining-room8, and work-hops 
for 1,000 children, aud usually have in the 
institution more than 900. 

In 1826, a "House of Reformation," on 
a similar plan, was established in Boston, 
and, in 1828, a "House of Refuge" in 
Philadelphia. Similar institutions have 
since been organized in New Orleans, Roch- 
ester, N. Y., Westboro', Mass., Cincinnati, 
Providence, Pittsburg, West Meriden, Conn., 
St. Louis, Baltimore, Louisville, and perhaps 
some other points in different States. 

The distinguishing characteristics of 1 
institutions are, that those committed to 

them have generally been arrested for 

crime, and have either been sentenced to 
the House of Refuge, in lieu of a Bent 
to jail or state prison, or have been sent to 
these institutions without Bentonce, in the 
hope of their reformation. They are sup- 
ported, directly or indirectly from the publlO 
treasury, (the New York house receives an 

appropriation of |40 for each child from the 

3tate treasury, from |15,( to |2< 

from the city treasury, and a large sum from 
theatrical licenses). In most, or all of them, 
the children are employed in BOme branch 



1010 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



of manufacture, or some mechanic art, for 
from five to eight hours per day, and receive 
from three to five hours' instruction in 
school. In all there is more or less religious 
and moral instruction imparted, having in 
view their permanent reformation from evil 
habits and practices. In all, or nearly all, 
they are confined at night in cell-like dor- 
mitories, into which they are securely 
locked, and their labor, during the day, is 
under strict supervision, and is generally 
farmed out to contractors. High walls and 
a strict police are mainly relied on to pre- 
vent escape, and the attempt to do so, or 
any act of insubordination, is usually pun- 
ished with considerable though not perhaps 
unmerited severity. The managers gener- 
ally possess and exercise the power of in- 
denturing those children who, after a longer 
or shorter stay, seem to be reformed, even 
though the period of their sentence has not 
been completed. A considerable number 
who have been sent to the House of Refuge 
on complaint of their parents, are, after a 
time, delivered to them on application ; but 
a large proportion of these do not do well. 
Of the others, it is believed that from fifty 
to seventy-five per cent, reform, at least so 
far as to become quiet and law-abiding citi- 
zens. Of those who do not reform, some, 
after discharge at the end of their term, are 
soon recommitted ; others are sent to sea, and 
perhaps amid the hardships of a sailor's life 
become reformed ; others return to the 
vicious associations from which they were 
originally taken, and after a few months or 
years of crime, find their place among the in- 
mates of the county or convict prisons, meet 
a violent death, or fill a drunkard's grave. 

These institutions necessarily combiue too 
much of the character of a prison with that 
of the school, and while their main object 
is the reformation rather than the punish- 
ment of the young offender, they retain so 
many penal features that they are objects 
of dread and dislike to many parents and 
guardians whose children or wards would be 
materially benefited by their discipline. 

This feature of their management has led 
'to the establishment of another class of re- 
formatories which, thouo-h sometimes assum- 
ing similar names, are essentially different 
both in the character of their inmates and 
in the methods adopted for their reforma- 
tion. These methods are indeed quite di- 
verse in the institutions coming under this 
general head, and are to some extent the 



reflection of the differing views of those 
who have charge of them. 

The subjects taken in charge by these re- 
formatories are somewhat younger on the 
average than those of the houses of refuge ; 
they are for the most part only guilty of 
vagrancy and the vicious habits of a street 
life, or at the worst, of petty pilferings and 
thefts ; they have not been, in most in- 
stances, tried for any crime against the laws, 
or if they have, their tender age has justified 
the magistrate in withholding a sentence. 

When admitted to the reformatory, which 
is usually done on a magistrate's warrant, 
they undergo a thorough ablution, and are 
clothed in plain, neat garments having no 
distinguishing mark, are well fed, and care- 
fully taught and watched over, and the ut- 
most pains are taken to eradicate their evil 
habits, and to make them feel that their 
teachers and those who have them in charge 
are their best friends and seek their good. 
Their past history is never alluded to, and is 
generally known only to the superintendent. 
In these establishments there are no dormi- 
tory cells, and severe punishment is seldom 
found necessary. The labor of the pupils is 
seldom regarded as a matter of much im- 
portance, though in some instances three, 
four, or five hours a day are spent in some 
light employment. From these institutions 
escapes are unfrequent, and in most cases 
the children form a strong attachment for 
their teachers. In some instances they are 
broken up into groups or families of twenty 
or thirty persons, each having its " house 
father " and mother, and its " elder brother," 
if the pupils are boys, and its matron or 
" mother," and eldest sister or aunt, if they 
are girls. These officers teach them and 
perform the duties indicated by their titles 
in such a way as to supply, as far as possi- 
ble, the place of those natural relations of 
whose judicious influence they are deprived. 
One of these reformatories is a ship, and the 
pupils are taught all the duties required of 
an able-bodied seaman, and the order and 
discipline are similar to those of the naval 
school ships. They are taught, in addition 
to ordinary common-school studies, naviga- 
tion, and after a few months' instruction are 
in demand for the mercantile marine, where 
they not unfrequently are rapidly promoted. 

In most of these institutions the pupils 
remain in the reformatory a shorter average 
period than those who are inmates of the 
houses of refuge. In the New York Juve- 



PROFESSIONAL AND SPECIAL EDUCATION. 



1011 



nile Asylum, one of the most successful of 
these reformatories, they are usually inden- 
tured or discharged in six to twelve months. 
These institutions are usually supported by 
the large cities, though in a few instances 
they are State institutions. The labor of 
the children being of but little account, the 
expense per head per annum is somewhat 
greater than in the houses of refuge, but the 
number of reformations is also greater, and 
may with considerable certainty be esti- 
mated at from seventy to eighty per cent. 
Among these institutions we m iv name the 
"New York Juvenile Asylum," the " State 
Industrial School for Girls " at Lancaster, 
Mass., the " Massachusetts School Ship," the 
"Asylum and Farm School" at Thompson's 
Island, Boston, the "State Reform School" 
at Cape Elizabeth, Maine, . the " Reform 
School " at Chicago, the " Catholic Protec- 
tories" at West Farms, N. Y., the "State 
Reform School " at Waukesha, Wisconsin, 
the " State Reform School " at Des Moines, 
Iowa, and the " State Reform Farm " at 
Lancaster, Ohio. In the last, which is the 
earliest attempt at the introduction of the fam- 
ily or group system for boys in this country, 
fruit culture is a leading employment of the 
inmates, and the term of detention is longer 
than at most of the others. 

In our large cities there is still another 
class of children for whom special preventive 
agencies are necessary ; they are not criminal, 
they have not generally acquired vicious 
habits, but they are every way endangered. 
They are often orphans or half orphans, and 
frequently homeless ; many of them are 
children of foreign parents of the lower 
classes*, and have had no opportunities of 
education ; some are the offspring of vicious 
or intemperate parents. The greater part 
of them obtain a precarious livelihood by 
begging, sweeping crossings, boot-blacking, 
selling newspapers, statuettes, fruit, or small 
wares, or organ-grinding. They are all ex- 
posed to strong temptations to evil, and 
have acquired a kind of defiant independ- 
ence from being driven so early to take 
care of themselves. 

For these children it has been felt that 
some provision must be made to prevent 
them from falling into vicious and criminal 
courses, and to give them the opportunity 
of becoming good and intelligent citizen-. 
It is from the ranks of these and the two 
preceding classes that most of our criminals 
come, and the frequency of burglaries, high- 



way robberies, and crimes against tie' per- 
son, committed by boys and yonthfl from 16 
to 21 yean of age, shows toe necessity of 
continuing a guardianship over <liil<lrcri 
who are under vicious influences, to a- late 
an age as possible. The besl method of ac- 
complishing this desired end ha- often been 
discussed, and various plan- have been tried 
with partial success. < >ne organization, (the 
Children's Aid Society,) with it- congenere 
in other cities, has taken the ground that 
these children could be saved and perma- 
nently reformed by gathering them up, and 
without any special training or attempt- at 
reforming them, sending them to tin- West 
and placing them in good families in the 
cQuntry. With a part of these children, 
those most amenable to good influences, this 
plan has proved beneficial, but the verv large 
class of reckless and morally depraved chil- 
dren, all whose associations bad been impure 
and vicious, have become leaders in iniquity 
wherever they have gone. It should be 
said, in justice to the Children's Aid Society, 
that this deportation of children to the 
West has been but one department of its 
work; that it maintains, also, numerous in- 
dustrial schools, has its boy-' and girls' lodg- 
ing houses, its Newsboys' Lodging Bouse, 
and in many ways seeks to promote the re- 
form and intellectual and moral culture of 
these morally endangered children. Other 
institutions have their schools, homes, and 
missions for these children, where tbey give 
them a good common school education and 
moral training, teach them the rudiments of 
music, employ them in some of the -impler 
trades, and try to rouse their ambition to 
become worthy and intelligent men and 
women. Of this cla-s of reformatories, act- 
ing wholly voluntarily and not sustained 
by States or cities as such, are the Five 
Points Mis-ion, and Five Points Bouse t' 
Industry, The Little Wanderers' Borne, in 
New York, The Children's Aid Society and 
the Industrial Schools of Brooklyn, and 
similar institutions in all our large and some 
of our smaller cities. Many of these chil- 
dren are adopted or otherwise placed in 
families in the country, though not nsually 
at a great distance from the city. Many of 

the boys go into manufactories or learn a 
trade, and employment is also found for the 
girls in manufactories, binderies, a . But 
even with these help- to an honesl and vir- 
tuous lite, there is the evil influence of 

vicious associates, and the physically and 



1012 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



morally degrading surroundings of life in 
the crowded tenement houses, to undo the 
good which has been done in their instruc- 
tion and training. 

The Homes for the Friendless, Houses of 
Shelter, Homes for Friendless Girls, Female 
Christian Homes, Houses of Mercy, &c, 
<fec, form still another class of institutions 
which give shelter, protection and instruc- 
tion to young children and friendless girls, 
who would be the prey of the destroyer but 
for their care. The work of these institu- 
tions is wholly beneficent, and though they 
may not save all from the paths of vice, yet 
they accomplish, perhaps, a larger per centage 
of good than any of the others. Still another 
class of reformatory institutions, in whi<;h, 
however, the education is almost exclusively 
moral and industrial, are those for fallen 
women and those who have been exposed to 
terrible temptations ; the Magdalen Asy- 
lums, Houses of the Good Shepherd, St. 
Banabas Houses, Midnight Missions, Female 
Homes of Prison Associations, &c, &c. 
Of late years, these institutions have re- 
ceived a new impulse, and under the control 
and superintendence of philanthropic and 
able Christian women, they are meeting 
with great success in the reformation of 
these wanderers from virtue. There are also 
now associations having for their object the 
reformation and restoration to an honest 
and upright life of discharged convicts, in 
most of our large cities ; and they also look 
after those who, through ignorance, sudden 
temptation, or the malice of others, have 
been arrested and committed to our prisons 
and houses of detention. 

The number of Houses of Refuge (our 
first class) is 17, the cost of their buildings 
and grounds is somewhat more than 
$2,500,000, and the annual cost of their 
maintenance about $700,000. Of the Juve- 
nile Asylums and Reform Schools of the 
milder grade there are fourteen, the cost of 
their buildings and grounds about $1,- 
700,000, and the annual expenditure about 
$450,000. The average annual earnings of 
the inmates of the two classes of reformato- 
ries is about $260,000. The number of 
children in both is somewhat more than 
9,000. 

Of the institutions of the third class, it is 
impossible to give any approximately full 
statistics. They are not under State or 
municipal control, and though very nume- 
rous, and representing a very large amount 



of investment and annual expenditure, they 
are entirely the offspring of private benefi- 
cence. In the city of New York alone there 
are nearly forty of them, and a proportion- 
ate number in other large cities. The insti- 
tutions of the fourth class, in which the 
reformatory element dominates the educa- 
tional, are also very numerous, and wholly 
sustained and endowed by private charity. 
That the aggregate investment, as well as 
the annual expenditure, of these two classes 
of institutions exceeds many times that of 
the public institutions of the first two classes 
is obvious, and some of our most careful 
statisticians have placed the investments at 
more than twenty millions of dollars, and 
the annual expenditure in the neighborhood 
of five millions. These are at best mere 
guesses, but from what we know of the in- 
stitutions, are probably not beyond the 
truth. No institutions of the country re- 
flect more credit on the national advance- 
ment and civilization than those which have 
for their purpose the rescue and reformation 
of imperiled and vicious children and youth. 
[The whole subject of Preventive, Cor- 
rectional and Reformatory Institutions and 
Agencies, as developed in France, Germany, 
and Great Britain, with special reference to 
the immediate recognition of the family 
principle in the organization and administra- 
tion of similar institutions and agencies in 
this country, was treated quite exhaustively 
in the third volume of Barnard's American 
Journal of Education, in 1857, and the sev- 
eral articles were issued in a Supplementary 
Number, and in a separate volume entitled 
Reformatory Education, and distributed 
widely among city and state officials charged, 
directly or indirectly, with the administra- 
tion or consideration of the problem of 
juvenile exposure, delinquency and crime. 
While Commissioner of Education, Dr. 
Barnard issued a circular to gather the 
material for a comprehensive survey of this 
department of educational institutions in 
different States and countries, and at the 
same time published a very valuable paper 
by Dr. Wichern, on the Reformatory In- 
stitutions of Germany, which have sprung 
up mainly on the model of the Rough 
House at Horn, of which he was the 
founder. He did not continue in office long 
enough to receive returns from his circular, 
but he will avail himself of recent publica- 
tions and personal observation to issue a 
new edition of the volume above referred to.] 



PROFESSIONAL AND SPECIAL BDUOATIOV. 



1013 



V. SUPPLEMENTARY INSTRUCTION". 

INTRODUCTION. 

Besides the formal instruction given in 
institutions expressly established for Ele- 
mentary, Secondary, Collegiate, Professional 
and Special Education, there are other insti- 
tutions and agencies which can act on the 
individual in almost every stage of his intel- 
lectual development, and do act with the 
greatest effect, in a majority of instances, 
after the individual has passed beyond the 
control of regular schools of every kind. 
These institutions and agencies in various 
ways influence the national taste, attainments 
and character, and may be considered to- 
gether under the head of Supplementary 
Education. We select the two, as the most 
potential in our modern American civiliza- 
tion outside of the formal school — the 
Printed Page and the Living Voice — the 
Book and the Lecture — the Library and the 
Lyceum, to which should be added or asso- 
ciated, Occupation. 

(1.) The Book. 

The finest minds have exhausted their 
powers of language in trying to express in 
words the value of Books. To Cicero, the 
orator and statesman, the volumes which 
composed his private library " seemed to add 
a soul to his dwelling ;" to Bacon, the phi- 
losopher and man of affairs, " Libraries are 
as shrines where all the relics of ancient 
saints, full of true virtue, and that without 
delusion and imposture, are preserved ;" to 
Milton, the poet, and fervid apostle of reli- 
gious and civil liberty, "A good book is the 
precious life-blood of a master spirit, em- 
balmed and treasured up on purpose to a life 
beyond life;" "God be thanked for books," 
says the clear, pure, and eloquent Channing, 
in his address to young men and working 
men, which has found an echo in millions of 
hearts and homes — " they are the voices of 
the distant and the dead, and make us the 
heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. They 
are the true levelers. They give to all who 
will faithfully use them the society of the best 
and greatest of our race. No matter how 
poor I am — no matter though the prosper- 
ous and the fashionable will not enter my 
obscure dwelling — if the Sacred Writers will 
enter ami take up their abode under my 
roof, if Milton will cross my threehhold to 
sing to me of Paradise, and Shakspcare to 



open to me worlds of imagination, and 
Franklin to enrich me with hi- practical 

wisdom, I shall not pine for want of int. 1- 
lcctua! companionship." 

CM The 1. 

Put as a teacher, for rousing the dormant 
faculties, and fixing and adjusting the atten- 
tion, particularly of adult-, the living roice 
i- far more efficient; and when associated 
with books used in class or in solitary 
study, and combined with observation of 
nature, or the actual processes of business 
in hand — the living voice can BUggest the 
motive, the means, and the methods to sup- 
plement, rapidly and pleasantly, all defi- 
ciencies of school instruction. 
(3.) 

No formal institution of instruction, no 
agency employed in the class or lecture- 
room, no book however rich in individual 
or accumulated wisdom, can compare in the 
work of self-education with the processes of 
the daily occupation of an individual, 
thoughtfully pursued in the field, the house- 
hold, and tlie workshop. This is tie' school 
of New England handiness and invention-. 

I. LIBRARIES. 

At the close of the Revolution there were 
very few collections of books, cither public 
or private, in this country. With the ex- 
ception of political works, and these mostly 

pamphlets, a very few text-1 k- and hymn 

books, one or two editions of the Bible 
printed from type (stereotype plate- were 
unknown till much later), and perhaps a 
dozen religious treatises, the books in the 
country were all imported from Europe, 
ami generally from England, either in small 
quantities by the booksellers or in single 
copies by individuals. The Revolutionary 
War, though in the end favorable to educa- 
tion and intelligence, at firel was a serious 
hindrance to both ; for with the political dis- 
enthrallment of the country from the British 
yoke, there Bprang up a strong desire to be 
free from it also in all matters of trade, of 
literature, and of education ; and as there 
were verv few publishers who possessed the 

requisite capital and daring to publish 
hooks in considerable numbers, for which, 
indeed, in the impoverished conditioi 

the country, there would have been hut 
little demand. A few of the twell 
thirteen colleges had small libraries. < U* 
the-.' the largest was that of llanard Uni- 
versity, which, though destroyed by tire in 



1014 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



1764, had by great exertions brought up to 
about 10,000 volumes in 1783; Yale, 
Princeton, William and Mary, the Univerity 
of Pennsylvania, and Kings (now Colum- 
bia) College had each small collections, 
though containing some valuable books ; 
but none of them much exceeded, after the 
vicissitudes of the war 2,000 volumes, and 
the library of William and Mary had, prob- 
ably, not more than 1,200 or 1,400. Brown 
University, Dartmouth, and Rutgers had 
made small beginnings. There were six 
or seven small proprietary libraries, the 
largest being the Philadelphia Library Com- 
pany and Loganian Collection, founded by 
Franklin in 1731, and having in 1783 about 
5,000 volumes; the New York Society 
Library at the beginning of the war con- 
tained 7,000 or "8,000 volumes, but the 
British soldiers carried off its books by the 
knapsackful and bartered them for grog. 
In 1795 it had only 5,000 volumes, though 
considerable additions were made to it after 
the war. The Redwood Library, at New- 
port, R. I., was not large, but had a consid- 
erable number of very choice and valuable 
books. The Charleston Society Library 
had been one of the largest in the country, 
but was almost entirely destroyed by fire in 
1778. The Providence, Salem, and Port- 
land Atheneums, founded respectively in 
1753, 1760, and 1765, had small collections 
but well selected. Beside these there was 
the special library of the American Philo- 
sophical Society at Philadelphia, and a State 
Library of a few hundred volumes at Con- 
cord, New Hampshire. This was, we be- 
lieve, a complete list of all the public libra- 
ries of any importance at the close of the 
Revolutionary War. Nor was the period 
from the close of the war to 1800 favorable 
to any considerable growth of either libra- 
ries or literary institutions ; for libraries 
being among the outgrowths of an opulent 
and luxurious civilization, we could hardly 
look for their increase amid the poverty and 
financial revulsions which continued till near 
the close of the last century. The eleven 
colleges, elsewhere enumerated, which were 
founded between 1781 and 1800 have now 
respectable and some of them very consid- 
erable libraries, but they are all, or mainly, 
the growth of the period since 1820. Of 
other libraries, there are only three, and 
those of inferior grade, which were founded 
during this period (1781-1800). These 
are the Boston Library Association, founded 



in 1794, and which now at the end of 
nearly 80 years has about 20,000 volumes ; 
the Byberry Library of Philadelphia, found- 
ed the same year, and one in Dublin, New 
Hampshire, in 1793, each of which now 
numbers 2,000 volumes. 

Between 1800 and 1818 there were eleven 
Colleges and seven Theological Seminaries- 
founded, most of which have now good, 
and some of them large libraries. To this 
period belong also the beginnings of the 
Boston Atheneum, now the fifth or sixth 
library in the country in the number of its 
volumes; the first library of Congress, de- 
stroyed by the British in 1814, the large 
collection of the New York Historical 
Society, and the Ohio State Library at 
Columbus, the commencement of the special 
libraries of the American Antiquarian Soci- 
ety at Worcester, and the American Acad- 
emy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia, 
and ten or twelve smaller public libraries, 
mostly State, which were originally estab- 
lished at the capitals for the accommodation 
of the courts and legislators. 

Since 1818, a period of fifty-four or fifty- 
five years, about 340 collegiate institutions, 
more than 130 schools of superior instruc- 
tion for girls, fifty-six agricultural and 
scientific schools, more than one hundred 
theological institutions, 40 law schools, and 
about 90 medical and pharmaceutical schools, 
have been established, and nearly all these 
have libraries of greater or less extent, form- 
ing a grand aggregate of over 2,500,000 
volumes; more than thirty State libraries 
have been founded with about 400,000 
volumes — the largest being those of New 
York at Albany, with 90,000 volumes; 
Michigan, with about 42,000 ; Ohio, about 
40,000 ; Massachusetts, with 37,000 ; Maine, 
with 33,000, and Virginia with about 30,000. 
Within this period, too, the great free 
libraries of the country have all been estab- 
lished ; the Library of Congress in place of 
that destroyed by the British, and now 
numbering 246,000 volumes and 45,000 
pamphlets; the Astor, with about 170,000 
volumes; the Boston City Library, with 
183,000 volumes; the Loganian and Phila- 
delphia Library Company, which though 
previously founded, has had its principal 
growth since 1818, and under the recent 
bequest of Dr. James Rush is likely to be- 
come one of the largest libraries in the 
country, numbering as it now docs 100,000 
volumes; the New Lenox Library of New 




POSTON CITY LIBRARY. INTERIOR. 



PROFESSIONAL AND SPECIAL EDUCATION. 



1017 



York, so grandly endowed, and having as a 

nucleus Mr. Lenox's own extensive and in- 
valuable collections; the Watkinson Public 

Library of Reference at Hartford, with 
about 30,000 volumes, and some sixty or 
seventy other free libraries in the Northern 
and Eastern States, ranging from 5,000 to 
28,000 volumes each. The law regulating 
the establishment and management of free 
town libraries in Massachusetts has greatly 
encouraged their growth, and moat of tin- 
cities and many of the large towns of 
that State have now good, though not gen- 
erally very large public libraries sustained by 
the towns. A few brief notes respecting 
some of the largest of these libraries may 
be interesting. 

The Library of Congress has grown very 
rapidly within a few years past, the Peter 
Force Collection of American History, the 
Smithsonian Library being included with 
it, and since 1869 the issue of copyrights 
being vested in its chief librarian, which se- 
cures to it two copies of every book copv- 
righted in the United States. In its 240, ooo 
volumes there are at least 30,000 duplicates, 
but it is very rich in the transactions of for- 
eign learned societies, in American local and 
general history, and indeed in history gene- 
rally ; and has probably the best collection 
of works in every department of political 
science to be found in this country. It is a 
lending library only to members of Con- 
gress and government officials, but is free 
for reference and consultation to all others. 

The Astor Library was founded by a be- 
quest of $400,000 by John Jacob Astor, in 
1844, but was not opened till 1854, when it 
had about 80,000 books upon its shelves. 
Mr. William 13. Astor, son of the founder, 
has erected a second building for its exten- 
sion, as well as expended freely in the pur- 
chase of books, to the aggregate amount of 
$200,000. Its present number of volumes 
is about 170,000. It is not a lending 
library, but is open for consultation, with all 
conveniences provided, for six or eight hours 
each day. The Philadelphia Library and 
Loganian Collection is one of our oidesl 
libraries, but has grown rapidly within a few 
years past, and is now so largely endowed 
as to be able to take rank with the largesl 
in the country, within a few years. Tin 
Boston City Library, now ranking next to 
the library of Congress among the free libra- 
ries, has had a wonderfully rapid growth 
since its foundation in 1848. Joshua Bates, 
54 



a native of Boston, but long resident in 
London, has more right than any other man 
to be considered its founder, as bis original 
gift of $50,000 and several thousand vol* 
times of books, prompted the liberality of 
individuals, as well as the city authorities, 
who have done their part nobly in fos- 
tering and providing fori- extension. Of 
its other benefactors we max name Jonathan 
Phillips, Josiafa Quincy, Jr., J. 1'. Bigelow, 
Edward Everett, Robert < '. Winthrop, < leorge 

Ticknor, Th lore Parker, and others. It 

has now nearly 190,000 volumes. It i- in 
part a lending library, and the first 
free library in the world which has carried 
the lending system to Bnch an extent. It 
lias, of course, its Bpecialtii b, but the trust 
endeavor to make it complete as possible 
in all departments. 

The Lenox Library, the buildings for 
which are now (1878) erecting in New STork, 
will be, unquestionably, one of the most val- 
uable of American libraries. Its founder, 
with scholarly tastes and abundanl mean-, 
has long been engaged in collecting a private 
library containing the rarest and most vain- 
able literary treasures which money conld 
purchase. In its collection of Bibles, mis- 
sals, block-books, and indeed incunabula 
generally, it has no superior on this conti- 
nent, and not more than one or two in Eu- 
rope. This choice and valuable collection is 
to form the nucleus of tin' grand library for 
which he is now preparing a home, and in 
which bis ample endowment will booh gather 
an accumulation of literary wealth which 
will make it a library worthy of the great 
American metropolis. 

There is another class of libraries, usually 
free for consultation, some of which have 
attained, within the past thirty years, to 
considerable magnitude, \ iz.. those of the his- 
torical societies. Of these, the largesl arc : 
the Wisconsin State Historical Society's Li- 
brary, at Madi-on, of 50,500 volumes; the 
New York Historical Society's Library, with 
31,000 volumes ; the Long island Historical 
Society's, in Brooklyn, which in ten years 
lias accumulated nearly 28,000 volumes; 
the Massachusetts Historical Society's, with 
nearlv id, ooo volume-; the Connecticut 
Historical Society's, with about 25,000, in- 
cluding Dr. Thomas Bobbins 1 valuable col- 
lection in ecclesiastical and New England 

history; the Maryland Historical Sociel 
with 17,000 volumes ; the Minnesota Socie- 
ty, with 13,500 volumes; the American 



1018 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



Antiquarian Society, at Worcester, about 
52,000 volumes; and the New England 
Historical and Genealogical Society, of 
Boston, about 12,000. There are two or 
three others, with less than 10,000 volumes 
each. Several of the Scientific Societies 
and Institutes have special libraries of great 
value and considerable magnitude, the largest 
being those of the Academy of Natural 
Sciences, Philadelphia, 23,500; the Ameri- 
can Philosophical Society, also of Philadel- 
phia, 18,000; the Natural History Society, 
of Boston, 13,000 ; and the American Insti- 
tute, New York, 10,500. 

The late George Peabody, among his 
other benefactions, provided for three or 
four considerable libraries ; that of the Pea- 
body Institute, at Baltimore, having already 
43,000 volumes ; the Peabody Institute, at 
Danvers, Mass., about 20,000 volumes ; the 
Institute at Peabody, 14,300 volumes; and 
another at Georgetown, D. C. Other men of 
public spirit have endowed similar libraries 
in various parts of the country, as, David 
Watkinson, at Hartford, Conn., Silas Bron- 
son, at Waterbury, Conn., Ezra Cornell, at 
Ithaca, N. Y., and Peter Cooper, in connec- 
tion with the Cooper Union, at New York. 

We come next to the class of Proprietary 
and so-called Mercantile Libraries, all lend- 
ing libraries, and requiring, in addition to a 
greater or less endowment, an annual or life 
subscription from all who would participate 
in the use of the library, lectures or classes. 
Some of these have attained to the highest 
rank among our great libraries, as, for in- 
stance, the Mercantile Library, of New York, 
which has over 154,000 volumes; the Bos- 
ton Atheneum, which has 108,000; the 
Mercantile Library, of Philadelphia, 59,000 ; 
the Mercantile Library, of Brooklyn, which 
lias 45,000 ; the Mercantile Library, of Cin- 
cinnati, which has 42,000 ; that of St. Louis, 
with 34,000; the Providence Atheneum, 
•with 32,000, the New York Society Library 
with the same number, and Mercantile Li- 
braries and Young Men's Institutes in San 
Francisco, Baltimore, Hartford, Conn., Bos- 
ton, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and 
•other cities, with libraries ranging from 
20,000 to 30,000 volumes each. 

The Young Men's Christian Associations 
have in many cases founded libraries which, 
though seldom large, yet supply, to some 
•extent, the demand for books of their mem- 
bers. The Association in Washington, D. 
CI., has, we believe, the largest of these li- 



braries, numbering about 13,000 volumes; 
the others are all under 10,000 volumes, 
though several approximate that number. 
The aggregate number of volumes in these 
libraries exceeds 150,000. 

In several of the Northern and Western 
States there are libraries of greater or less 
extent connected with the public schools ; 
not always wisely selected, and in some 
cases not much used, but in the aggregate 
forming a vast number of books. The latest 
school returns indicate that there are more 
than 5,000,000 volumes in their libraries. 

We have thus passed in review the princi- 
pal public libraries of the country. There 
are according to the latest returns : one 
library of about 250,000 volumes ; three of 
over 170,000; one of over 150,000; two of 
over 100,000; two of over 90,000; five of 
over 50,000 ; seven of over 40,000 ; twentv- 
one of over 30,000 ; fifty of over 20,000 ; 
one hundred and thirty of over 10,000 ; and 
two hundred and seventeen of 5,000 and 
over. The total aggregate of volumes in 
college, State, national, proprietary, subscrip- 
tion, free, town, and school libraries is very 
nearly twelve millions volumes, and is in* 
creasing with great rapidity. 

There is still another class of libraries, 
containing, in their totality, a vast number 
of volumes, and in many cases of consider- 
able size and value, viz., the Sunday School 
libraries. Few of these contain less than 
200 volumes, and many of them have up- 
wards of 1,000. More than 6,000 differ- 
ent works have been published for these 
libraries within the last twenty-five years, 
by the publishing societies and private pub- 
lishers, and large drafts are also made by the 
larger schools on English publications, and 
those intended for adults. Estimating the 
number of these schools at 56,000, or about 
two-thirds the number of churches, and the 
volumes in each library at 200, we have 
more than 11,000,000 volumes collected in 
these humble libraries. 

As might have been expected, the rapid 
growth of public libraries has stimulated 
gentlemen of wealth and intellectual tastes 
to collect private libraries of considerable 
extent, and in many cases devoted to some 
specialty. In many cases these collections, 
on the death of their owners, or sometimes 
during their lives, come into the possession 
of some great public library, adding greatly 
to its value in certain directions. Thus the 
magnificent private library of James Lenox, 



PROFESSIONAL AND SPECIAL EDOOATIO*. 



1019 



to which we have already alluded, is to form 
the nucleus of the Lenox Library ; the fine 
collection of works on the fine arts, of Rev. 
Dr. Magoon, has become the property of 
Vassar College, and the life-long accumula- 
tions of the late Teter Force, in American 
general and local history, have been incorpo- 
rated into the Library of Congress, and so 
of the collections of Spanish literature of 
Mr. Tieknor. There are said to be, in the 
city of New York alone, fifty private libra- 
ries, containing 10,000 volumes or more 
each, and in Boston quite as many. Phila- 
delphia has also a large number, while Cin- 
cinnati, St. Louis, and San Francisco, have 
each their fair share. So, too, had Chicago 
before the great fire destroyed the accumu- 
lations .of books which her wealthy citizens 
had made in many years of liberal expendi- 
ture. Brooklyn has for some years past 
been noted for its valuable private collec- 
tions, and those of Henry C. Murphy, J. 
Carson Brevoort, T. W. Field, A. J. Spooner 
and others, in local and general history and 
geography, of Rev. Dr. Storrs, and Rev. II. 
W. Beecher in Christology and general 
English literature, and of several other gen- 
tlemen in illustrated and costly productions, 
are specially noteworthy. Of other remark- 
able collections of works illustrating Ameri- 
can history, the most valuable are those 
of George Brinley of Hartford, George W. 
Greene of Providence, George Bancroft, W. 
J. Davis, William Menzics, and J. R. Brod- 
head of New York, J. L. Motley and Robert 
C. Winthrop of Boston. The library of 
Hon. Henry Barnard, of Hartford, Conn., is 
more complete on the subject of education 
than any other in the country; that of Rev. 
Barnas Sears, at Staunton, Virginia, is very 
full on some departments of the same sub- 
ject ; that of S. Austin Allibone, of Phila- 
delphia, is remarkable for its collections on 
English biography, literature and criticism ; 
that of W. Barker Foulke, of the same city, 
on prisons and prison discipline ; that of C. 
L. Bushnell on numismatics; that of J. A. 
Stevens, Jr., on the literature of the Middle 
Ages; those of Messrs. W. B. Chapman, R. 
G. White, and J. W. Wallack, on dramatic 
and especially Shakspeareau literature; 
that of D. W. Fiske, on Scandinavian litera- 
ture ; that of Rev. \V. K. Williams, on 
Welch Literature and Ecclesiastical History ; 
that of U. M. Hunt, on architecture; those 
of Rev. Dr. Forbes, Rev. Dr. II. B. Smith, 
Rev. Dr. E. F. Hatfield, Rev. Dr. S. H. 



Tyng, and Rev. Dr. Morgan Dix, on theol- 
ogy, ecclesiastica] biography, and patristic 
literature. 

There are, in connection with man\ of 
our benevolent and human.- institutions, 
Bpecial libraries containing loo to |,000 
volumes each, devoted to the particular 
work of those institutions. Some of these 
we have already enumerated. Among the 
most noteworthy of the others are the col- 
lections of works on Deaf .Mm.' instruction 
in the American Asylum for the Deaf and 
Dumb at Hartford, and the N< w York Insti- 
tution for the Deaf and Dumb; the collec- 
tion of Bibles in all languages and of all 
dates, of the American Bible Society; the 

early versions, codices and far simile, and 

the extensive collections of works on biblical 
criticism and exegesis, procured l>v the 

American Bible Union for the use of its 
translators; the library of the American 
Congregational Union in Boston, remarkable 
for its religious periodical literature ; that of 
the American Board of Commissioners Cm 
Foreign Missions, containing not only a vast 
amount of missionary literature, but nearly 
a complete set of all the publications i- 
by its missionaries; that of the New York 
Geographical Society, very full on geograph- 
ical topics; that of the Lyceum of Natural 
History, of New York, now deposited with 
the Mercantile Library of that city, and re- 
markable for its collections of the transac- 
tions (if Foreign societies; and that of the 
National Prison Association, which, though 
recently established, has a vei'v complete 
collection of both American and foreign 
Works on Prisons, Punishment and Prison 
Discipline. The following table gives a list 
of the principal libraries ot' the country, 
with the date of their organization and the 
number of volume-, a- near as can be at 
tained, at the close of the year 1872. 
II. THE LYCEUM ami oimi; LB n Bfl CKE 

The origination of the lyceum as a means 
of mutual instruction in this country is clue, 
in the first instance, to Benjamin Franklin. 
His "club for mutual improvement" was 
founded in Philadelphia in 1 727, and after 

forty vears' existence became the basis of 

the American Philosophical Society, There 
probably were other societies for mutual 
improvement organised in different t"\Mis 

and cities of the country, during the hun- 
dred vears that followed the organisation of 
Franklin's club; but there arc no records 
of any such in the possession of the public, 



1020 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



previous to 1824, when Timothy Claxton, 
an English mechanic, succeeded in founding 
one, or rather in modifying a reading socie- 
ty, which had been in existence for five 
years, into what was really a lyceum, in the 
village of Methuen, Mass. Its exercises 
were weekly, and in the following order: 
the first week, reading by all the members ; 
the second week, reading by one member 
selected for the purpose ; the third week, 
an original lecture ; the fourth week, discus- 
sion. In 1826, Mr. Josiah llolbrook, then 
of Derby, Conn., communicated to the 
American Journal of Education, then con- 
ducted by Mr. William Russell, his views 
on the subject of " Associations of Adults 
for the Purpose of Mutual Education,' 1 ' 1 
in which were contained the germs of the 
plan of the Lyceum, as subsequently devel- 
oped by him in his lectures and publica- 
tions. From the first, his views were of 
wider scope than the organization of a mere 
local association ; they comprehended the 
establishment of such associations in every 
town and village, and their union, by repre- 
sentation, in county, state, and national or- 
ganizations. They contemplated also, not 
only mutual instruction in the sciences, but 
the establishment of institutions for the 
education of youth in science, art, and 
morals ; the collection of libraries, and of 
cabinets of minerals and other articles of 
natural or artificial production, to be in- 
creased and enlarged by mutual exchanges, 
by the different associations. Lectures and 
practical agricultural occupation, the results 
of which, it was supposed, would materially 
diminish the cost of instruction, also formed 
a part of his programme. 

The first association formed-in accordance 
with this plan was organized at Millbury, 
Mass., by Mr. llolbrook himself, in Novem- 
ber of the same year, and was called " Mill- 
bury Lyceum, No. 1, Branch of the Amer- 
ican Lyceum." Other towns soon after or- 
ganized lyceums, and these were combined a 
few months later into the Worcester County 
Lyceum. Not long after, the Windham 
County, Conn., Lyceum, with its constituent 
town lyceums, was established ; Rev. Samuel 
J. May, then of Brooklyn, Conn., rendering 
valuable assistance in the work. 

From this time onward to his death in 
1854, Mr. llolbrook devoted his whole ener- 
gies in one way and another to the promo- 
tion of these institutions, and to such 
measures in connection with the cause of 



education as should promote mutual instruc- 
tion in children as well as adults. By 
scientific tracts, by newspapers and other 
publications, by the manufacture of school 
apparatus, and by the collection of small 
cabinets of minerals, to serve as nuclei for 
larger cabinets, by scholars' fairs, by lec- 
tures, and long journeys, and by appeals to 
the members of Congress and of the State 
Legislatures, he succeeded in rousing a 
powerful and continued interest in the sub- 
ject of mutual instruction, which, if it did 
not accomplish all his own plans, at least 
gave a wonderful impulse to the general 
intellectural culture of the nation. The 
lyceums he founded have passed away, at 
least in their original form, but in their 
places, and in a great measure as an indirect 
result of his agitation, we have in every 
considerable town or village Debating Soci- 
eties, Young Men's Institutes, Mechanics' 
Institutes, Library Associations, Young 
Men's Christian Associations — the four 
latter often with circulating libraries, courses 
of lectures, and classes for instruction in 
science, art, and languages, and in many 
cases with schools and classes attached. 
We have also lecture foundations, either 
connected with our colleges or pro- 
fessional schools, or independent, in which 
courses of instruction in physical science, 
history, literature, or language, are com- 
municated to popular audiences. 

In rendering the scientific lecture a pop- 
ular institution, our country is greatly in- 
debted to the late John Griscom, LL.D., 
Prof. B. Silliman, Sr., Rev. Henry Wilbur, 
and Truman W. Coe, Esq. Dr. Griscom 
delivered his first course of popular lectures 
on chemistry in New York city in the winter 
of 1808 ; they were largely attended, and 
were continued for a series of years. Prof. 
Silliman commenced popular lecturing on 
the same subject in New Haven about the 
same time, in connection with his profes- 
sional courses. He subsequently delivered 
popular courses of lectures on chemistry 
and on geology in many of the large cities 
of the country. Within the last thirty or 
thirty-five years the late President Hitch- 
cock of Amherst College, the late Prof. 
Shepard, Prof. Dana of Yale College, the 
brothers Rogers, now both dead, Prof. 
Henry, and other eminent geologists, have 
given courses on geology to popular audi- 
ences ; Prof. Guyot and others have lectured 
on physical geography; the late Horace 



PROFESSIONAL AND SPECIAL EDUCATION. 



1021 



Mann, Charles Brooks, David P. Page, 
Henry Barnard, John I>. Philbrick, 8. B. 
Wbolworth, T. II. Burrows, E. A. Sheldon, 

and a score of others on educational topics; 
Hon. George P. Marsh, Profs. W. I). Whit- 
ney, S. S. Haldenian, and others, on language; 
Profs. Dorcmus, Draper, Silliman, Jr., 
Cooke, Richards, and others, on chemistry ; 
Profs. Agassiz, Morse, Dana, and others, on 
palaeontology and natural history; the late 
General and Prof. Mitchel, Youmans, Eaton, 
Morse, Loomis, G. F. Barker, Young, 
Sir Charles Lyell, and Professor Tyndafi, 
on astronomy, spectroscopy, and light ; 
Messrs. Bayard Taylor, Kane, Hays, Hall, 
Du Chailhi, Powell, and others, on their 
explorations; the late Prof. Lieber, Baird, 
Walker, Wells, Perry, and others, on polit- 
ical philosophy and financial topics, and 
other eminent scholars on other subjects. 

The Lowell Lectures at Boston, founded 
by the munificence of the Hon. John Lowell, 
gives annually several free courses of lec- 
tures to large audiences on the most im- 
portant branches of moral, intellectual, and 
physical science, and from the liberality of 
its compensation to the lecturers, induces 
elaborate and conscientious preparation on 
their part ; and the benefit of this prepara- 
tion inures also to other audiences, to which 
these lectures are repeated. The Graham 
Institute in Brooklyn, N. Y., has a similar 
though less opulent foundation, and its 
courses of lectures have been remarkable 
for their ability and adaptation to a popular 
'audience. Other foundations have been es- 
tablished for lecture courses in other cities, 
but for the most part in connection with 
colleges or theological seminaries. 

The noble Peter Cooper foundation, in 
New York city, is very broad, covering a 
very large reading room, supplied with all 
the best foreign and American newspapers, 
literary, scientific, and technological periodi- 
cals, a considerable and very valuable library, 
evening schools in mathematics, mechanics, 
languages, <fec, schools of design and me- 
chanical drawing, wood engraving, painting, 
architecture and sculpture, and courses of 
lectures on practical science. 

The late George Peabody, among his 
other good works in the cause of education, 
endowed an institute in Baltimore with a 
fund of over a million dollars, to include a 
library, courses of lectures on science, art, 
and literature, prizes for scholarship in the 
high schools, an Academy of Music, and a 



Gallery of Art. He also provided for an 
Institute of ArcbsBoIogj al Cambridge, with 
an endowment of 1150,000, a Museum of 
Natural Bistory at Salem with the same 
amount, and a Department of Physical 
Science al Vale College with a similar sura. 

Earvard University baa also established, 
within two <>r three years past, courses of 
lectures of the very highest grade, open to 
all upon the payment of the fees, in which 
scholars of the first rank bave discussed, at 
their leisure, topics usually considered above 
the ready comprehension of any but the 
well educated class. These lectures were 
not largely attended. 

For some years there seemed to be danger 
that the courses of lectures given under the 
superintendence of the Young .Men's Insti- 
tutes and Mercantile Library Associations 
would become merely the means of amusing 
rather than instructing the audiences, and so 
would lose their character of supplementary 
means of education ; but this danger i» now 
evidently passing away; the lecture- best 
attended are those which have the highest 

scientific character, provided the Bciei is 

duly popularized. One agency in securing 

this beneficial result has been the Young 
Men's Christian Associations, which, by 
making the standard of their lectures high, 
have compelled other organizations to do 
likewise. 

Under this head of moans of supplement- 
ary instruction should perhaps also he in- 
cluded those institutions, all very recently 
founded, and which do so much honor to 
their founders, which, while they contem- 
plate mainly systematic instruction, provide 
to some extent popular courses in the 
practical arts and technological science. 
Among these we may name the •• Massachu- 
setts Institute of Technology,* 1 at Boston; 

the "Museum of Comparative Zoology," at 

Cambridge; the "Worcester Free Insti- 
tute;" the "Horticultural School for 
Women." at Newton Center, Mass.; the 
"Thayer Engineering School,'' of 1 Dartmouth 
College; the "Stevens Institute of 'I 
nology," at Boboken, X. .1.; the "School 
of Mines," of Columbia College, New York; 
the "Scientific School ( .f Lehigh University," 
South Bethlehem, Pa.; the "Polytechnic 
College," of Philadelphia; the Agricultural 
Department of "Hampton Institute;" some 
o\' the practical departments of "Cornell 
University," and the "O' Fallen Polytechuio 
Institute," of St. Louis, Mo. 



1022 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



VI. SOCIETIES FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, 
EDUCATION, AND LITERATURE. 

INTRODUCTION. 

As means of supplementary instruction, 
and largely in those higher walks of litera- 
ture and science not generally cultivated, the 
Scientific and Literary Societies of the coun- 
try have been of great service. They may 
be divided into two classes : those of a gen- 
eral character, which, while principally de- 
voted to the promotion of some particular 
subject, as history, local and general, geo- 
graphical science and discovery, genealogy 
and biography, and in some cases natural 
history, antiquarian researches, prison disci- 
pline and statistics, ethnology and philology, 
yet admit other topics more or less con- 
nected with these, and receive as members 
persons not specially versed in these subjects, 
their object being to enlist a large clientage 
in their pursuits, and, by collecting a library 
and museum, and having courses of lectures, 
to popularize their labors and increase their 
resources. A second class are more strictly 
scientific in their character, admitting mem- 
bers only after careful scrutiny, and on proof 
of their attainments in the special range of 
inquiry to which the society or association 
is devoted. To this class belong the Amer- 
ican Academy of Arts and Sciences, the 
American Academy of Natural Sciences, the 
Boston Natural History Society, the Essex 
Natural History Society, the American Ori- 
ental Society, the National Academy of 
Science, and several peripatetic associations 
holding their annual congresses in different 
cities and sections of the country, every 
year. Among these the oldest, and usually 
the best attended, is the American Associa- 
tion for the Advancement of Science. 

Besides these more technically scientific 
associations, there are societies of more 
strictly educational and philanthropic aims, 
both National and State, such as the Ameri- 
can Institute of Instruction, and more re- 
cently the American Association for the Ad- 
vancement of Social Science. A National 
Prison Congress has also held two sessions, 
and led to the formation of an International 
Prison Conference, which held its first ses- 
sion in London, in 1872. 

(1.) Literary and Scientific Societies. 
The Societies of the first class have been 
very useful from their exertions in collecting 



historical and archaeological documents, and 
relics and specimens illustrating the early 
condition of our country, the habits, cus- 
toms, and mode of life of the Indian tribes, 
and often, also, similar particulars in regard 
to other nations and times. This has been 
particularly true of the Historical Societies, 
of which there are now one or more in most 
of the States, and even in some of the Ter- 
ritories. As we have seen in our account of 
the libraries of the country, several of tbese 
societies have made very large collections of 
books, not always exclusively historical, but 
embracing a wide range of literature. Most 
of them have also museums, more or less 
extensive, and often including many objects 
of great interest and value. The earliest of 
these societies is the Massachusetts Histori- 
cal Society, founded in 1791, which has 
published over 50 volumes of Transactions 
and Collections. The New York Historical 
Society came next, in 1804, and has a fine 
library, large archaeological collections, and 
many excellent portraits and historical paint- 
ings. It has also published several volumes 
of historical collections. The American 
Antiquarian Society, at Worcester, founded 
in 1812, mainly by the efforts of the late 
Isaiah Thomas, has a fine library and an 
archaeological collection of great value and 
interest. The Connecticut Historical Soci- 
ety, established in 1825 at Hartford, and 
the Georgia Society, at Savannah, founded 
in 1839, have fine libraries and museums 
of considerable value, that of Connec- 
ticut receiving the library and collection 
of Rev. Thomas Robbins, D. D., begun 
fifty years before. The Maryland His- 
torical Society, founded in 1843, the 
Minnesota Society, at St. Paul, founded 
in 1849, the Chicago Society, founded 
in 1856, and the Long Island Society, 
at Brooklyn, L. I., founded in 1862, are 
the most efficient of the younger societies. 
All have good libraries, some of them 
very large ones, and by courses of lectures, 
by able papers prepared by their members, 
and by sub-organizations within their 
membership, they succeed in enlisting 
public interest and in popularizing their 
special objects. 

There are not more than two or three dis- 
tinct Geographical Societies in the country ; 
the oldest and most efficient, the American 
Geographical Society, of New York, has 
had a hard struggle with adverse fortunes, 
but through the devotion of some of its 



PROFESSIONAL AND SPECIAL LDICA 1 1 <.V. 



1023 



past and present officers, lias at last attained 
to a commanding position. It devotes itself 
exclusively to its specialty, and has collected 
an exceedingly valuable library and collec- 
tion of maps and charts, as well as other ar- 
ticles illustrative of geographical discovery. 
It has taken an active part in promoting the 
voyages and journeys of exploration which 
have been sent out to the Arctic Ocean and 
elsewhere, and it has done much to promote 
a more thorough study of geography and 
more accurate map drawing. There are two 
or three Genealogical Societies, the member- 
ship of which is mainly composed of those 
who take an interest in genealogical, bio- 
graphical and historical researches, though 
not exclusively so, as it is the aim of those 
who are the founders of these societies to 
awaken a more general interest in their 
pursuit. 

The Natural History Societies are more 
numerous. Every considerable city in the 
country has more or less students of natural 
history, and these have generally associated 
themselves either in a Natural History So- 
ciety, or in a department of natural history 
connected with a historical society, or lite- 
rary society. 

Of late years, many of our larger and 
older colleges, as Yale, Harvard, Williams, 
Amherst, Union, Cornell, Michigan, &c, 
<fcc, have their Natural History Societies, 
the officers of which arc often members of 
the College Faculty, and several send out 
their delegations either during the vacations, 
or sometimes in term-time, on exploring ex- 
peditions. 

The American Fhilological Society was 
founded about the year I860, by Rev. Na- 
than Brown, D. D., now missionary in Japan, 
having primarily two objects in view, one 
the propagation of a phonetic system of 
writing and printing not liable to the objec- 
tions which attached to others previously 
propounded to the public ; the other, the 
approximation to a universal language, or at 
least the elements of one, which should 
make it easier and more practicable to mul- 
tiply copies of the Bible and religious books 
among all nations. Incidental to this was 
the accumulation of vocabularies of all lan- 
guages, which had been either partially or 
wholly reduced to writing for the purposes 
of comparison and study, ami analyses of 
the language of savage tribes, to ascertain, 
as far as practicable, the elements which 
were common to them; and, also incident 



ally, the collection of manuscripts, b 
leases, inscriptions, and drawings, l-\ sa 
or half-civilized nations, as well as specimens 
<>f their manufactures, their idols, at. a.-. 
The Society has accumulated a -mall library 

and muse , ami is prosecuting it- purp 

with earnestness. Its membership i- open 

to all, but is practically limited to those who 

take an interest in its investigations. 

These are the most important of the So- 
cieties of the first class. < >t' those "f the 
second class, which lay a more exel 
claim to the title of 'Scientific Bociel 
we need say but little, as their nam.- gene- 
rally give an idea of their purposes and ob- 
jects. The American Philosophical Society, 
founded in Philadelphia in 1 7 4 : j , is the old- 
est of our existing Scientific Societies. The 
American Academy of Aits and Scii 
was founded in Boston in 1 780, and has 
published several volumes of Transactions. 
The Connecticut Academy of Ait- and 
Sciences was founded at New Haven in 1799, 
and has made many valuable contributions 
to science. The American Academy of the 
Natural Sciences was founded in Philadel- 
phia in 1818, and though meeting with 
many discouragements in its earlier history, 
has recently erected a suitable building for 
its vast collections of fossils, animals and 
birds, and the Morton collection of skulls, 
the finest on the American continent. It is 
in a more prosperous condition, perhaps, 
than any other of the scientific societies. 
The Boston Natural History Society has a 
very fine museum. 

The Association of American Geologists, 
one of the traveling associations, founded in 
1840, was in 1845 absorbed in the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science, 
which still maintains its annual COngn 
with a session usually of two or three weeks. 
It comprises the greater portion of the - i- 
entists of the country, and its papers and 
essays are often of great merit and perma- 
nent value. The National Institute, a scien- 
tific society founded in Washington in 1840, 
after a few vears of activity, transferred its 
collections to the Smithsonian Institution. 

The Smithsonian Institution, though a 
very active organisation in the diffusion of 
knowledge among men, with large resources, 
can hardly be classed a- a scientific Bociety, 

since it has no membership except it- re- 
gents and Officers. Its books have been 

transferred to the Library of Congress, and 

its valuable collections are open to all 



1024 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



scientists, and facilities provided for the dis- 
tribution of its specimens and publications 
to such colleges, museums, and scientific so- 
cieties as will make a suitable use of them 
for promoting its objects. It was chartered 
in 184G. 

The American Oriental Society, at New 
Haven, founded in 18 — , mainly through 
the efforts of Prof. Salisbury, has, in the 
few years of its existence, contributed 
greatly to the promotion of our knowl- 
edge of Oriental languages and science. 

The National Academy of Science, founded 
by act of Congress in 1863, and limited 
to fifty resident associates, is an attempt to 
blend the French Institute with the peripa- 
tetic plan, which, in the American Associa- 
tion and other institutions, had proved so 
efficient in this country. Its meetings are 
either annual or semi-annual, and held aj 
different points. Its sessions are from one 
to two weeks, and its members are divided 
into working sections. Its meetings are 
public, and papers on different scientific 
topics are read by members, and may be 
contributed, by those not associates, through 
members. The election of new members 
to the vacancies made by death are prefaced 
by a rigid and protracted scrutiny. One of 
the conditions of its incorporation is the ob- 
ligation to investigate and report on any 
scientific subject referred *by any department 
of the government for its consideration. 

The American Philological Association 
was organized in 1869, though preliminary 
meetings had been held in 1868. It is one 
of the peripatetic associations, and has for 
its objects the more perfect mastery of the 
ancient classical languages and literature, 
and investigations into the structure and 
philosophy of the Indo-European and Ori- 
ental languages. It has printed three vol- 
umes of its annual proceedings. 

The latest of these scientific societies is 
the American Union Academy of Litera- 
ture, Science, and Art, founded in 1869 in 
Washington. It embraces within its scope 
the entire circle of the sciences, and is di- 
vided into ten sections or departments, each 
of which is presided over by a supervising 
committee of three, through whom all papers 
in their several departments must be pre- 
sented, and, if approved, reported to the 
Academy, and published if the Academy so 
order. The membership is limited to such 
as are proficients in some branch of knowl- 
edge coming under one of the ten sections, 



and the ballot, after a favorable report by 
the committee of that section, must be unan- 
imous or they are not elected. Prof. J. W. 
Draper, M. D., LL. D., was the first president. 
(2.) Educational Associations. 

The American Institute of Instruction, 
founded in 1830, the American Association 
for the Advancement of Education, from 
1849 to 1856, and the National Teachers' 
Association, founded in 1857, have teen of 
great service in raising the standard of edu- 
cational discussion and diffusing a knowledge 
of the best methods and true aims of edu- 
cation. But far more broadly useful have 
been the State Teachers' Associations, acting 
as they do on much larger bodies of teach- 
ers in so many States from year to year. 

The earliest of the State Associations 
was that of Rhode Island, which held its 
first meeting in January, 1845. This was 
followed by that of New York on July 31st, 
and of Massachusetts on the 29th of No- 
vember of the same year. The teachers of 
Ohio, in 1847; of Connecticut, in 1848; 
of Vermont, in 1850 ; of Michigan and 
Pennsylvania, in 1852; of Wisconsin, 
Illinois and New Jersey, in 1853; of Iowa, 
New Hampshire and Indiana, in 1854 ; of 
Maine, in 1859; Kansas, in 1862; in Cali- 
fornia, in 1864; and within five years after 
the close of the War of Secession, the 
teachers of every State had organized as- 
sociations for the improvement of their own 
profession, and the advancement of the 
educational interests of the country. 

In most of the States, several country 
societies, and in all the large cities, local 
associations are in active operation. 

The Western College Society originated 
in the depressed condition of certain col- 
leges in the Western States (Western Re- 
serve, Marietta, Wabash and Illinois Col- 
leges, and Lane Theological Seminary,) 
which had been aided in their infancy by 
contributions from sympathizing churches 
at the East. This depression culminated in 
the financial reverses of 1837-41 — when the 
investments in buildings and other forms, to 
the amount of $400,000, seemed likely to 
be sacrificed for want of immediate aid. In 
1842, on the suggestion of Rev. Theron 
Baldwin, the plan of an association was 
discussed by various parties interested, and 
matured in 1843 by the establishment of a 
Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and 
Theological Education at the West, by 
which "upwards of a half million dollars 







FIRST MAP ENGRAVED IN THE DOTTED STATES IN RAISED LETTER& 



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MAP OF THE PRESENT TIME IN RAISED LETTERS. 




QBNTLEMEN ENGAGED IN IIIK PINE IRTS. 



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WOMEN l NGAQED IN THE PINJi AK1-. 



PROFESSIONAL AND SJ'KCIAL KDITATION. 



1027 



have been contributed to relieve the indebt- 
edness, increase the endowments, and extend 
the usefulness of the institutions above 
named, but of more than twice that nnmbor 
of institutions of a similar character. I'.ut 
beyond these palpable results, the addresses 
and discussions which the judicious and 
indefatigable secretary and agent, Rev. Dr. 
Baldwin (the originator of the same), was 
mainly instrumental in eliciting throughout 
the Eastern States, has helped to raise the 
whole course of higher Christian education 
throughout the whole country. The society 
has recently extended the field of its 
beneficent labors, and is now engaged in 
building anew the crumbling walls of 
Southern colleges, and breathing fresh life 
into what war, always barbarous, has left of 
once flourishing institutions of learning. 

These associations are not confined to the 
male sex, or to institutions in which boys 
are primarily regarded — many associations, 
some composed exclusively of women, and 
more for the advancement of female educa- 
tion, have been started which are still active. 
Among the earliest and latest is the Ladies' 
Association for Educating Females, in Jack- 
sonville, Illinois, in 1833, and the Womarit 
Education Association, in Boston, in 1872 
— indication that a want was early felt in 
one of the newest States, which is not yet 
met in one of the oldest. 

The Sunday School Union, and the edu- 
cational societies of different religious de- 
nominations, are all incorporated associations 
for special educational purposes. 

The American Association for the Ad- 
vancement of Social Science, or, as it is 
more generally called, " The Social Science 
Association," founded in 18G2, has, in its 
annual congresses in different cities, and in 
the sectional meetings at Boston, justified 
its existence by the ability with which it has 
handled many topics belonging to the vexed 
questions of educational and public economy. 

In the development of educational asso- 
ciation, the law of affinity, which finally 
governs all associations, has worked itselt 
out in this wise, — first a general association 
of all interested in the main object, and by 
degrees, special associations of those only 
who are interested in some department of 
education, or class of institutions — and 
finally, a gathering of all teachers and edu- 
cators on ground common to all. In 1853 
a few college presidents gathered in an in- 
formal way to talk over the condition of 



their institutions and some of the knotty 
problems of discipline, and curriculum, until 
now there is a regular annual meeting of 
delegates from all th alleges of New Eng- 
land. In Ohio, and in the States farther 
west, larger and more public associations 

have been fori 1. To gel opportunities of 

-pedal discussion, the teachers of Normal 
Schools held separate meetings a1 the 
of the American Institute, or National Teach- 
ers' Association, until in 1869, out of all in- 
terested as officers and teachers, the National 
E Ideational Association was organized in 
1869, with four departments: the first, of 
"school Superintendence; the second, of 
Normal Schools; the third, of Elementary 
Schools, and the fourth, of Bigher Instruc- 
tion, each department meeting under its own 
president, for special papers and disscussiona 
and all the departments meeting together 
for general purposes. 

(3,) Industrial and P 
The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 

founded in 1806, holds annual exhibitions, 
and maintains a school for the Btudy of the 
antique, of the living model, of anatomy, of 
design, and painting. 

The National Academy of Design, founded 
in New York in ISl'O, i^ an association of 
all the principal artists of the country, and 
maintains a school of instruction in art, as 
well as an annual exhibition of great excel- 
lence. Its members are divided into two 
classes or ranks, National Acaderaiciai - 
N. A. and Associates (A. N. A.), who, after 
two or three years probation, are promoted 
to the first rank. 

The Cooper Union includes a Society of 
Associates for the promotion of Bcience and 
art. The American Institute at New Fork, 
organized in L827, has maintained an annual 
exhibition of the productions of scientific 
industry, and hold monthly meetings <>( its 
members, for the discussion of questioi 

science as applied to the arts of life. 

Nearly every city has now an association 
to promote, by puolic exhibition of produc- 
tions of painting and statuary, a taste for 
the tine arts, and in all industrial exhibitions 

whether state, county or municipal, there is 

generally ;i department devoted to ideal art. 
The new art associations in New N , ork and 

Boston will greatly surpass any thing 
attempted. 

• l'.ir history of tin> principal National and ~ 
tioni of an educational charaotof down ta 1864, aaa Barmd'l 

.Imtncan Journal of Education, Vols. XV. ami M I 



1028 



EDUCATION' AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



VII. EDUCATIONAL PERIODICALS AND REPORTS. 

The earliest serial devoted exclusively to 
education was The Juvenile Monitor, issued 
in New York in 1811, by Albert Picket, 
who in 1818-19 published, in connection 
with his son, John W. Picket, The Aca- 
demician, a large octavo, issued semi- 
monthly, and containing both original and 
selected articles of great value. Here was 
issued the first notices of Pestalozzi's and 
Fellenberg's views and labors, and very 
valuable chapters from Jardine's Outline 
of a Philosophical System of Education. 

This field of labor remained unoccupied 
until the appearance of the American Jour- 
nal of Education, commenced January 1st, 
1825, at Boston, Mr. T. B. Wait publisher, 
and edited by Professor William Russell 
until 1830, when it was continued under 
the name of the American Annals of Edu- 
cation ; the Annals appeared until the end 
of 1839, completing an entire series of 
fourteen octavo volumes. At different 
periods, William C. Woodbridge, Dr. Wil- 
liam A. Alcott, and Prof. Hubbard (then 
of Massachusetts, but afterwards of North 
Carolina College at Chapel Hill,) were editors. 

In 1827 the American Educational 
Society, founded in 1817 for the sole pur- 
pose to aid candidates for the ministry 
through their collegiate and theological 
studies, issued a quarterly journal devoted 
to the publication of the proceedings of the 
society, and to ecclesiastical matters. Under 
the charge of Prof. B. B. Edwards from 
1831 to 1840, and of Dr. Cogswell, this 
periodical, which assumed in 1831 the 
name of Quarterly Register, devoted a por- 
tion of each number to educational intelli- 
gence, especially to the history and statistics 
of colleges, with two or three comprehensive 
surveys of the whole field of public instruc- 
tion, founded on the personal observation 
and special correspondence of the editor, ex- 
tending over the whole country. 

In January, 1836, appeared the first num- 
ber of the Common School Assistant, a 
quarto-monthly, edited by J. Orville Taylor, 
and was published at Albany, and afterward 
at New York, during four years and four 
volumes, and part of a fifth, ending in 1840. 
This periodical was energetically and use- 
fully edited, and Mr. Taylor did much for 
the cause of popular education by publish- 
ing a Common School Almanac, and deliv- 



ering forcible and apt addresses on educa- 
tional subjects in many States of the Union. 
His expenses were largely sustained by 
James S. Wardsworth, of Geneseo, N. Y. 

In January, 1839, Hon. Horace Mann, 
Secretary of the Board of Education for 
Massachusetts, issued the first number of 
The Common School Journal on his private 
responsibility, and continued its publication 
monthly to the close of the tenth volume in 
1848, when he resigned his position to take 
his seat in Congress, as the successor of 
John Quincy Adams in the House of 
Representatives. The Journal was con- 
tinued through 1852 by William B. Fowle, 
who had been for several years associated 
with Mr. Mann as publisher. The fourteen 
volumes contain all the Reports of the 
Board and the Secretary during Mr. Mann's 
connection with the same, and many very 
valuable articles by himself, and such per- 
sonal friends as George B. Emerson, LL.D., 
Dr. S. G. Howe, W. B. Fowle, and others. 

In August, 1838, appeared at Hartford, 
Connecticut, the first number of the quarto 
Connecticut Common School Journal, edited 
by Henry Barnard, Secretary of the Board 
of Commissioners of Common Schools, and 
was published during four years, ending in 
consequence of the strange reactionary rally 
which abolished the board in 1842. It con- 
tained the state public educational docu- 
ments of each year beside valuable selections 
from treatises not readily accessible, and 
original articles of permanent value. A 
second series, in octavo form, was com- 
menced by Mr. Barnard in 1850, and 
continued by him until January, 1854, 
when he surrendered its care to the 
Connecticut State Teachers' Association. 
The interval between 1843 and 1850 was 
covered by the publication of the Journal 
of the Rhode Island Institute of Instruction, 
embodying the official documents and action 
of the editor as Commissioner of Public 
Schools in that State. In connection with 
both journals the editor issued a series of 
Educational Tracts, copies of which he ar- 
ranged with their publishers to have stitched 
to every Almanac sold in the State. 

In August, 1855, Mr. Barnard issued the 
first number of his American Journal of 
Education, published at Hartford, quarterly, 
in octavo. This great repository of educa- 
tional knowledge has been continued to the 
present time, and its twenty-fourth volume 
will be completed in 1873. It has accom- 



PROFESSIONAL AND SPECIAL EDUCATION. 



1029 



plished the object set forth by its founder, 
and constitutes, in the nearly 21,000 pages 
already issued, the most comprehensive 

survey of the history, of systems (national, 
state, and city), and the biography, theory, 
and practice of instruction in all classes 
and grades of schools, both in the United 
States and other countries, to be found in 
any similar publication in any language.* 
It must be for many years to come the Inst 
available work of reference on all educa- 
tional topics for the first three-fourths of 
the nineteenth century. It contains 130 
excellent portraits from steel plates of emi- 
nent teachers and educators, and over 1,000 
illustrations of school architecture. Since 
the date of his first Journal the growth 
of educational literature has been rapid. 
There are now in nearly every State one 
or more school periodicals of various 
titles and forms, but usually issued 
monthly, and in most cases the organs 
of the Teachers' Associations of their 
respective States. These are generally 
well conducted, and the articles contributed 
by teachers, who are either the appointed 
editors or correspondents of the periodicals, 
discuss with much ability topics connected 
with methodology, and the practical duties 
and difficulties of the teacher. 

Of this class of periodicals the Massa- 
chusetts Teacher, the organ of the State 
Teachers' Association, now issuing its 
twenty-fifth volume ; the Rhode Island 
Schoolmaster, and the Illinois Teacher, and 
the Indiana School Journal started in 
1855 ; the Pennsylvania School Journal, for 
twenty years conducted by Hon. T. II. Bur- 
roughs, have each maintained a high and 
special reputation. 

There are several educational journals 
of a less local character devoting them- 
selves to the discussion of the principles of 
education, to the various methods of teach- 
ing and discipline, to educational biography, 
the careful criticism of text-books, and to 
the current progress of education. Among 
the best, as well as the most widely cir- 
culated of these are the American Educa- 
tional Monthly, published in New York 
city since 1862, the College Courant, pub- 
lished in New Haven since 1865. and the 
National Teacher, edited and published by 
E. E. White, Columbus, Ohio. 

* Volume XXIV (for L873) contains a General [ndez, bated 
on the Special Index of encli volume, ns well n« an the Special 
Treatises which have been mude up out of the separate chap- 
ters and articles scattered through the entire series. 



Most of the leading publishers of school 

text-1 ks iaaue, monthly, quarterly, or 

semi-annual periodicals, containing 
educational matter, and a great deal com- 
mendatory of their own 1 k-. The daily 

and weekly secular, literary, and religious 
journals have also their educational depart- 
ments, and in the aggregate do much for 
the advancement ot schools and education. 
There were m 1872 forty-five periodicals in 
the United States, monthly and quarterly, 
devoted exclusively to education; besides a 
considerable number — college periodicals, 
literary and educational paper- and | 
zincs, reviews, &<•., — which were partially 
occupied with educational matter. This i- 
a rapid growth since a period ol fortj yean 
ago, when a single educational periodical 
found but a scanty and precarious BUpport. 

The annual School Reports, national, - 
city and town, it is estimated, constitute a 
library of over 100 volumes, of 600 l 
octavo, of ordinary long primer type. 

The earliest official and legislative r< i 
on the condition of public schools were 
issued in New York in 1812, and in Mary- 
land in 1826. The former did 1 1 * • t attract 
much attention until issued by Azariah 
l-'lagg, and John A. Dix, who, ,-is Secretary 
of State, were from 1827 to L886 ex officio 
superintendents of public schools. But a 
different character was given to this class 
of documents when Hon. Borace Maun 
became Secretary of the Board of Educa- 
tion for Massachusetts, in 1837. 

The cause of education has received a 
new impetus since the close of the war, and 
especially since 1867, when a Commissioner 
of Education was provided for by Cong 
originally independent, but subsequently as 
a bureau of the Department of the Interior. 
Its first commissioner was Hon. Henry 
Barnard, who was succeeded in 1870 by 
Glen. John Baton, Jr. The Department has 
issued four annual reports, beside a supple- 
mentary one on education in the cities and 
the District of Columbia. These reports 

contain a vast amount of information in re- 
gard to the educational progress of the 
United States from year to war. but their 
statistics of colleges and institutions of 
secondary instruction being Collected Rfl 
unofficial answers to circular- are not always 
full and reliable, and give, in sonic insU 
an undue prominence to institutions of re- 
cent origin and of mainly prospective use- 
fulness. 



1030 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



VIII. SCHOOL BOOKS AND SCHOOL APPARATUS. 
(1.) Text-books. 

At the beginning of our national exist- 
ence, from 1775 to 1784, the Hornbook, 
Primer, Bible and Psalter were the universal 
instruments of school instruction till about 
1780, and in many of the district schools till 
1800. The late Dr. Noah Webster, in 
some reminiscences of his early school days, 
addressed to Mr. Barnard and published in 
the American Journal of Education for 
March, 1840, says, " When I was young 
the books used were chiefly Dilworth's 
Spelling-book, the Psalter, Testament, and 
Bible. No geography was studied before 
the publication of Dr. Morse's small books 
on that subject, about the year 1786 or 
1787 (Dr. Morse's first little compendium, 
entitled Geography made Easy, was pub- 
lished in 1784). No history was read, as 
far as my knowledge extends, for there was 
no abridged history of the United States. 
Except the books above mentioned, no book 
for reading Avas used before the publication 
of the Third Part of my Institute in 1785. 
In some of the early editions of that book 
I introduced short notices of the geography 
and history of the United States, and these 
led to more enlarged descriptions of the 
country. In 1788, at the request of Dr. 
Morse, I wrote an account of the transac- 
tions in the United States after the Revolu- 
tion ; which account fills nearly twenty 
pages in the first volumes of his octavo 
editions. Before the Revolution, and for 
some years after, no slates were used in 
common schools; all writing and the opera- 
tions in arithmetic were on paper. The 
teacher wrote the copies and gave the sums 
in arithmetic, few or none of the pupils 
having any books as a guide. The intro- 
duction of my spelling-book, first published 
in 1783, produced a great change in the de- 
partment of spelling ; and from the infor- 
mation I can gain, spelling was taught with 
more care and accuracy for twenty years 
or more after that period, than it has been 
since the introduction of multiplied books 
and studies. No English grammar was 
generally taught in common schools wheii I 
was young except that of Dil worth. 

President Humphrey, of Amherst College, 
writing of the period between 1790 and 
1810, in a letter to Mr. Barnard, says, " Our 



school-books were the Bible, Webster's 
'Spelling-book' and 'Third Part,' mainly. 
One or two others were found in some 
schools for the reading classes. Grammar 
was hardly taught at all in any of them, 
and that little was confined almost entirely 
to committing and reciting the rules. Pars- 
ing was one of the occult sciences in my 
day. We had some few lessons in geogra- 
phy, by questions and answers, but no maps, 
no globes ; and as for blackboards, such a 
thing was never thought of till long after. 
Children's reading and picture books we 
had none ; the fables in Webster's Spelling- 
book came nearest to it. Arithmetic was 
hardly taught at all in the day schools. As 
a' substitute there were some evening schools 
in most of the districts. Spelling was one 
of the daily exercises in all the classes." 

Hon. Joseph T. Buckingham, whose 
school days extended from 1786 to 1800, 
gives the following list of the school 
books in use at that time, Webster's and 
Dilworth's Spelling-books, Webster's Third 
Part, Dilworth's Schoolmaster's Assistant, 
and the Bible. The late S. G-. Goodrich 
(" Peter Parley ") describing a school of his 
native town as it was from 1803 to 1806, 
gives the following as the school books, the 
Catechism (probably the New England 
Primer), Webster's Spelling-book, the 
Bible, Daboll's Arithmetic, (which held its 
place in the schools for nearly thirty -five 
years), Webster's Grammar — which even 
the master did not understand — and 
Dwight's Geography, which had neither 
maps nor illustrations, and was merely an 
expanded table of contents of Morse's 
Universal Geography. The late Salem 
Town, describing the school in Belchertown, 
Mass., which was exceptionally well taught 
by Mr. S. Greene (father of Prof. S. S. 
Greene, of Brown University), from 1793 
to 1800, gives the following list of text- 
books, Webster's Elementary (this was prob- 
ably the "American," as the "Elementary" 
was not published till later), Spelling-book, 
Alexander's English Grammar, an abridg- 
ment of Pike's Arithmetic, the Columbian 
Orator, Nathaniel Dwight's and Jedediah 
Morse's small Geographies, this latter hav- 
ing four maps about the size of a man's 
hand, and a little later, Murray's English 
Grammer, and English Reader. 

We give on the next page the titles of 
school books printed in this country prior to 
1800. 



BOOKS FOR TEACHERS AND PLTILS — SCHOOL APPARATUS. 



L031 



American Text-books Printed prior to 1800. 



Abel, Thomas, Plane Trigonometry. Philadelphia, 1761. 
Adam, Ales., Rudiments of Latin Grammar, Benton, 1T'J3 
Adams, Hannah, History of .New England, Dedham, 17'j'j. 
Allien, Abner, Introduction to Spelling, Huston, 1797. 
Alsnp's Tallies, Latin and English. 

Alexander, Caleb, Intro, to Speaking and Writing English, 
Spelling-book, Worcester, I7JI9. [Boston, IT'.i-T 

" Grammatical System, Boston, 1792. 

" Latin Language, Worcester, 1794. 

" Grecian Language, Worcester, 1790, 

" Virgil, translated, with notes, Worcester, 1796. 

American Latin Grammar, Providence, 1794, 
Andrews, John, Sheridan's (Irani, nf I'.ng. Lang., Phil., 1789. 
Arithmetic, Vulgar and Decimal, Boston, 1724. 
Ash, John, Dictionary of English Language, Boston. 1794. 

Grammatical Institute, Philadelphia, 177*. 
Best, W., Logic in Question and Answer. .Wir York, 1796. 
Bingham, Caleb, Young Ladies' Accidence, Boston, 17.-."). 
American Preceptor, Boston, 1789. 

" Columbian Orator, Bu tun. 17:17. 

" Child's Companion, Boston, 1798. (1799. 

" Geographical and Astronomical Catechism, Boston, 

" Juvenile Letters, to assist Composition, Boston, 1799. 

" Historical Grammar, translated lor La Croze, Huston. 

" Copy-Slips, Boston, 1798. 
Burr, Jonathan, Compendium of English Gr„ Boston, 1797. 
American Later Grammar, Providence, 1794. 

" English Grammar, Huston, 1797. 

" New American Latin Grammar, jYew York, 1784. 

Caesar, Commentaries, Worcester. 17*4. 
Campbell, George, Philosophy of Rhetoric, London, 1776, 
Carroll, James, Am. Criterion of Eng. (Jr. .Yew London, 1795. 
Catechism, or Supplies from the Tower of David, Boston, 1781. 
Catechism, printed for Dorchester, .Muss., 1650. 
Catechism in the Negro Christianized, Boston. 1693. 
Cheever, Ezekiel, Short Int. to Latin Tongue (4th Ed) Boston, 
Child's New Plaything, a Spelling-book, Boston, 1744. [1734. 
Cicero's Orations, Boston, 1722. 
Clap, Thomas, General View of Philosophy, 1743. 

Foundation of Morals, .Yi ir Haven, 1765. 
Clark, John, Introduction to Latin, li'orcestcr, 1786. 
Collection of Psalm Tunes, Boston, 1753. 
Conily, John, English Grammar Made Easy, Philadelphia. 
Compendium Logical, Boston, 1735. 
Comprehensive Grammar, Pliiln.dctph.ia, 1789. 
Codes, C, Geographical Ledger, JVcw York. 1794. 
Cook, David, American Arithmetic, New Hnrert, 1799. 
Corderius, Colloquies, Boston, 18th editi n. 1789. 
Culman, Sentences for Children, Boston, 1723. 
Diiboll, Nathan. Schoolmaster's Assistant, New London, 1800. 
Dana, Joseph, Lessons in Reading and Speaking, Boston. 1792. 
Davidson, James, Introduction to Latin Tongue. I'liila., 1798. 
Dawson, VV., Entertaining Amusement, Philadelphia, 1754. 
De Hensch, H., Practical French Grammar, JV«0 York, 1796. 
Dearborn, Benjamin, Columbian Grammar, Boston. 1795. 
Dilworth, Thomas New Guide to English Tongue, Boston, 1767. 

" Schoolmaster's Assistant. Hartford, 1786. 

Dixon, Henrv. English Instructor, Boston, 1736. 
Doddridge. Philip, Friendly Instructor, Boston, 1749. 
Duncan, William, Elements of Logic, Philadelphia, 1792. 
Dwight, Nathaniel, System of Geography, Hartford, 1795. 
Eliot, John, Indian Grammar, Cambridge, 10li4. 

" Indian Grammar Begun, Boston, 1668. 

" Indian Logic. Prii..er, 1672. 

" Primer in Indian, 1687. 

" Catechism in Indian, 1687. 

Enfield, William, The Speaker, Hudson, 177*. 
English and German Grammar, Philadelphia, 1748. 
English Tongue — Art of Spelling Improved. Boston, 1757. 
Ensell, G.. Dutch Grammar of English Language, 1797. 
Erasmus' Colloquia, Worcester, 1785. 
Euclid's Elements of Geography, Worcester, 1784. 
Evans, Lewis, Geographical and Historical Essays, rhila., 1755. 
Fenning, Daniel. Universal Spelling-book, Boston, 1769. 

Youth's Instructor, Dover. 1795. 
Ferguson. James, Astronomy Explained. Philadelphia. 1799. 
Fisher, George, American Instructor. Philadelphia. 1748. 
Fraser, David. Young Lady's Assistant, Itanium. 1794. 
Fox, George. Instructions for Right Spelling, .Yrwpurt. 1769. 

•' Plain Directions for Reading. Boston, 1743. 

Fiske, Moses, New England Spelling book, 
Gay. Anthelme, Prosodical Gramnii.r. .Yew York. 1795. 
Gordon, John, Mathematical Traverse Table. Philadelphia, 1758. 
Gough, John, Treatise of Arithmetic, Boston, 1789 

'• American Accountant, Philadelphia. 1796. 

Gros, John D , Moral Philosophy. JVsW York, 1795. 
Guide to Arithmetic, Boston, 1794. 
Guthrie, W., Modern Geography, Philadelphia, 1795. 



Hale, Enoch, A Spelling book, Northampton. 1798, 

Hiiibiit', jiimi'i, Latin Grai ir. Jv*sts )■"•/. 1794 

Hill, John, Speedy Guide to Learning, Boston, 1745, 

Holy Bible, co m edition. Worcester, 1784. 

Horace, « Mrs, /( ..r, , i, r i 

U odder, James, Arithmetic Mode Buy, Boston, 1719, 

Indian Primer, In which chili ran may lean to ri i lot Indian 

language,, /;» ton. 1790 
Introduction to History ol America, Philadelphia 1781 
Janeway, James, Token for < 'hUdreo / 

Johnson, 8., Compendia t Logic and Ethics, Pkila 

Elements Philosophies), Boston, 1740, 
King's Heathen Gods. 

Kinnersley, Ebeneter, Experiments in Electricity, Pktieu, 1764, 
Latin Grammar, for the use of the College. Philadelphia, \~.~.'.\. 
Latin Tongue, for Grammar School al Nassau Hail, Phila„ 1767. 
Lake, John, Maury's Principles of Eloquence, A tan*, 

Lavoisier, Els tits of Chemistry, Philadelphia, I" 

Lee. C. A . American Accountant, tsomsinghargh 1797, 
Livius, Historiarum Libri quinque pi 1778. 

Logan, James, Cicero's Cato Major, Philadelphia. 1741 
Lowth, Robert, Introduction to English Grammar, I'ln/a , 1775. 
Macpheraon, John, .Moral Philosophy. Philadelphia, 1791. 
Massachusetts Psalter, Indian and English, Bo ton, 1700. 
McDonald, Alexander, Couth's Assistant. Litchfield, \'.-'J. 
Martinet, Catechism of Nature, Boston, 1790. 
Mennye, J., An English Grammar, JVsw l»rt. [785. 
Miller, Alexander, Grammar of English Lang., ATsto L.rA I7!i.'> 
Milne, \v . The w.di bred Scholar, Nw Tori, 17 

Morning and Evening Prayer and Church Catechism in Indian, 

Boston, 1763. 
Morse, Jedediah, Geography Made Ea«v, .Yiu- llaren 17-4. 
" " " '' Boston. 1790, 

" American Geography, F.lizabclhtoien. I' 

Murray, Lindley, English Grauunar. .Vr ir ),/r/.. 1795. 
Negro Christianised, for instruction of negro servants, Boston, 
New England Primer, />'.< ton, 1699. [I7U6. 

New England Primer Enlarged Huston. 1737. 
New England Primer Improved, Boston, 17711. 

New England Primer, much improved, Philadelphia, 1797. 

New England Primer Enlarged and Improved. Char/clown. 1799. 

New and Complete Guide to the English Tongue, Phila., J740. 

New Book of Knowledge, Huston. 17tiJ. 1772. 

New Introduction to Music, Be ton, 1764. 

Nomenclatura Breves Anglo Latina, Boston, 1752. 

Otis, James, Latin Prosody, Boston, 1760. 

i hid, Metamorphoses. 

Parent's Gifts, Boston, 1741. [1798. 

Perry, William, New Pronouncing Spelling book, Worcester, 

Pierce, Spelling-!* ok. 

Philadelphia Vocabulary (Latin), Philadelphia, 17'.M'> 

Pike. Nicolas. New System of Arithmetic, Neicburyport. 17"8S, 

■' Abridged, Worcester, 1795. 

" Revised by B, Adaini B ■■•■ • - 1797. 
Primer, or the Child's New Plaything. Philadelphia. 1757 

Practical Penman, Meevsm, 1727. 

Protestant Teacher for Children, with verses made by Mr. John 

Rogers, martyr in Marie's reign, Boston, 1685, 
Psalter, or Psalms of David, Worcester, 17114. 
Root, Brnstos, Introduction to Arithn 1796 

Ross, Robert, American Grammar, Hartford, 7th Ed., i" 
Royal Primer, Worcester, 1787 
Rudiments of Latin Prosody, Boston, 1760, 
Ryland, John. English Grammar, •rVTrrtaasx/jfon, 1767 
Rauariersoo, Nicholas, Elements of Algebra, Cssssrtstrs, 1740. 
Scott, William. Lessons in Elocution, .\\ ie York, 1799. 
Sheridan. Thomas, Dictionary of Bug. Lang., PkUs. 

Shorter Catechism, with Proofs. Boston, If.'.H. 

Shorter Catechism, Boston, 1 T Hit. 

Testament common edition by the doxen, Worcester. 

Thomas, Alexander, Jr., Orator's Aasistanl 1797. 

Tioknnr, Blisha, English Exercises, Boston. I7'.i2 

Todd, John. American Tutor's Assistant, Philadelphia, I7;i7. 

Token for the Clnldn I' V-« I -land. Be tun. ITiKI 

Tuft, John. Easy Method of Singing by Letters Be ton, 1723. 
Venema. Pteter, Arithmetic of Cufnr Roast, JVsaa Perl 1730 
Vionll, John, Student's Guide in Arithmetic, /''" Ion, i~'S- 
Virgilius, Opera, with Translation, WortmUr, I7'.»i. 
Ward's Latin Grammar 

Waits, Isaac. Catechism and Prayers, Boston, 17I9_ 
Webster, Noah. Amen. -mi Spelling book, Boston, 1794 

•' Grammatical Instill taofl | I 1783, 

Part II Boston, 1790 
•• •• Pan ill Berlfori 

Whittenhall. Latin Grammar. Philadelphia. I7c">e 
Young Clerk's (uncle to Learning, Boston, 17u- 

Voutii's Instructor, Phttadsiphso, 174.'> 

Youth's Instructor in the English Tongue, Baton, 1726. 



1032 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



(3.) School Apparatus. 

In the schools of the early period (1775 
to 1820) there was little in the way of 
school apparatus beyond the birchen rod, 
the strap, the raw-hide, or the ferule, which 
answered the double purpose of discipline 
and of assembling the school. The black- 
board was not introduced into even the city 
schools earlier than from 1825 to 1830, and 
did not find its way into the best country 
schools till after 1840. Globes, imported 
from England, were found in a few of our 
colleges perhaps as early as 1800, but did 
not make their appearance in the public 
schools before 1850. The orrery, or plani- 
sphere, or some other mode of representing 
the motion of the planets around the sun, 
were mentioned in some of the books, and 
heard of as belonging to the college proper- 
ties of some great institution, but was con- 
sidered, even as late as 1840, far beyond the 
reach of a public school. Outline maps, 
first made by J. H. Mather <fe Co., though 
bearing the name of S. A. Mitchell, were 
introduced in 1S40. They were rude com- 
pared with those now in the market, and 
there was a long struggle before they were 
very generally introduced. Now, one or 
other of the fifteen or sixteen sets of outline 
or wall maps are found in all the principal 
schools ; and this plan of illustrating the 
sciences by wall maps and charts has been 
extended to physical geography, geology, 
chemistry, botany, natural philosophy (in a 
new process of printing on oil-cloth, in 
Johnson's Philosophical charts), to anatomy 
and physiology, and even to orthography, 
phonetics, and grammar. 

The earliest, at least one of the earliest, 
manufacturers of philosophical apparatus in 
this country was Timothy Claxton, an Eng- 
lish mechanic who came to this country in 
1823, and worked as a mechanic in a 
machine-shop connected with a cotton 
factory in Methuen, Essex County, Mass. 
In 1826 he removed to Boston, taking with 
him an air-pump of simple construction, 
made by himself of a piece of gas-tubing, 
with a ground brass plate, on a mahogany 
stand. In a little volume of autobiography 
entitled Memoir of a Mechanic, published 
in 1839, Mr. Claxton introduces the subject 
as follows : 

" After I had been in Boston three or 
four years, Mr. Josiah Holbrook, a gentle- 
man much engaged in the establishment of 



lyceums, came to me to see about apparatus, 
as he was trying to introduce such cheap 
and simple instruments into schools, and 
other seminaries of learning, as would come 
within their means. He had already several 
articles for illustrating geometry, astronomy, 
&c; but air-pumps were not then simplified 
enough to form a part of the lyceum appa- 
ratus. At this interview, I introduced to 
his notice a small air-pump for exhausting 
and condensing, and several articles of appa- 
ratus to be used with it, which I had made 
for the amusement of myself and my 
friends. He frankly acknowledged it to be 
the very thing that was wanted in the 
smaller establishments for education. He 
wished me to make some for sale, and 
promised to recommend them, which he did 
not fail to do. From this interview I may 
date the commencement of my making 
philosophical instruments as a regular 
business." 

In the summer of 1835 Mr. Claxton had 
his shop and warerooms destroyed bv fire ; 
but as he was fully insured, he resumed busi- 
iness promptly, taking into partnership his 
principal workman, Mr. J. M. Wightman, who 
had been from the first his "right hand man," 
and who in 1837 took the business off his 
hands, — Mr. Claxton going to England in 
the same year. There his zeal for popular 
education led him to getting up lyceums, 
and lecturing before mechanics' institutes, 
and finally to an engagement with the 
Central Society of Education in London, to 
superintend the manufacture of school appa- 
ratus, similar to what he had been making 
in Boston. In the meantime Mr. Wight- 
man went on extending his manufacture of 
apparatus, and by his interest in the better 
education of mechanics, and the improve- 
ment of popular education generally, became 
an influential member of the school com- 
mittee, and Mayor of the City of Boston. 

The first systematic attempt to supply 
the Grammar Schools of Boston with a set 
of philosophical apparatus was made in 
1847, under the lead of George B. Emerson, 
LL. D., the most eminent teacher in the 
city, and at that time in the school com- 
mittee. The set was classified and con- 
structed by Mr. Wightman, and was very 
generally adopted in schools of the same 
grade in other cities. 

The first school apparatus proper for illus- 
trating geography, astronomy, geometry, and 
arithmetic, which came within the reach of 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



1033 



SCHOOL APPARATTJ& 




APPARATUS AND EQUIPMENT OF THE DISTRICT SCHOOL AS IT WAS. 




SPECIMENS OP APPARATUS OP THE SCHOOL AS IT IS. 



1034 



PROFESSIONAL AND SPECIAL EDUCATION. 



public schools, was that devised by 
Josiah Ilolbrook, and manufactured for 
him after 1835 by his sons, and subse- 
quently by the Ilolbrook Manufacturing 
Co. It consisted at first of a five or 
six inch globe, a three inch globe in 
halves, a very simple tellurion, a few geo- 
metrical forms in wood, and a numeral frame 
or aritbmeticon. These were all at first rude 
and imperfectly manufactured, but were sub- 
sequently greatly improved and other articles 
added. Competition presently brought sev- 
eral good 6, 8, 10, 12, 18, and 20 inch 
globes into the market, at reasonable prices, 
and spelling frames, large slates and frames 
with wooden panels, covered with liquid 
slating, slated walls, chalk-rubbers, crayons 
and crayon-holders, drawing-frame*, chemi- 
cal and philosophical apparatus, planispheres, 
tellurions, concentric globes, geotellurions, 
celestial indicators, globe timepieces, micro- 
scopes, magic-lanterns, &c, &c, followed in 
rapid succession, until the furnishing of a 
school-house cost more than twice or three 
times what the old school-house, furniture 
and all, would have required fifty years ago. 
This, of course, demanded that the school- 
houses should be more roomy and better 
built, better arranged, and supplied with 
better and more comfortable desks and seats 
than they had been, as will be hereafter de- 
scribed. 

There is another improvement of which 
our fathers had no notion, but which 
to-day is recognized all over the country, — 
— a supply of reference books for a 
school and where it can be procured, a 
district library. No school would now be 
considered furnished, without Webster's or 
Worcester's large Dictionary, Lippincott's or 
some other Gazetteer, Johnson's, or Col- 
ton's Atlas, and Johnson's, or Appleton's 
popular cyclopaidias, for reference by 
both teachers and scholars. If they have a 
library of choice reading for the pupils and 
their families, so much the better, and the 
city and many of the village schools do have 
this additional means of instruction. In 
many of the schools, also, there is a cabinet 
of minerals and geological specimens, not 
very extensive, but sufficiently so to enable 
the children to recognize the principal strata, 
minerals, and elementary bodies which enter 
into the geology of the neighborhood and 
the globe. In these matters of apparatus, 
cabinets, libraries, &c, we are perhaps going 
to the opposite extreme from that of our 



fathers, and introducing to the mind of the 
child so great a variety of objects of thought 
and study, that no one of them will be 
completely mastered. 

In our city schools, particularly, and to 
some extent in all the public schools, this 
multiplicity of studies and objects of thought 
has put so much work upon the children 
that there is danger of their more delicately 
organized and ambitious pupils breaking 
down under it ; and this danger is obviated 
in a way characteristic of our time, not by 
abundant and invigorating exercise in the 
open air, but by exercises which are known 
as "light gymnastics," the device in part 
of Mr. Dio Lewisj and in part of Prof. 
Watson. The apparatus for this purpose 
consists of wands, wooden rings, wooden 
dumb-bells, Indian clubs, &c. The Manual 
of Gymnastics prescribes a great variety of 
exercises with these, which are so arranged 
as to keep up the interest of the pupils in 
them for a long time. These " light gym- 
nastics" unquestionably do something to- 
ward invigorating the muscles, and increas- 
ing the litheness and dexterity of the pupil, 
but they are liable to the objection that the 
mental faculties, already overwearied by the 
multiplicity of lessons, are still further taxed 
to remember and go through these calis- 
thenic exercises in their proper order, when 
the mind should be relaxed from all care 
and fatiguing thought, while the body is re- 
invigorated by open air sports and pastimes. 
Still, in default of any thing better, the 
"light gymnastics" serve a tolerable pur- 
pose. The regulation of the temperature in 
the school-rooms by a thermometer, and the 
introduction of good and sufficient means 
of warming and ventilation, the systemiza- 
tion of the school exercises, recitations, etc., 
by a programme regularly adhered to, and 
indicated by the stroke of the teacher's bell, 
the general abolition of cruel and unusual 
punishments, the great decline in the use of 
the rod, strap, or ferule, and the substitution 
of merit rolls and records, and tokens of 
honor, are all steps in the progress of edu- 
cation in our public schools, which indicate 
the improvement which has been made since 
the days of the vigorous and stern peda- 
gogues of eighty or a hundred years ago. 




DESK AND SETTEE, COMBINED. 



DESK AND SETTEE, INDEPENDENT. 



The New Amt.rioan Desks, with Allen's Opera Skats 




Principal's Platform Desk, (rear view.) 








Assistant Teacher's Desk. 



Timbt's Glohe Timk-Piect. 





The New School Globe. 



Hammond Blackboard Support. 




The " Assembly " School Desks and Sittim. 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



1035 



IX. SCHOOL ARCHITECTURE. 
(1.) School-houses as they ware. 

Out illustrations give some idea of the 
exterior appearance of the rural Bchool- 
houses of eighty or a hundred years ago, 
which cast not only their shadows, but pro- 
jected themselves into our own times. 
They were generally either log buildings or 
frame, though occasionally these perversions 
of architecture were perpetuated in brick or 
stone. The location, almost invariably 
chosen for convenience of .access to children 
from widely separated homes, was at the 
crossing of the roads, and if possible on 
some knoll, without tree, shrub, or inclosure. 
If the building was of logs, it was rarely 
chinked and of course never painted; if a 
frame building, the weather-boarding was 
cheap, generally warped, and often detached 
for fuel or other purposes, and the building, 
if painted at all, was either red or yellow. 
We have given elsewhere in this volume de- 
scrijjtions of the interior of some of these 
school-houses, in different parts of the coun- 
try, from the pens of the late Dr. Humphrey, 
S. G. Goodrich, Judge Longstrect, and others. 
The improvement in these edifices did not 
begin till after the first quarter of the pres- 
ent century. A writer in the Educational 
Monthly, in 1871, describing a New Engl;. ml 
school-house, where he had attended school 
from 1828 to 1830, in a large and wealthy 
village, gives the following pen-picture: 

" It stood upon a little knoll, close to the 
street, with no inclosure, no trees, and no 
protection from the gaze of the passers-by. 
It was a square frame building of one story, 
about twenty by twenty-five feet, covered 
with clapboards (except where these had 
been torn off to aid in kindling the fire) and 
shingled. The clapboards had at some re- 
mote period been painted red, but this now 
alternated with weather-stains, and gave the 
building a sort of brindled appearance. As- 
cending two or three stone steps to the 
weather-beaten door, the entry, as it was 
called, presented itself, a square closet where 
the boys and girls hung hats, bonnets, and 
dinner-pails. The school-room, into which 
we next passed, was nearly square ; it had 
been lathed and plastered, but the walls 
were much broken, and some artistic genius 
had adorned the wall overhead (the room 
was hardly seven feet high) with wreaths 
and festoons and comic figures executed in 
55 



lamp-Miioke, so completely that hardlv a 
vestige of white vail remained. The tradi- 
tional style of writing-desks, a hoard attached 

to the wall and running round three sides of 

tin' room, was in use here, hut the building 
committee bad kindly provided a shelf be- 
low, where our school-books could be >tnrcd, 
when* not in use. The >eat> for the older 
scholars were of slab, with legs sawed from 
some sapling about two inches through, and 
were without backs. The -mailer children 
had similar but lower benches. In the mid- 
dle of the ro was a huge rustj box-stove, 

which could take in two-foot wood; while 
on the side unoccupied was the master's 
chair and a square cross-legged pine table. 
The teacher's table, the writing-desks, and 
the benches, bore evidence of the whittling 

propensities of the boys, and manv was the 
fly-prison and pin box carved and excavated 
in the desk-board, while the lev> expert had 
cut holes through it, and would amuse them- 
selves with dropping crumbs to the hungry 
mice which tenanted the Bohool-house." 

Henry Ward Beecher thus describes his 

reminiscence of the school-house and school 
of his boyhood. 

" It was our misfortune, in boyhood, to 
go to a District School. It was a little 
square pine building, blazing in the sun, 
upon the highway, without a tree for Bbade 
or sight near it ; without bush, yard, I 
or circumstance to take off it- bare. cold, 
hard, hateful look. Before the door, in 
winter, was the pile of wood for fuel, and 
in summer, there were all the chips of the 
winter's wood. In winter, we were -.pi' 
into the recess of the farthest corner, among 

little boyS, who seemed to he >e|lt t>> School 

merely to fill up the chinks between the 
bigger boys Certainly we were never sent 
for any such absurd purpose a- education. 

There were the great scholars — the School 
in winter was for ///<///, not for as picanniuies. 
We were read and spelt twice a day. i. 

something happened to prevent, which did 

happen about everv other day. For the 
rest of the time we were busy in keeping 
still. And a time we always had of it. 
< >ur shoes always would be scraping on the 

floor, or knocking the shins of urchins who 

were also being 'educated.' All of own 

little legs together, (poor, tired, nervous, 
restless IclTs, with nothing to do.) would till 
up the corner with such a noise, that every 
ten or fifteen minutes the master would 
bring down his two-foot hickory feruie on 



1036 



PROFESSIONAL AND SPECIAL EDUCATION. 



the desk with a clap that sent shivers 
through our hearts, to think how that would 
have felt, if it had fallen somewhere else ; 
and then, with a look that swept us all into 
utter extremity of stillness, he would cry, 
4 silence, in that corner !' It would last for 
a few minutes ; but, little boys' memories 
are not capacious. Moreover, some of the 
boys had mischief, and some had mirthful- 
ness, and some had both together. The 
consequence was that just when we were the 
most afraid to laugh, we saw the most 
comical things. Temptations, which we 
could have vanquished with a smile out in 
the free air, were irresistible in our little 
corner, where a laugh and a spank were 
very apt to woo each other. So, we would 
hold on, and fill up; and others would hold 
on and fill up too; till by-and-by the 
weakest would let go a mere whiffet of a 
laugh, and then down went all the precau- 
tions, and one went off, and another, and 
another, touching the others off like a pack 
of fire-crackers ! It was in vain to deny it. 
But as the process of snapping our heads, 
and pulling our ears went on with primitive 
sobriety, we each in turn, with tearful eyes, 
and blubbering lips, ' declared we did not 
mean to,' and that was true ; and that ' we 
wouldn't do so any more,' and that was a 
lie, however unintentional; for we never 
failed to do just so again, and that about 
once an hour all day long. 

" A woman kept the school, sharp, pre- 
cise, unsympathetic, keen and untiring. Of 
all ingenious ways of fretting little boys, 
doubtless her ways were the most expert. 
Not a tree to shelter the house, the sun beat 
down on the shingles and clapboards till the 
pine knots shed pitchy tears ; and the air 
was redolent of hot pine wood smell. The 
benches were slabs with legs in them. The 
desks were slabs at an angle, cut, hacked, 
scratched ; each year's edition of jack-knife 
literature overlaying its predecessor, until 
it then were cuttings and carvings two or 
three inches deep. But if we cut a morsel, 
or stuck in pins, or pinched off splinters, 
the little sharp-eyed mistress was on hand, 
and one look of her eye was worse than a 
sliver in our foot, and one nip of her fingers 
was equal to a jab of a pin ; for we had 
tried both. 

" We envied the flies — merry fellows ; 
bouncing about, tasting that apple skin, 
patting away at that crumb of bread ; now 
out of the window, then in again ; on your 



nose, on neighbor's cheek, off to the very 
school-ma'am's lips ; dodging her slap, and 
then letting off a real round and round buzz, 
up, down, this way, that way, and every 
way. Oh, we envied the flies more than 
any thing except the birds. The windows 
were so high that we could not see the 
grassy meadows ; but we could see the tops 
of distant trees, and the far, deep, boundless 
blue sky. There flew the robins ; there 
went the bluebirds; and there went we. 
We followed that old Polyglott, the skunk- 
blackbird, and heard him describe the way 
that they talked at the winding up of 
the Tower of Babel. We thanked every 
meadow-lark that sung on, rejoicing as it 
flew. Now and then a ' chipping-bird ' 
would flutter on the very window-sill, turn 
its little head side-wise, and peer in on the 
medley of boys and girls. Long before we 
knew it was in Scripture, we sighed : ' Oh 
that we had the wings of a bird ' — we would 
fly away and be out of this hateful school. 
As for learning, the sum of all that we ever 
got at a district-school, would not cover the 
first ten letters of the alphabet. One good; 
kind, story-telling, Bible-rehearsing aunt at 
home, with apples and ginger-bread pre- 
miums, is worth all the school-ma'ams that 
ever stood by to see poor little fellows roast 
in those boy-traps called district-schools." 

There was some improvement, but not 
much, in the external construction of school- 
houses in the large cities of the country, 
prior to 1840 ; but the advance (and it has 
been a great one, amounting to a revolution, 
though there are even now in all the States 
too many school-houses answering very 
nearly to the preceding description) has been 
mainly since 1838. The progressive devel- 
opment of the literature of this subject 
is thus given by Hon. E. R. Potter, of 
Rhode Island, in a report to the National 
Educational Convention held in Philadel- 
phia in October, 1847, in which he, as the 
organ of a committee of that body, recom- 
mended for general circulation in the United 
States a small treatise on the location, 
size, ventilation, warming, and furniture 
of buildings designed for educational pur- 
poses, prepared, at the request of the 
committee, by Hon. Henry Barnard of 
Connecticut. 

The earliest publication on the subject in thia 
country, which has met the notice of the Committee, 
may be found in the School Magazine, No. 1, pub- 
lished as an appendage to the Journal of Educa- 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



1037 



tion, in April, 1829. In 1830, Mr. W. J. Adams, 
of New York, delivered a lecture before the Amer- 
ican Institute of Instruction, " On School-houses and 
School Apparatus" which was published in the first 
volume of the transactions of that association. 
Stimulated by that lecture, the Directors of the In- 
stitute in the following year offered a premium of 
twenty dollars for the best "Essay on the Construc- 
tion of School-houses" The premium was awarded 
by a committee of the Institute to the essay by Dr. 
William A. Alcott, of Hartford, Conn., then residing 
in West Newton, Mass. This " Prize Essay " was 
published in the second annual volume of lectures 
before the Institute, as well as in a pamphlet, and 
was widely circulated and read all over the country. 
In 1833, the Pyssex County Teachers' Association 
published a "Report on School-houses" prepared by 
Rev. G-. B. Perry, which is a searching and vigor- 
ous exposure of the evils resulting from the de- 
fective construction and arrangement of school- 
houses. From this time the subject began to attract 
public attention, and improvements were made in 
the construction and furniture of school-rooms, 
especially in large cities and villages. 

In 1838. Hon. Horace Mann submitted a "Report 
on School-houses,''' as supplementary to his First 
Annual Report as Secretary of the Board of Educa- 
tion in Massachusetts, in which the whole subject, 
and especially that of ventilation, is discurred with 
great fullness and ability. This Report was widely 
circulated in a pamphlet form, and in the various 
educational periodicals of the country, and gave a 
powerful impulse to improvement in this department, 
not only in Massachusetts, but in other States. In 
the same year, Hon. Henry Barnard prepared an 
" Essay on School Architecture" in which he 
embodied the results of much observation, experi- 
ence and reflection, in a manner so systematic and 
practical as to meet the wants of all who may have 
occasion to superintend the erection, alteration, or 
furnishing of school-houses. This essay was original- 
ly prepared and delivered as a lecture in the course 
of his official visits to different towns of Connecticut, 
as Secretary of the Board of Commissioners of 
Common Schools. It was first published in 18-11, 
in the Connecticut Common School Journal, and in 
1842 was submitted, with some modifications and 
numerous illustrations, as a "It/port on School- 
houses" to the Legislature. It may be mentioned 
as an evidence of the low appreciation in which the 
whole subject was regarded at that time, in a State 
which prides herself on the condition of her common 
schools, and on the liberality with which her system 
of public education is endowed, that the Joint 
Standing Committee on education, on the part of 
the Senate and House, refused to recommend the 
publication of this Essay, although it is by far the 
most thorough, systematic and practical discussion 
of the subject which has appeared in this country 
or in Europe. And it was only through the 
strenuous efforts of a few intelligent friends of 
school improvements that its publication was secured, 
and then, only on condition that the author should 
bear the expense of the wood-cuts by which it was 
illustrated, and a portion of the bill for printing. 
Since its first publication, more than one hundred 
thousand copies of the original essay havo been 
printed in various forms and distributed in different 
States, without any pecuniary advantage to the 



author. * * * [n 18S8, Mr. Barnard repnl 

Bay, With plans and .1. 

school-hunses which had lie,. ii erected under his 
direction in Rhode Island and Connecticut, and after 
his BUggeetiona in other ; Including all of 

the plans of any value which had been DUO 

by Mr. .Mann, Mr. Bmereon, Mr. Bishop ' 

dence plans), and other laborers in this Qeldal home 

and in England, with the title of 

ture, or Contributt 

houses in the Untied States." 

Without the remotest thought of ignor- 
ing the great services of others in securing 

local action in tin* line of improvement, 01 
in extending and perfecting the work in any 

State, we arc satisfied that the first and 

highest honor in this department of labor 
belongs to Hon. Henry Barnard,* not only 
for his early, hut for his masterly and ex- 
haustive treatment of the whole subject in 
18:38, not only to meet the imi liate de- 
mand, but to leave little or nothing in the 
way of principles, or details of internal ar- 
rangementa, to be developed and pert' 
afterwards. To the following summary of 
principles set forth in 1838, to be regarded 
in the location, construction, arrangement of 
seats and desks, lighting, ventilation, warm- 
ing, and equipment generally, we find noth- 
ing essentially important in the structures 
erected within the past year. 

School-houses as they should be. 

1. A location, healthy, accessible from all parts of 
the district; retired from the dust, noise and dan- 
ger of the highway; attractive, from its choice of 
sun and shade, and commanding, in one or more 
directions, the cheap, yet priceless educating influ- 
ences of line scenery. 

2. A site large enough to admit of a yard in 
front of the building, either common to the whole 
school, or appropriate! to green-sward, (lowers, and 
shrubbery; and two yards in the rear, one for 
BOX, properly Inclosed, and fitted up with means 
of recreation and exercise. 

3. Separate entrances to the school-room for each 
sex: each entrance distinct from the front door, and 
fitted up with scraper, mats, and old broom for tlio 
feet; with hooks, shelves, ,y.c, for hats, over 
over-shoes and umbrellas; with sink. pump, basin 
and towels, and with brooms and duster, and all tlw 
means and appliances DeceSSUV W secure habits of 

order, neatness and cleanliness. 

4. School-room, in addition to the space required 

by aisles and the teacher's platform, sufficient tO 
accommodate with a seat and desk, not only 
scholar in the district who is in the habit of attend- 
ing school, but all who may be entitled to attend; 

• It nhnuld tie mill in justice to l>r. Hnrnnrd, \vhn«e nsnx 
npnenra nt the nuthor of tlm article, tlint tliu chnptcr »M 
written by another hand, tod \vn« Mill MM by him till it wi»» 
in print. In the Pn&M I" Mi Principle* of School Architec- 
ture. Dr. II. cues a chronotosic.il hbton of Uie prariaOi effort! 
which hml been mnile to improve the OMifna, eomtruct on and 
equipment of •chool-hoiuei. In the ren«.d edition i I- 
the School .Irrhilrcturr ore Dpwmrdl of 900 illiittnitinni of 
building! recently erected in different parti of the country. 



SCHOOL-HOUSES AS THEY WERE 





SCHOOL-HOUSES, APPARATUS, AND TEXT-BOOKS. 



1039 



SCHOOL HOUSES AS THEY ARE. 




COUNTRY DISTRICT SCIIOOL-UOfSE. 




VILLAGE SCHOOL-nOCSE. 



PACKER FEMALE COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE. 




Fig. 3. Interior of Chapel. 



PROFESSIONAL AND SPECIAL EDUCATION. 



1013 



with verge enough to receive the children of indus- 
trious, thoughtful and religious families, who are 
sure to be attracted to a district which is bl 
with a good school-house and a good school 

5. At least one spare room for recitation, library, 
and other uses, to every school-room, no matter how 
small the school may be. 

G. An arrangement of the windows, so as to 
secure one blank wall, and at the same time the 
cheerfulness and warmth of the sunlight, at all times 
of the day, with arrangements to modify the same 
by blinds, shutters, or curtains. 

7. Apparatus for warming, by which a large quan- 
tity of pure air from outside of the building can be 
moderately heated, and introduced into the room 
without passing over a red-hot iron surface, and dis- 
tributed equally to different parts of the room. 

8. A cheap, simple, and efficient mode of ventila- 
tion, by which the air in every part of a school- 
room, which is constantly becoming vitiated by res- 
piration, combustion, or other causes, may lie con- 
stantly flowing out of the room, and its place filled 
by an adequate supply of fresh air drawn from a 
pure source, and admitted into the room at the 
right temperature, of the requisite degree of mois- 
ture, and without any perceptible current. 

9. A desk with at least two feet of top surface. 
and in no case for more than two pupils, inclined 
toward the front edge one inch in a foot, except two 
to three inches of the most distant portion, which 
should be level, — covered with cloth to prevent 
noise, — fitted with an ink-pot (supplied with a lid 
and a pen-wiper) and a slate, with a pencil-holder 
and a sponge attached. — supported by end-pieces 
or stanchions, curved so as to be convenient for 
sweeping, and to admit of easy access to the seat, 
— and of varying heights for small and large pupils, 
the front edge of each desk being from seven to 
nine inces (seven for the lowest and nine for the 
highest,) higher than the frout edge of the seat or 
chair attached. 

10. A chair or bench for each pupil, and in no 
case for more than two, unless separated by an 
aisle, with a seat hollowed like an ordinary chair, 
and varying in height from ten to seventeen inches 
from the outer edge to the floor, so that each pupil. 
When properly seated, can rest his feet on the floor 
without the muscles of the thigh pressing hard upon 
the front edge of the scat, and with a proper sup- 
port for the muscles of the back. 

11. An arrangement of the seats and desks, bo 
as to allow of an aisle or free passage of at least two 
feet around the room, and between each range of 
seats for two scholars, and so as to bring each 
scholar under the supervision of the teacher. 

12. Arrangements for the teacher, such as a 
separate closet for his over-coat, &c, a desk for his 
papers, a library of books of reference, maps, appa- 
ratus, and all such instrumentalities by which his 
capacities for instruction may be made in the highest 
degree useful. 

13. Accommodations for a school library for con- 
sultation and circulation among the pupils, both at 
school and as a means of carrying on the work of 
Belf-education at their homes, in the field, or the 
workshop, after they have left BChooL 

14. A design in good taste and fit proportion, in 
place of the wretched perversions of architecture, 
which almost universally characterize the district or 
public school-houses. 



15. While making suitable acoommodatiot] for tho 
school, it will be s wise, and. all things i 

an economical investment, on the part of mai 

triets, to provide apartments in t 

or in its neighborhood, f"r the tea her si I 
family. This arrangement will gin 

permanence to the offlt f teaching, and si 

same time secure better supervision tor the - 
bouse and premises, and nunc . ■ to the 

manners of the pupils out of set 1. Proi ision for 

the residence of the teacher, and not anfrequently 
s garden for bis cultivation, is made in conni 
with the parochial schools in Scotland, and with tho 
first class of public schools in Germany. 

16. Whenever practicable, the pi 1 be 
disconnected from the play-ground, and be sp- 
proached by a covered walk. Perfect * i 
neatness, and propriety should be strictly observed, 

and can easily be done wherever water i- - ipplied. 

17. A shed, or covered walk, or the 
story paved under feet, and open for frei 

of air for the boys, and an Upper r n With tho 

Boor deafened and properly supported force! sthenic 

exercises for the girls, is a desirable ai | 

In 1857, Mr. Bnrrowes, who bad been 
State superintendent of schools in Penn- 
sylvania, after toying in vain to obtain 
an appropriation For the distribution 
of Dr. Barnard's "School Architecture" 
to every district in Pennsylvania, pre- 
pared a similar work, which was circu- 
lated extensively in that State. In 1858, 
Mr. James Johonnot published aven 
treatise on Country School Houses, with nu- 
merons illustrations, and in 1872 another 
with the simple title of " School Ho 
the architectural designs in which were 
drawn by S. E. Bewes, architect, and 
which contained, as an appendix, M 
d. W". Scherraerhorn A 0o.'s Illustrated 
Catalogue of School Furniture, Appa- 
ratus, and Appliances, unquestionably 
the largest and most complete in the 
country. In 1861 or 1862, Mr. G< 
E. Woodward, architect and publisher, 
who had previously published many 
designs and plans of school-houses, is- 
sued a large and elaborate work. Bveleth's 
School-house Architecture. Several other 
architectural writers have also published 
many designs for school-houses very i 
ing to the eve. but occasionally defective iii 
their internal arrangements from want of 
knowledge «\' the actual requirements of the 

school. On the BUbject Of ventilation, partly 

with reference to school-houses, there have 
been several special treatises by Reid, 
Gouge, Leeds, oVc. Upwards *<( 1100,000," 

000 have been invested in the construction 
and equipment of school-houses in the dif- 
ferent States since 1838 



1044 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



X. BENEFACTORS OP EDUCATION. 

No nation, by itself or its citizens, ever 
dealt so munificently for educational 
purposes as our own, especially within 
the past fifteen or twenty years. Prof. 
Tyndal, in his speech just before his de- 
parture from our shores, said : " The willing- 
ness of American citizens to throw their 
fortunes into the cause of public education 
is without a parallel in my experience." In 
our early history our people were poor, and 
the gift of large sums for this purpose was 
impossible unless the donor lived abroad. 
Moreover, a moderate sura at that time, with 
the cheapness of land and the low price of 
labor and building materials, went farther 
than a much larger endowment would now ; 
and if the endowment was in lands, and 
they were retained for many years, there 
■was a greatly enhanced value in the gift. It 
is not within the limits of our space to name 
all the early, even, much less of the multitude 
of later benefactors to education who have 
done so much to benefit and bless their coun- 
try ; we can only enumerate the more con- 
spicuous among them. 

Of the earliest benefactors of education in 
this country, such men as John Harvard 
who gave £750 ($3,750) to convert a feeble 
and ill sustained grammar-school into the 
first permanent college in America ; Edward 
Hopkins, whose £2,800 ($14,000) founded 
three grammar-schools and helped to endow 
a college ; Elihu Yale, whose gift of £500 
($2,500) laid the foundations of Yale col- 
lege : Bartlett and Dummer, and Whitfield, 
and the long list of worthies who, in colo- 
nial times, gave from their moderate means 
what was perhaps as truly a bounteous gift 
as the hundreds of thousands or millions of 
our merchant princes of to-day, we do not 
propose here to speak. The entire en- 
dowments, except lands, of Harvard Col- 
lege up to 1772, were not over $120,000, 
and a part of these had been destroyed by 
fire. Yale College had received from 1701 
to 1780 from the State and individuals only 
about $29,000. But the present century 
has witnessed a constantly swelling tide of 
educational donations and bequests, whose 
magnitude is scarcely computable by ordi- 
nary figures. The mind takes in only a very 
imperfect comprehension of the idea of mil- 
lions of money expended for a particular 
object, however grand and magnificent in its 



scope that object may be. The following 
table, prepared by Dr. Brockett, gives a list 
of the principal donors of money, in sums 
exceeding $20,000, to educational purposes 
within the past hundred years. The list is 
necessarily imperfect, for there are no data 
for a complete one, and in many instances 
donors of large sums have so guarded them 
with restrictions and conditions that they 
are unavailable, or the amount can not be 
ascertained. When we consider that all the 
375 colleges and universities, so-called, at 
least 350 of the schools of secondary in- 
struction, and about 300 professional schools, 
have been endowed, some of them largely, 
and all to some extent, and that in most in- 
stances these endowments have been raised 
by contributions varying from $100 to $20,- 
000, we shall realize that this table does not 
cover half, perhaps not a third, of the edu- 
cational benefactions of the last hundred 
years. Thus no part of the $500,000 sub- 
scribed for the endowment of Syracuse Uni- 
versity ; of the $305,000 additional endow- 
ment of Tufts College ; of the $300,000 ad- 
ditional for Brown University ; of the $500,- 
000 now raising by the Alumni of Yale col- 
lege toward its endowment ; of the $500,- 
000 for Union Theological Seminary ; of the 
$260,000 called for by Harvard in conse- 
quence of the Boston fire; the $600,000 
added to the funds of Trinity College, 
by Hartford; the $300,000 or more for 
Hobart College, Geneva; of the $250,000 
for Lewisburg University ; the $200,000 
for Georgetown College, Ky.; the $300,000 
now nearly raised for the endowment 
of the Southern Baptist Theological Sem- 
inary at Louisville, and scores of other 
college and school endowments, which 
might be named. Yet the benefactions 
named in this table form an aggregate of 
over $40,000,000, and we are certainly 
within bounds if we state the aggregate en- 
dowment, including real estate, of our 
schools, colleges and professional schools, in- 
cluding the State and national grants to 
them, as exceeding one hundred and fifty 
millions of dollars ; of which not less than 
one hundred millions is the gift or bequest 
of individuals. 

With such abundant liberality on the 
part of our citizens, we ought to have all the 
material conditions of the best schools of 
secondary and higher instruction ; and when 
we are as well supplied with able and 
specially trained teachers as with money, we 



PROFESSIONAL AND SPECIAL EDUCATION. 



1045 



shall have an educational system to meet the 
demands of the age and the country. At 
present we have too many colleges whose 
instruction is not above that of good second- 
ary schools, and too many secondary 
schools whose principal work is elementary. 
Were the present endowments concent rated 
on one-half the number, and these thus 
enabled to give such salaries as would com- 
mand the highest order of talent, we should 
see a rapid improvement in our colleges, and 
out of the dead level of half-manned and 
half-equipped institutions would rise a few 
Universities in fact as well as in name. 

There are many lessons to be drawn from 
the history of endowments, as well in this 
country, as in Europe, some of which will 
ere long suggest appropriate legislation to 
protect the principal, and at the same time 
admit of such application of the income as 
to promote and not defeat the evident in- 
tention of the donor. While benefactions 
are useful in providing for educational wants, 
not generally felt, they not unfrequently 
prove hindrances in the progressive devel- 
opment of institutions, by being placed 
beyond the control of their natural guard- 
ians, who should be at liberty, under proper 
restrictions, to apply the same to such 
studies as new discoveries in science, or 
new developments in art may require. 

The contrast between the slow but grad- 
ual accumulation of educational endowments, 
begun early and continued from year to year, 
and the recent rapid growth of the funds of 
of an institution under the joint liberality 
of the State and a few individuals, is shown 
in the following statement taken from Bar- 
nard's Educational Biography, Volume III., 
Benefactors of American Schools and Col- 
leges — Ezra Cornell, and John Harvard: 

'The rapid growth of Cornell University, 
both in pecuniary resources, cabinets, profes- 
sorships, and students, is one of the marvels 
of educational history. In 1865, on the 
failure of the attempt in 1856 to estahlish a 
State College of Agriculture at Ovid, on 
Seneca Lake, and of the " People's College " 
to realize a great State Industrial University 
at Havana, Mr. Cornell proposed to the 
legislature of New York, to devote the State 
share (989,920 acres) in the Congressional 
land grant of 1862 for the benefit of agri- 
culture and the mechanic arts, to an insti- 
tution in Ithaca, to the endowment and 



maintenance of which he would devote the 
sum of *500,000, and two hundred acres of 
land, with buildings, as a farm to l.c at- 
tached to the agricultural department The 
proposition was accepted, trustees appointed 
and the institution opened in 1868, under 
the name of the Cornell University, with 
Hon. Andrew D. White at president In 
1872, there were 525 college Student* 
elusive of over 400 in the introductory de- 
partment), classified in various courses of 
science, literature, arts, agriculture, archi- 
tecture, chemistry, engineering, mechanic 

arts, natural history, ami optional >t;idies, 
under 54 professors, assistant professors, and 
special lecturers; realizing tie' idea of the 
founder — 'an institution where any person 
can find instruction in anv study.' 

Cornell University, in 1878, possessed the 
avails, realized and to be realized, of the 
State appropriation of the Congressional 
land grant estimated at present prices, at 
over 82,000,000, and, 

donations by 

Ezra Cornell » 

Henry W. Saoic, ro'lege !. 

John Mi <;ra\v. library boilriinr, be 140,000 

Andrew I'. White, president'! house 

Hiram Sibley, building and machinery 58,000 

Casi ldilla Compart, building ' 35,000 

Goldwih Smith, library, fee 1 1 BOO 

Mean Cage, scholarship, 30,000 

British (Jovernment, Patent Office collection, dfce. 11.001 
(Jreen Smith, ornithological collection 

Miss Jen me McCit aw, chime nf bells '.< I'm) 

Mrs. A. I). White, grent bell 

William Kelley, mathematical library 2,000 

Lewis Morris, live stuck Tor farm -.'."J"! 

R. Hoe & Co., printing press 3,85 

.1. ]■'. Sweet, tvpe-'etting machine 'J 50 I 

Stewart Li. Woodford, prize scheme 1,500 

Sam i el J. May, books 5U0 

These amounts, with thirty benefactions in 
small sums, make an aggregate <■*( 11,402,- 
614, in less than ten years, since the first 
announcement of Mr. Cornell's intention. 

John Harvard was one of the earliest 
benefactors of American education. Barv- 
ard College, to which he left half his prop- 
erty (1750), has been the recipient of i >' 

benefactions than any similar institution in 
the country, a list of which will he found 
in Barnard's Benefactor* of American 
Schools, and in his History of S r In- 

struction in the United States. We gii 
the following page the condition of the 
propertv as h stood on the treasurer's hook, 
Aug. SI, 1872, amounting to $2,608,3 
The grounds, building, museum, apparatus, 

ffcc, represent not less than |3,000,l 

[M. B.— Table referred to on preceding page is not printed.] 



1046 



SCHOOL-HOUSES, APPARATU8, AND TEXT-BOOKS. 



SCHOOL-BOOKS. 

The improvement in the authorship and manufacture of text-books, from the Primer 
to the Manuals of our colleges and scientific schools, within the last half century is im- 
mense. We will refresh the memory of some of our readers by reproducing a few 
of the tough subjects and illustrations with which they or their fathers were painfully 
familiar. 

The Horn-book. 

Few of us have had the satisfaction of learning our letters after the manner de- 
scribed by Prior : — 

" To master John the English maid 
A Horn-book gives of gingerbread; 
And that the child may learn the better, 
As he can name, he eats the letter." 

To many, even a picture of the old-fashioned Horn-book — the Primer of our ancestors, 
consisting of a single leaf pasted on a board, and covered in some instances with thin 




HORN-BOOK OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 



transparent horn to preserve it from being torn or soiled — will be new. The following 
description and the accompanying cut we copy from Barnard's American Journal of 
Education, for March, 1860 : — 

Shenstone, who was taught to read at a dame school near Halesowen, in Shropshire, in 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



1047 



his delightfully quaint poem of the Schoolmistress, commemorating his venerable precep- 
tress, thus records the use of the Horn-book : — 

"Lol now with state she utters ber command; 
Eftaoona the urchins to their tasks repair; 
Their books of stature small they take to hand, 
Which witli pellucid bom secured are 
To save from fluger wet thi it." 

Cowper thus describes the Horn-book of his time : — 

" Neatly secured from being soiled or torn 
Beneath a pane of thin translucent horn, 
A book (to please us at a tender age 
'Tis called a book, though but a Bingle page), 
Presents the prayer the Saviour deigned I" teach, 
Winch children use, and parsons — when they preach." 

Tirocinium, or ,• 4. 

In "Specimens of West Country Dialect? the use of the Horn-1 k is thus shown: — 

"Commether Billy Chubb, an breng the hornen 1 k. Gee ma the raster in tha 

windor, yor Pal came! — What! be a slcepid — I'll wake ye. Now. Billy, there's a g 1 

bway ! Ston still there, and mind what I da za to ye, an whaur I da point. Now ; cri — 
cross, girt a, little a — b — c — d. That's right, Billy; you'll zoon l<>rn the crisa-crose- 
lain; you'll zoon auvergit Bobby Jiffry — you'll zoou be a sckolard. A's a pirty chubby 
bway — Lord lov'n !" 

New England Primer. 



Of the New England Primer we can give 
no earlier specimen than the edition of 1777, 
embellished with a portrait of John Han- 
cock, Esq., who was at that time President 
of the Continental Congress. 




The Honorable JOHN HANCOCK, Efq; 
Prefident of the American Congress. 



We must not omit the painfully int. 
ing group of John Rogers in the burning 
faggots, with his wife and nine or ten chil- 
dren — including the one at the breast — a 
problem which has puzzled many a school- 
boy's brain : 




MR. JohnRooers, minifter of the 
gofpel in London, was the firtt mar- 
tyr in Queen M a r y ' ■ reign, and was 
burnt at Smithjield. Fcbruaru 1 1, 1554. — His 
wife with nine small children, ami one at 
her breast following him to the Itake ; w:th 
which forrowfttl Ught ho w.-s not in tho 
leaft daunted, but with wonderful patience 
died Qourageoufly for the gofpel of J k s u s 
Christ. 



1048 



SCHOOL-HOUSES, APPARATUS, AND TEXT-BOOK8. 



We are fortunate in being able to present our readers with an exact transcript of the 
four pages of the first illustrated alphabet printed in this country. Some of our readers 
may recognize their old friends of the later editions of the Primer, in which "Young 
limotny and "Zaccheus he" were drawn to nature less severely true. The whole 
belongs to that department of literature which "he who runs may read, and he who reads 
will run." J 



D 



r^f 



In A d a m ' s Fall 
We finned all. 



Heaven to find, 
The Bible Mind. 



N 







Chrift crucify'd p 

For finners dy'd. 



The Deluge drown'd q 
The Earth around. 



E l u a h hid 

By Ravens fed. R 



The judgment made <- 

Felix afraid. 




N o a h did view 
The old world & new 

Young Obadias, 
David, Jo sias 
All were pious. 

Peter deny'd 
His Lord and cry'd. 

Queen Esther fues 
And faves the Jews. 



Young pious Ruth, 
Left all for Truth. 



Young Sam'l dear 
The Lord did fear. 



M 



As runs the Glass, 
Our Life doth pass. 

My Book and Heart 
Must never part. 



Job feels the Rod, — 
Yet bleffes GOD. 



Proud Korah's troop 
Was fwallowed up 

Lot fled to Zoar, 
Saw fiery Shower 
On Sodom pour. 

Moses was he 
Who Israel's Hoft 
Led thro' the Sea. 




Young Timothy 
Learnt fin to fly. 



V a s t h i for Pride, 
Was fet afide. 



Whales in the Sea, 
GOD's Voice obey. 



Xerxes did die, 
And fo muft I. 



While youth do chear 
Death may be near. 

ZACCHEUshe 
Did climb the Tree 
Our Lord to fee. 



EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



1049 



WEBSTER'S SPELLING BOOK. 



Few books have done more to give uniformity to the orthography of the language or 
to fill the memory of successive generations with wholesome truths than Webster*! Spell- 
ing Book. Who can forget his first introduction to those f«.ur-and-twcnty characters, 
standing in stiff upright columns, in their roman and italic dress, beginning with little «, 
and ending with that nondescript "and per se;" or his first lesson in combining letters, 



by 



ba be bi bo bu 

Or his joy in reaching words of two syllables, 

ba ker bri er ci der 

Or his exultation in learning to "know his duty" in those " Lessons of Easy Words" be- 
ginning, 

No man may put off the law of God : 

Or the more advanced steps, both in length of words and stubborn morality, in pursuit of 

The wicked flee 

And closing his spelling career with 

Om pom pa noo sue 
Mich il li mack a nack 

And 

Ail to be troubled 

Ale malt liquor 

In this hasty glance at this famous text book, we have designedly passed over the fa- 
bles commencing with the Rude Boy and ending with Poor Tray, that we might intro- 
duce them all unabridged with their unique illustrations. 

Of the Boy tkatjlole Apples. 

AN old man found a rude boy upon 
one of his trees dealing Apples, and de- 
fired him to come down ; but the young 
Sauce-box told him plainly he would 
not. Won't you ? faid the old Man, 
then I will fetch you down; fo he pulled 
up fome tufts of Grafs, and threw at 
him ; but this only made the Younglter 
laugh, to think the old Man (hould pre- 
tend to beat him down from the tree 
with grafs only. 

Well, well, laid the old Man, if nei- 
ther words nor grafs will do, I mult try 
what virtue there is in Stones ; lo the 
m^tSUaa old Man pelted him heartily with limes; 
which foon made the young Chap haften down from the tree and beg -the old Man's pardon. 

MORAL. 

If good words and gentle means will not reclaim the wicked, they mult be dealt with in a 
more fevere manner. 




1050 



WEBSTER 8 SPELLING BOOK. 




The Country Maid and her Milk Pail. 

WHEN men fuffer their imagination 
to amufe them, with the profpedl of dif- 
tant and uncertain improvements of their 
condition, they frequently fuftain real 
lofTes, by their inattention to thofe affairs 
in which they are immediately concern- 
ed. 

A country Maid was walking very de- 
liberately with a pail of milk upon her 
head, when {he fell into the following 
train of reflections : The money for 
which I fhall fell this milk will enable 
me to increafe my flock of eggs to three 
hundred. Thefe eggs, allowing for what 
may prove addle, and what may be de- 
ftroyed by vermin, will produce at leaft 
two hundred and fifty chickens. Tht 
chickens will De fit to carry to market about Chriftmas, when poultry always bears a good 
price; fo that by May Day I cannot fail of having money enough to purchafe a new Gown. 
Green — let me conflder — yes, green becomes my complexion beft, and green it fhall be. In 
this drefs I will go to the fair, where all the young fellows will ftrive to have me for a part 
ner; but I fhall perhaps refufe every one of them, and with an air of difdain, tofs from 
them. Tranfported with this triumphant thought, fhe could not forbear ading with her heao. 
what thus pafled in her imagination, when down came the pail of milk, and with it all he:' 
imaginary happinefs. 

The Cat and the Rat. 

A CERTAIN Cat had made fuch 
unmerciful havoc among the vermin of 
her neighbourhood, that not a fingle Rat 
or Moufe ventured to appear abroad. 
Pufs was foon convinced, that if affairs 
remained in their prefent fituation, fhe 
muft be totally unfupplied with provif- 
ions. After mature deliberation, there ■ 
fore, fhe refolved to have recourfe to 
ftratagem. For this purpofe fhe fuf- 
pended herfelf to a hook with her head 
downwards, pretending to be dead. 
The Rats and Mice, as they peeped 
from their holes, obferving her in this 
dangling attitude, concluded fhe was 
hanging for fome mifdemeanour ; and 
with great joy immediately fallied forth in queft of their prey. Pufs, as foon as a fufficient 
number were collected together, quitting her hold, dropped into the midft of them; and 
very few had the fortune to make good their retreat. This artifice having fucceeded fo well, 
fhe was encouraged to try the event of a fecond. Accordingly fhe whitened her coat all 
over, by rolling herfelf in a heap of flour, and in this difguife lay concealed in the bottom of 
a meal tub. This ftratagem was executed in general with the same effed as the former. But 
an old experienced Rat, altogether as cunning as his adverfary, was not fo eaflly enfnared. I 
don't much like, faid he, that white heap yonder : Something whifpers me there is mifchief 
concealed under it. 'Tis true it may be meal ; but it may likewife be fomething that I fhould 
not relifh quite fo well. There can be no harm at leaft in keeping at a proper diftance ; for 
caution, I am fure, is the parent of fafety. 




EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITtTIONS. 



1051 




The Fox and the Swallow. 

ARISTOTLE informs us, that the 
following Fable was spoken by Efop to 
the Samians, on a debate upon chang- 
ing their minillers, who were accufed 
ot plundering the commonwealth. 

A Fox lwimming acrol's a river, 
happened to be entangled in fome 
weeds that grew near the bank, from 
which he was unable to extricate him- 
fclf. As he lay thus expofed to whole 
fwarms of flics, which were galling him 
and lucking his blood, a fwallow, ob- 
ferving his diftrefs, kindly offered to 
drive them away. By no means, faid 
the Fox ; for if thefc fhould be chafed 
away, which are already fufficicntly 

gorged, another more hungry fwarm would fucceed, and I fhould be robbed of every re- 

maining drop of blood in my veins. 

The Fox and the Bramble, 

A FOX, clofely purfucd by a pack 
of Dogs, took flicker under the 
of a Bramble. He rejoiced in this 
alylum ; and for a whik . 
happy; but foon found that if he at- 
tempted to ffir, he was wounded by 
thorns and prickles on everv fide. 
However, making a virtue i i r.eccllitv, 
he f<>rbore to complain; and com- 
forted bimfelf with reflecting that no 
blifs is perfed ; that good and evil are 
mixed, and flow from the fame foun- 
tain. Thefc Briers, indeed, laid he, 
will tear my fkin a little, vet they keep 
off" the dogs. For the fake of the good 
then let me bear the evil with patience; 

each bitter has its fweet; and thefe Brambles, though they wound my flclh, preferve my life 

from danger. 

The Partial Judge. 

A FARMER came to a neighbour- 
ing Lawyer, expreffing great concern 

for an accident which he laid had jull 
happened. One ot your I 
tinued he, has been gored by an un- 
luckv Bull of mine, and I ihould be 
glad to know how I am to mal 
reparation. Thou art a very honcft 
. replied the lawyer, and wilt 
not think it unrcafonablc that I c\- 
■ie of thy Oxen in return. It 
is no more than juftice, quoth tl 
mer, to be lure ; but what did I lay ? 
— I miftake — It is your Bull that has 
killed one oflfiV Oxen. lndee 
the Lawyer, that alters the cafe ; I 
56 




\imwtimtt&&^-**»^ 




1052 



Webster's spelling book. 



muft inquire into the affair; and if— And if! faid the Farmer — the bufinefs I find would 
have been concluded without an if, had you been as ready to do juftice to others, as to exad 
it from them. 

The Bear and the two Friends. 

TWO Friends, fetting out togeth- 
er upon a journey, which led through 
a dangerous foreft, mutually promifed 
to affift each other if they fhould hap- 
pen to be affaulted. They had not 
proceeded far, before they perceived 
a Bear ' making towards them with 
great rage. 

There were no hopes in flight; but 
one of them, being very active, fprung 
up into a tree; upon which the other, 
throwing himfelf flat on the ground, 
held his breath and pretended to be 
dead; remembering to have heard it 
afferted, that this creature will not 
prey upon a dead carcafs. The bear 
came up, and after fmelling to him fome time, left him and went on. When he was fairly 
out of fight and hearing, the hero from the tree called out — Well, my friend, what faid the 
bear ? he feemed to whifper you very clofely. He did fo, replied the other, and gave me this 
good piece of advice, never to aflbciate with a wretch, who in the hour of danger, will defert 
his friend. 




The Two Dogs. 

HASTY and inconfiderate con- 
nections are generally attended with 
great difadvartages ; and much of 
every man's good or ill fortune, de- 
pends upon the choice he makes of 
his friends. 

A good-natured Spaniel overtook a 
furly Maftiff, as he was travelling up- 
on the high road. Tray, although 
an entire ftranger to Tiger, very civ- 
illy accofted him; and if it would be 
no interruption, he faid, he fhould be 
glad to bear him company on his way. 
Tiger, who happened not to be alto- 
gether in fo growling a mood as ufual, 
accepted the propofal; and they very 
amicably purfued their journey together. In the midft of their converfation, they arrived at 
the next village, where Tiger began to difplay his malignant difpofition, by an unprovoked 
attack upon every dog he met. The villagers immediately fallied forth with great indig- 
nation, to refcue their refpective favourites; and falling upon our two friends, without dis- 
tinction or mercy, poor Tray was moft cruelly treated, for no other reafon, but his being 
found in bad company. 




VyiVERSITIES AXD COLLEGES. 



1053 



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1054 



SECONDARY AND SCIENTIFIC SCHOOLS. 



SECONDARY INSTRUCTION. 
After our Public Schools, of which we have given such full statistics in the pre- 
ceding tables, some schools of secondary or superior instruction, which under a 
variety of names, form the connecting links between the public school and the 
college or university. Some of these are private schools but somewhat permanent 
in character; they may be schools for boys, or for girls, or both; others rank as 
academies, high schools or seminaries; others still, are prepaiatory s-chools for tho 
college course; others still as schools of superior instruction lor women, Femala 
Seminaries, Colleges, Academies, or Collegiate Institutes. Still another class, are 
Commercial or Business Colleges. There are also Normal Schools or Colleges, 
sometimes private, sometimes State or City institutions, intended for training 
teachers — and schools of special instruction for deaf mutes, blind, feeble minded, 
orphans and juvenile offenders. The character of these schools is so diverse that 
we cannot bring them under a table, showing the number iu each State, but wa 
give below the aggregate number of each class in the entire country, with such 
particulars as can be collected concerning them, premising that a considerable num- 
ber are not reported in any year. 



, CLASHES OF 
' SCHOOLS 


tfi 

.9 
o 

© 

S5 


■a 
H 

a 

6 


.B 
& 

1 


.a 
S 

9 <a 

_ o. 


Pi 

C 


P. 

9 

A 

1 

1 


S J 
a m . 

Ill 

pi 


9 ^ 

*] 

la 


o c a 

^ b'^ 

6. £ a, 

Mi. 

£ ?% 


£ 9 


I 

3 

Iz 


Schools & Acad. B'vs. i 
Schools* Acad. Girls. > . . 
School*, B .ys and Girls, ) 

Schools, Acads. ,Sem ,Col. 8. 
Coi. ins. for superior in- 


1,227 
114 

995 
156 

11 
159 

62 
30 

11 
65 

881 


2,429 
(8 

(1. 
(5 

(3 
(5 

(4 
643 

(3, 


3,318 
16) 

1.574 
297) 

27) 
376 

72) 

47) 

22) 

453 

688) 


100,374 
12,538 

22,639 
3.i 669 
S ,048 

4,797 

6,036 
2, I 14 

1,081 
lj,8.0 

67,082 


48,110 


47.99S 


18,837,114 
4,499,270 

8264.950 


3,171,119 
:, 206,186 

757,824 


165,6.5 
76,8 U 4 

43,712 


2,528,4:2 
622,802 

8 r 3Pfi6 
941,67o 


513 5S6 
116,822 

225 2=7 

1 29,333 
49,98i 


"i'l',539 


22,639 
15 27 






















Spbcial Instruction — 
Schools for Deaf Mutes 


3 471 


2,565 


6.104,690 
3,34s,699 

324.480 




1,114 834 
4 5.UU2 


1,253.706 
663.415 

318 323 
2,53j,622 

3 876.456 


39,882 


Schools, feeble minded, 


1 no 
3,096 

o. 

38,916 


786 










38,610 


Orphan Asylums, Soldiers' 
Or. Homes. Infant Asyl- 
aims and Indus. Schoo.a. .. 


148) 
•.15.018 






















(7. 
3 5'lS 


6 il > 
5.121 


<8J,?.48 


(1, 

106 292 


148) 
1 14.733 






Grand Totals 


SHi 


41,469 212 


5 135 12M 


1,815 967 


13,527,667 


1,209,782 



IV. SCIENTIFIC AND PROFESSIONAL SCHOOLS. 

There still remains, to complete our sniumary review of the Educational institutions of this 
country, some account of the Scientific and Professional Schools or Institutions of the ILyited 
States. 'The Scientific Schools are of two classes. Those organized under the law nviking 
grants of land to Agricultural Colleges, and receiving the avails of these grants, and those not 
receiving these avails, but endowed by State or private munificence. The Theological Semina- 
ries and institutions can be classed under a single head, though some of them are connected 
with Colleges or Universities, and others are independent of these; some have a course of 
classical study, and others are confined to theological studies exclusively. The Law Schools 
come under a single head, but the Medical Schools are divided iuto Regular Homoeopathic and 
Eclectic, and the Dental and Pharmaceutical Schools are also classed -with them. We give 
herewith such statistics as can be obtained of all these Scientific and P- t"^;n"ol School. 



CLASSES OF 
SCHOOL^ OR INSTI- 
TUTIONS IN 
UNITED STATES. 


x - 


*o ° £ 

9_ « 


!f 

"is 


i . 

u. 


8 B 


G3,(S 

Hi 

9,208 
114 




il4 


*c a 
B-5-o 

< 




n 
1 

I 9 


s J. 

A 


a . 

U 
■3 5 


X. Scientific Schools. 

A— Sch ois endowed 
from Agricultural pr'nl. 

B— Notthusei dowed. 
II. Theolobic«l Sch'L8 


43 
33 

iiia 


a SIP 
-.49 
5" 7 
196 

915 
15s 
61 
161 

6-.' 


7 111 
6,"42 

4.:'.': II 


6,«98 

6,"4i 
4,320 


283 


4,90? 
5.9.8 
4 3 li 
3,012 

8,279 
1.215 
'448 
701 
1,187 

29,993 


$7 5°7,42l 

3068.ii(i0 

6,424.7111 

61,' 00 

1,6*5,25" 
840.0' 
161 U0U 
68,000 
165,oi0 


5,020,446 

1,486 807 

7,6' 3 858 

168,241 

414,347 

40,0(10 


319.503 
137 3 6 
468 5o4 
15,755 

13,1 f 6 


872,905 
185.150 
4' S,S 4 
11 8,48 J 

30:,584 
91.871 

8 96o 


1,192 
82 


126.901 
67.41 S 

655,;0i 
86,56.) 


IV. IV'kdical Schools. 1 


8,279 

1,215 

448 

701 








46.P65 


B — Homceopathic . . . 


n 

6 

12 
13 

357 








39 80O 








3. .1 














60.734 .... 
47^7 


5(5 


Schools of Pharmacy . . . 








90,500 




B.11S 




283 


2.322 






2.919 


32 315 


21.389 


18,649.3 1 


14,6' 4 205 


'.i54, 4 


2, 62,984 1 .274 


1,0.0.624 



In most o't'ie Theoln C cal Si bonis, the tuition is provi ed f r hy' endowment, and is free. The S holarsMps of the 
Scientific Schools cover (he tuition; there are also free scholarships in Borne of (he Medical S hools— usually the result of 
State grants. 

a Besides tho.e in 17 ^rhonl. not reported and 27 included under tho faculties of the Universities with which these school! 
are connected. The rcul n inner ui iiutiuct r» u about 6i9. 



EDUCATIONAL STATISTICS. 






EDUCATIONAL STATISTICS FURNISHED BY THE GOVERNMENT BUREAU 
OF EDUCATION AT WASHINGTON. 



SUMMARY OF SCHOOL AGE, POP! I.ATK.N, ENROLLMENT, ATTIAh 



States and Territories. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

California 

Colorado 

( 'ounce ticut 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Kansas , 

Kentucky 

Louisiana , 

Maine 

Maryland 

Massachusetts , 

Michigan 

Minnesota , 

Mississippi , 

Missouri 

Nebraska 

Nevada 

New Hampshire 

New Jersey 

New York 

North. Carolina 

Ohio 

Oregon 

Pennsylvania 

Rhode Island 

Smith Carolina 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Vermont 

Virginia 

West. Virginia 

Wisconsin 

Total 

Arizona 

Dakota 

District of Columbia 

Idaho 

Montana 

New Mexico 

Utah 

Washington 

Wyoming 

INDLVN. 

Cherokee? 

Chickasaws 

Choctawa 

Creeks 

Seminoles 

Total 

Grand Total 



7 SI 
6 -.'I 
5-17 
6 81 
I 18 
6 81 
I 81 
i; 18 
6 81 
6 81 
E 81 
5-21 

re 80 

C-18 
I 83 
6 80 
5-15 
6 80 
6 81 
5-21 
6-S0 
5-21 
G-18 
G -.'I 
6 is 
5.21 
6-21 
0-21 
I 80 
6-21 

5 16 

6 16 
6 81 

8 ll 
5-20 
5-21 
0-21 
4-20 



G--J1 
B '.'1 

o ir 

5-81 
i -J 1 

; 18 
e is 

.-.-■-•i 
; 21 



3S8.003 
847,647 
816,978 
86,666 
140,886 

88,67! 

C 188, i-i I 
1,010,851 
708,558 
686,656 
840,647 
645,161 
278,816 
214,666 

e 270.1 -J0 

606,221 

/ 271,428 

126,680 

728,484 

142,848 

10,698 

a 71,188 

830,686 

1,641,178 

169,824 

c 1,048,880 
69,616 

g 1.2IMI.IHK) 
62,278 

h 828,128 
644,862 
28(1,527 

/ 92,881 
666,807 
210.113 



16,127,406 



7.148 
12.080 

' 7*070 
29,812 
40,678 
24,223 



5.413 



9,600 

8, i:il 



- = " 



26,969 
a 116,860 



864 968 



281,283 
c 770.070 



h 288,128 






2,697,900 



- --. 



88.119 
119.694 

89,816 

704,041 
511,283 
126,067 

68, 1 Y) 
1 19 B27 
162.481 

Is. I j is 

•17<;.:;70 

92 ". I'.i 

9,046 

204.961 
1,081,598 

747,188 

184.079 
290,141 

1 IS B60 



■8 = 

-- a 



117/.I78 



100,966 



9.080.403 









176,467 



16,809,869 






2.638.644 



4,919 

8,970 
6,161 

2. OIH) 



3.ai8 
i no 

900 



8,170 



170 



101,118 






5.305,343 










145,190 








821.659 






148 


187.667 










lis 








m 178 


1 


177 




111 


a 117.161 


M 


166.761 




a 219,132 






108 


6,401 








115.194 


199 












150 




80.6 


001,627 


117 


99,066 


184 












m 73- 




198 




118 


91.704 


1 







80 

I 

/ 15s 



109 
88 



a. Estimated. t>. For the winter. 
/. In 1878. ij. In 1873. h. In 1877. 



e. [nl879. rf. For whites; for colored, 6-16. M870. 

k. in it73. /. Far white schools only. m. Inthecoonl 



1056 



EDUCATIONAL STATISTICS. 



SUMMARY OF ANNUAL INCOME AND EXPENDITURES, ETC. 



STATE9 AND TERRITORIES. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

California 

Colorado 

Connecticut 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Kansas 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maine 

Maryland 

Massachusetts . . . 

Michigan 

Minnesota 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

Nebraska 

Nevada 

New Hampshire . 

New Jersey 

New York 

North Carolina . . 

Ohio 

Oregon 

Pennsylvania 

Rhode" Island 

South Carolina . , 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Vermont 

Virginia , 

West Virginia . . 
Wisconsin 



Total. 



Arizona 

Dakota 

District of Columbia. 

Idaho 

Montana 

New Mexico 

Utah 

Washington 

Wyoming 



INDIAN. 



Cherokees.. 
Chickasaws. 
Choctaws. .. 

Creeks 

Serninoles.. 



Total. 



Grand Total , 



Annual 
Income. 



$388,013 

25(5,190 

3,573.1(18 

522.580 

1,481,701 

183.313 

139,710 

471,020 

7,836.952 

4,402,850 

5,254,203 

2,1(50,507 

1,031.505 

480,320 

1,047,715 

1,483.862 

: 4.622,(109 

3,002,032 

1,582,011 

740,036 

4,020,860 

1,121,795 

158,947 

562,116 

1,928,374 

10,412,303 

399,290 

7,185,420 

303,162 

8,046,116 

558,451 

440,110 

799,217 

891,235 

417,491 

1,290,288 

791.083 

2,697,800 



Annual Expenditure. 



Sites, 
buildings, 
furniture, 
libraries, 

and 
apparatus. 



$10,196 
250,659 
115,922 
96,494 



709.695 
410,782 
879,979 
389,116 
16,698 



74,801 
148,750 
610.586 
725,722 
157,897 



137,894 

193,035 
51.905 
38,372 

193.999 

1,176.230 

16.132 

798,736 
87,043 

952,695 
57,338 
13.010 
41,077 
27,565 



91,106 

74,109 

245,843 



$82,684,489 



$67,028 

124,903 

476,957 

51,530 

78,730 

25,473 

132,194 

105,520 

7,056 



00.803 
58.000 
31,700 
28,356 

7,500 



$8,805,386 



Salaries 

of 
Superin- 
tendents. 



Salaries of 
Teachers. 



$11,872 
b 47,286 



26,441 
2,300 
8,021 



12,178 
30,074 

25,489 
34.986 
54,920 

54,566 
9,088 

46,274 

14,125 

34,406 

115,400 

15,116 

96,681 

7,185 
79.331 

9.S35 
18,612 
17,355 
12,648 
11.239 
39,210 

9.311 
59,655 



$909,538 



$362,593 
192,605 

2,207,044 
186,426 

1,011.730 
138,819 
97,115 

e 4,587\6i5 
3.365,046 

e 2,901.948 

1,088,504 

730,890 



948,096 

1.141,753 

4,491,225 

1,909.941 

993.205 

669.393 

2,218,637 

532,304 

83,706 

414,590 

1,446,178 

7,6:38,922 

318,453 

5,017,542 

210.429 

4,510,197 

405,605 

287,403 

696,680 

674,869 

360,320 

714,783 

522,483 

1,568,692 



$54,551,201 



$41,031 
46,349 



25.816 
k 14,592 



$1,255,750 $127,788 $15,243 



$10,!- 60 



1,500 
2,883 



$83,940,239 $8,933,174 $924,781 



$64 318 

277,012 

33,844 



Miscellane- 
ous. 



$1,000 

10,347 
400.868 

93.179 
273,710 

64,472 
3,557 

2,235,232 

1,139,321 

328,589 

13,828 



218,878 

' 474,252 
500,512 

' 678,820 

366.382 

9,580 

98,252 

253.791 

1,481,826 

3.181 

1 ,254.004 

9.360 

1,906,790 

71,422 

5,604 

69,750 

3S.264 

82.726 

101.010 

110,961 

356,582 



$12,656,050 



$19,134 

104,346 

4,968 



I 15.432 I 3,458 

100,343 4,535 

k 94,019 k 2.885 

k 22,120 



$607,088 $139,326 



$55,158,289 $12,795,376 



Total. 



Estimated 

real value 

of sites, 

buildings, 

and till other 

school 

property. 



$375,465 

a 238,050 

2,864,571 

395,527 

1,408,375 

C 207,281 

a 114 895 

471.029 

7,531,942 

a 4,491.850 

4,921,248 

1,818,387 

803,490 

480,820 

h 1,047,681 

1,544,367 

5,156,731 

3.109.915 

1,706,114 

a 830.704 

a 3,152,178 

1,137.995 

j 144,245 

565,339 

1,928,374 

10,412,378 

352,882 

7,166.963 

314.017 

7,449,013 

644,200 

324,629 

724,862 

753,346 

454.285 

946.109 

716,864 

2,230,772 



$78,836,399 



124 

4: is 
38 
55) 
IS. 
182 
lit 
22 



60.S03 
58.000 
31.700 
28,366 
7,500 



$1,196,439 



$130,067 
198,608 

0,914,303 
682,410 

d '440,788 
132,729 

15,875,666 
11,817,966 
9,482,359 

4,633,044 

2,188.407 

/ 790.000 

2,995,131 



10,000.000 
3,156,210 



7.353,401 

2,0(54,7(58 

275,274 

2,329,913 

6,244,139 

30,747.509 

179.561 

21,851.718 

667,863 

25.407.0L7 

1,894,122 

351.016 

1,(66,095 



1,177,545 
1.670,5:35 

5,303,21:8 



$177,842,331 



$113,074 
133,952 

1,206,355 

' 118,912 

' 872,723 

220.405 
61,675 



$2,227,006 



$80,032,S38 $1S0.069,427 



a. Items not fully reported, b. Paid out of the general fund of the counties, and therefore not included in State 
expenditure, c. Includes $1,690 expended for colored schools outside of Wilmington, d. For white schools only. 
e. Includes salaries of superintendents. /. In 1878. g. Includes miscellaneous expenditure, h. So reported, though 
the items given amount to $1,048,386. i. Total of reported items. J. So reported, though the items given amount 
to $115,191. k. In 1879. I. In 1875. 



EDUCATIONAL STATISTICS. 






SUMMARY OP THE NUMBER OP TEACHERS EMPLOYED l\ THB PI BUG 
SCHOOLS, AND THE AVERAGE SIONTHLI BALABI OF TEACHERS 

IN THE RESPECTIVE STATES AND TERHIT<»RI1> 



States and Territories. 



Alabama 

Arkansas ... 
California... 

Colorado 

Connecticut. 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Kansas 



Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maine 

Alary land 

Massachusetts. .. 

Michigan 

Minnesota 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

Nebraska 

Nevada 

New Hampshire. 

New Jersey 

New York 

North Carolina. . 

Ohio 

Oregon 

Pennsylvania 

Rhode Island . . . 
South Carolina.. 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Vermont 

Virginia 

West Virginia 

Wisconsin 



Total number of teachers in States. 



Arizona 

Dakota 

District of Columbia. 

Idaho 

Montana 

New Mexico 

Utah 

Washington 

Wyoming 



INDIAN. 



Cherokees. . . 
Chickasaws . 
Choctaws . . . 

Creeks 

Seminoles... 



Total number of teachers in Territories. 



Grand Total. 



N'l MIlBR OF 

Ti.a. in.i;-. 



Male. 



944 

189 

■.'OS 

•JIT 
746 



876 



1,671 

181 
d 8,864 
(1684) 

190 



(6,000) 



8.834 


18,421 


7.809 


6,T78 


7,964 


14,844 


8,608 


1,974 


4,418 


9,846 




OSS) 


2.325 


/ 4,600 


1.880 


1,796 


1,188 


7,489 


4.(17-2 


9, --77 


1,874 


8,481 


3.411 


2,158 


6,068 


4,879 


1,670 


.2.430 


99 


105 


680 


9,880 


991 


9,486 


7,989 


29,788 


3,o :0 


1.090 


1,896 


19J868 


635 


678 


9,7.32 


11,648 


994 


1.1 101 


1,887 


1.984 


4.707 


1,947 


3.083 


1.278 


7-.'.-> 


8,801 


8,009 


1,864 


3.104 


1,080 


2,918 


7,197 



(280. 034 > 



u 



48 

134 

34 

( 

62 

it 132 

989 

g 986 

a 20 



160) 



63 
169 

399 

99 
15 
235 
89 1 
29 



(/ 198) 



A* n:\'.i: Monthly 
Salauv. 



Male. 



v 8 



80.96 
49.84 

(0 10 

60.00 
41.99 

81.16 

89. 17 

32.1.7 

(II. 
67 6 1 

86 .29 

(30. 
85.00 
86.19 
lo] 17 
84.19 

(41. 

Dtt. 

66.00 

4 M'.l 
7(121 

96.24 
(96. 



Pemale. 



h i4aoo 

in -7 



00) 



<jh 



66) 



80.00 



21.68 
BOBB 

80X0 
81 89 

77.00 

89.90 



39.00 
98 19 



97.84 17 it 

(28. 19) 
i 37.14 I 



&3.00 
80 16 

KM Ml 
71 84 



70.00 
21 90 
69.94 






85.00 b 29.00 
4111 a 
(#65. 94) 



60.00 

'eaoo 



(9,1610) 



(989,1644) 



60.00 

50.00 



a. For white teachers. fi. In 1878. e. In nngraded schools; [n graded schools tl 
age salarv of men is $101.76; of women. $64 ; towns 

organized as one districl the average salary of men - women, $48 /. Number of 

mployed In winter; number ot females in summer. <j. In 1879. h. In graded schools 
the average salary of men was $87; of women, $40. I, In the counties; In the Independent 
cities the average salary of males is $86.74; of females/ $85,06 j Numb i supply 

the schools; actual number of BChOOlS 166. k. In 187J. /. In I 



1058 



EDUCATIONAL STATISTICS. 



SUMMARY OF PER CAPITA EXPENDITURE. 





g 


03 O 












."tt *"* 






JS"" 1 B 




a 


es- 2 


B..3 


&2 


ftfls 






o 3 


^ B. 


3 § 


© § ** 




u 






t- * 






ft 9 


03 


ft" 

S u 


ii 


o«o J 
. B"" 


States and Territories. 


S a. 

£ o 

b^ 


eg 


£ § 
b-§ 


£-° 
B d 


0J V -/, o, 
















cj o 


o 




«.« 






g.3 














S tso 








."3 '& 




£=3.3 


.- s 


+j S fi o 




P.,2 


c 5,2 


c > g 


B o 


S = 33 




o *-. 




U « O 




© —,B C3 






W " 




!»■ 


« c c o 




a $14.91 

6 12.44 

6 11.51 

11.07 


a $14.93 

6 17.17 

b 17.07 

17.80 


a $19.66 

6 27.35 

6 24.15 

31. ?.% 








$14.60 














9.39 
9.06 
9.03 

a 6.17 
7.99 

C 6.92 


11.01 
14.87 
11.63 

a 11.25 
12.29 

C 8.00 


17.91 
19.14 
17.35 

a 18.45 
18.91 

C 24.03 


11.28 
9.74 

a 12.77 






$11.52 






a 14.14 












6.70 

d 6.39 

6.34 

6.15 


9.61 

d 8.12 

10.09 

8.59 


15.68 

18.16 
13.47 


8.33 














9.97 




5.93 

5.80 

6 5.70 

5.33 


7.96 
6 8.11 

7.85 


9.18 
12.72 

13.20 


7.67 














8.00 




5.27 
5.00 


8.37 
8.64 


11.44 
16.37 












6 4.72 
4.65 
4.56 

c 3. as 

3.23 


b 8.15 
7.51 
6.53 

C 5.25 
9.48 


b 11.92 
11.37 
9.48 

C 7.63 
16.82 


9.79 

C 3.&3 
6.21 






11 33 






Utah 






8.08 




3.01 


4.43 


6.90 








6 1.59 


b 6.74 










1 56 


2 70 


4 01 








1.63 

1.42 


3.83 
2.42 


6.57 


2.20 


338 








1 29 


3 85 


5 97 








1.08 
98 
9(5 


1.99 

1.12 

2.09 

b 8.42 


3.31 
2.34 
3.17 


















Pennsylvania 




c 7.61 


c 11.81 











a. Estimated. 6. In 1879. c. In 1878. d. Does not include expenditure for books. 



EXTRACTS FROM COMMENDATIONS, 



The following Testimonials must convince 
the most sceptical person of the merits of 
this work. We do not remember of ever 
seeing a list of names attached to any pub- 
lication in this country whose opinions are 
eutitled to more confidence. They were 
not given hastily, without examination, as 
it required about one year to obtain them. 

PUBLISHERS. 



No. 1.. 

From President Ilobart College, Geneva. 
I have examined, as far as time would allow, you; 
new work, on the " Progress of our Country." 
I think it a very convenient book of reference, an 1 
a valuable addition to our statistical knowledge. 1 
have already found it a very useful work to con- 
sult, and I gladly add it to our College Library, 
where it well deserves a place. 



No. 2. 



From President of the Indiana State Uni- 
versity, Bloomlngton, Ind. 

I have examined your recently published work- 
on the " Progress of our Country ; " and from the 
examination I nave been able to give it, I believe 
that it merits ricldy the highest commendation. 
The great variety and importance of the subjects, 
the felicitous style in which they are clothed, and 
their numerous aud beautiful illustrations, render 
this work peculiarly attractive. They embrace 
subjects of great and universal utility, and deeply 
interesting to all classes of community. Even- 
profession and calling in life is here exhibited, with 
the latest improvements in every department of 
industry and art. The advancement made during 
eighty years, in the American republic, is unparal- 
leled in the history of the world; and will remain 
a prcof to all coming generations, of the blessings 

I of free institutions, and the capability of man, un- 
der a system of self-government, for an almost in- 

I definite" progress in civilization. This work should 
be in every library, public and private, and in the 
'hands of every citizen. 



No. 3. 



From the President of tho Wosleyan University. Mlddl. t.nvn, 

Col. n. 

I have examined, with much pleasure and profit, 
the work on the " Progress of our Country." It 



contains a great amount and variety of inform 
printed in an attractive style, on 

t importance, I i eminently a practical work, 

and brings within the reach of all 

edge heretofore inaccessible to mot The 

novelty of the title, tho great truths illustrated and 
established, give it is - and 

usefulness. The patriot and the philanthropist will 
be encouraged by i' J perusal end -'imulatedto 
greater exertions to secure further progress in all 
good things in our country and throughout tho 
world. 

The enterprising publisher has not spared ex 
in the manufacture of the work. The printin 
the abundant illustrations are in the big 
of art. One of the best illustrations of " Eighty 
Tears' Progress." would be found in the comparison 
of the mechanical execution of this work with that 
of any work issued eighty years ago. 



No. t. 



From President of (iirard College, Philadelphia, Pa. 

Dear Sir, — I have been int 
by the perusal of your national work, on the "Pro- 
gress of our Country," for a copy uf which I am 
indebted to your courtesy. 

An illustrated history of the various branches: of 
industry and art in the United Stab-, prepared with 
the ability and truthfulness which characterizes this 
work, will be highly acceptable to all 
readers. In its artistic and mech ition, 

nothing has been left to be desired, I am i. 
quainted with any work in which so much reliable 
information on so great variety of lay bo 

found in so small a compass. It is emphatically a 
book for the people. 



So. ."•. 



From the President '''liege. 

I.IM \. .V 

TTith as much 
have examined the vvcrk of Mr. St D th- 

"Progress of our Country." It coin.., 

amount of valuable information, in just the form lo 

pie. It i- 
a brief and interesting history of I 

. in biKh science and the arts. I am willing 



1060 



COMMENDATIONS. 



that my name 
circulation. 



and influence should aid in its 



No. 6. 
From the President of Cambridge University. 

, Cambridge, 

Dear Sir, — I have examined the work on the 
"Progress of our Country," with such attention as I 
could give it. I am not competent to verify the 
statements of many parts, but the names of the 
gentlemen who contributed some of the most im- 
portant portions seems to be a sufficient guaranty 
of their accuracy. I have no doubt the volumes 
contain much valuable information on the practical 
arts and industrial interests of the country. 



No. 7. 



From the President of Marietta College, Ohio. 

Dear Sir, — The work on the " 260 Years' Pro- 
gress of the United States" was received by mail a few 
days since. I have given what attention I could to 
it, and write you now, as I am expecting to be ab- 
sent from home for some days. 

The examination of this work has given me much 
pleasure. The idea of furnishing this most valuable 
knowledge in a comparatively small compass, was 
a most happy one. As a people we want informa- 
tion — reliable information. We need to know our 
own history, in art and science, as well as in govern- 
ment. The people of one section should know how 
those of others live — the progress of one should be 
made known to all. 

The idea of the work you have undertaken seems 
to have been well carried out, as well as happily 
conceived. On a great variety of topics, in which 
all the people are interested, you have furnished a 
large amount of valuable information. All, except 
those of the lowest grade of intelligence, will avail 
themselves of the opportunity to secure this vol- 
ume, and, unlike many books, the more it is exam- 
ined the more valuable will it seem. I anticipate 
for it a wide circulation. 

I feel great interest in the character of the books 
distributed through the country. We teach our 
young people, at great cost, to read. Many, having 
acquired the art, have no disposition to use it; and 
others read nothing that has any value. Good 
books, books — not newspapers, they will take care 
of themselves — should be in every house. Hence, 
I favor school libraries, as an easy and cheap method 
of putting good books into the hands of the young. 
For a like reason I rejoice in the purchase, by fami- 
lies, of all good works. 

This work on the Progress of the United States, 
will serve a most excellent purpose in two ways. 



It may be taken up at any time to employ a few 
leisure moments, and it serves as an encyclopaedia 
for reference. 

Please accept my thanks for the volume, and 
my best wishes for its wide-spread distribution. 



No. 8. 



From the President of the University of Rochester, N. T. 

I have looked over, somewhat hastily, the work 
on the "Progress of our Country." The plan seems 
to me excellent, the idea of presenting in a short 
compilation the present state and rate of progress 
of the various industrial arts is one which can not 
fail to be thought worthy. In general, the work 
seems to be successfully and correctly done. In 
such a work it is impossible to avoid errors, and 
the prejudices and interests of the different com- 
pilers may be occasionally seen. Notwithstanding 
this, the work seems to me well worthy the patron' 
age of the public. 



No. 9. 



From the President of Brown University, Providence, E. I. 

I have examined those parts of the " work on the 
Progress of the United States" on which my studies 
and observation have enabled me to form an intelli- 
gent judgment, and find, compressed within a small 
compass, a vast amount of valuable information, 
well selected and well arranged. It furnishes am- 
ple means of comparison on the subjects of which 
it treats, and will, I think, prove to be a valuable 
book of reference. 



No. 10. 



From President 



University of Wisconsin. 



I have examined, with a pleasure I can hardly 
express in too strong terms, your ' ' work on the 
Progress of the United States." During the few 
days the work has been on my table it has saved 
me, in the examination of facts, labor worth many 
times the cost of the volume. For the school library 
the business man, the scholar, or the intelligent 
family, it will be found a cyclopaedia presenting, in 
a most interesting form, the progress of the various 
arts of civilized life during the period of our nation- 
al existence. I most heartily recommend th9 work. 



No. 11. 

From the President of Columbia College, N. T. 
Sir, — I thank you for the copy of a work on the 
"Progress of the United States," published by 
.you. 



i "MMl.Mi mom. 



1061 



It seems to me of great value as containing in- 
formation of interest, more or less, to all, and not 
easily accessible, except to varied labor and re- 
search. 

The idea, too, of illustrating national pro 
not by war, nor annexation, nor diplomatic legerde- 
main, but by the advance in the institution 
learning, in useful inventions, in the growth of 
manufactures, agriculture, and commerce, in all the 
arts of peace, in morals and civilization, in the 
inner life, so to speak, of the people themselves, 
seems to me both original and founded in tl 
notion of progress. 

I trust you will derive abundant reward for your 
praiseworthy adventure. 



No. 12. 
From the President of Tufts College. 

Mr. Stebbins : Dear Sir, — I was led to expect 
much from the title of your work, on the "Pro- 
gress of the U. S.," and resolved to give it a careful 
examination. I have been richly repaid for the 
time thus spent, in the great pleasure and profit I 
have derived from its perusal. Heartily thanking 
you for this generous contribution to generous 
knowledge, I trust you may reap a rich reward for 
your efforts. 



No. 13. 
From the President of Dartmouth College, 

L. Stebbins, Esq.: Dear Sir, — I received some 
days ago your very handsome work, a history of 
the " Progress of the United States," but have 
found leisure only within a day or two to examine 
its contents. Those' persons who have been long- 
est on the stage can best appreciate the amazing 
contrasts in the state of the country which you 
describe, but one who, liko myself, can recognize 
the history of half the period, can testify to the 
faithfulness and fullness of your exhibition of the 
growth and po^-er of this great country. 

Accept my sincere thanks for the work, and the 
opinion that on the subjects treated it will be 
found an invaluable authority by all who study its 
pages. I trust it may have an extensive distribu- 
tion. 



No. II. 
From Chancellor State University of Mlohlgaa 

Mr. Stehbixs: Sir, — T have the honor bo 
•aiowledgo the roceipt of a copy of the work re- 



cently published by you, entitled u MO 
Progress," for n bleb pk i e accept my I 

thanks. 

it was not to b uldbe 

made to contain an adequati 
of our country during eighty 

ted the- public with this large work 
with Interesting and raraable mal 

ject, as much, perhaps, a- could be COmpn Med into 
it. I hope this work will find a wide i 
and thus become a public benefit in a 111 



NO. 1 a. 

From tin- President <>r the Vermont Onfvenlty, Rurlineton. 

1 have only had time to dip into your " 200 
rears' Progress" here and tl . have been 

pleased and instructed, and an: rare the bo i 
be very valuable. My children are very much in- 
terested in it. 



No. 16. 

From the President of Williams' College. 

Dear Sir, — I have no hesitation in 
the work proposed to be done in t! 
Years' Progress" has been well done. For 
who wish a book of the kind, yours cannot fail to 
be the book. 



No. 17. 
From President of Trinity College, Hartford, Conn. 

Dear Sir, — I have to thank you for a copy of your 
work on the Progress of the United States. It 

tic its ( if some matters with which I am familiar, 
and of some with which I am not familiar: but I think 
I can honestly say. with regard to both, that they are 
so presented as to he at once interesting' and instruct- 
ive to the general reader. 



No, is. 
Mr. L. Stbbbxnb: •' 

good and DSeful one, hut it is not m\ ; 



1062 



COMMENDATIONS. 



"} 



No. 19. 

College op New Jersey, 
Princeton, Jan. 28, 
Bear Sir, — Tour " work on the Progress of 
the United States. " I regard as a valuable publica- 
tion, richly meriting the attention of the general 
reader, as well as the more careful examination of 
the student interested in observing the advance- 
ment of our country in the useful arts and learning. 
Very respectfully yours, 

John McLean. 
L. Stebbins, Esq. 



No. 20. 



From Prof. Johnson, Yale College, New Haven, Conn. 

Js Stebbins, Esq. : Bear Sir, — I have examined 
s 260 Years' Progress," with interest, especially 
ttie excellent chapter on agriculture. In my opinion, 
fcbe work is one of much value, and deserves a 
Vfide circulation. Tours, etc, 

S. W. Johnson, 
Prof, of Analytical and Agricultural 
Chemistry in the Sheffield Scientific 
School of Tale College. 



No. 21. 



From Eev. Dr. Smith, Lane Theological Seminary, Ohio. 
Mr. L. Stebbins : My Bear Sir, — I have run my 
eyes with great interest over your beautiful work, 

"a history of Progress." It contains, in a condensed 
yet attractive form, a mass of information touching 
the progress and present condition of our country. 
It is, moreover, information of which every man, 
at some time, feels the need ; and it would be a 
grand contribution both to the intelligence and 
patriotism of our whole population, if you could 
succeed in placing a copy of it in every family of 
the land. I shall place your book on my table for 
constant reference. 



No. 22. 



From Professor Fowler, of Amherst College, Editor of the 
University Edition of Webster's Dictionary, Series of Clas- 
sical Books, etc. 

The work which yon placed in my hands, "great 
wealth producing interests of our Country," I 
have taken time to examine, in order that I might 
learn its intrinsic value. I find that the subjects 
selected are such, and the manner of treatment such, 
as to supply a felt want in the public mind, which, 
in its own progress, was demanding higher and 
better help than it enjoyed before the publication 
of your work. This might be inferred from the 
bare mention of the subjects and the authors. These 
subjects are treated by these writers with that cor- 
rectness of the statement of the general principles, 



and with that fullness of detail which make the work 
just what it ought to be as a guide to the people. 
Every young man who wishes to elevate his mind 
by self-culture, ought to read this work carefully. 
Tours respectfully, 

William C. Fowler. 



No. 23. 
From Prof. Silliman, Tale College, New Haven, Ct. ' 

I have carefully looked through your rich and 
faithful work, observing the copious tables of con- 
tents, glancing at every page of the work, and at all 
the numerous illustrations, with occasional reading 
of paragraphs. A more thorough examination it 
has not been hitherto in my power to make ; but 
even this general survey has left on my mind the 
decided conviction that you have performed an im- 
portant service to your country in thus mapping 
out and condensing and explaining the wonderful 
progress made in this country, during four-fifths of 
a century, in all the most important arts of life. My 
own recollections — my years having been coeval 
with the entire period covered by your work — sus- 
tain your statements regarding the extreme simpli- 
city of our early domestic arts — cheap in mechanical 
aids but prodigal of time. Now productive industry, 
aided by successful inventions, fills all our regions 
where free labor has full scope for action, with in- 
numerable results which are fully equal to our wants, 
even in the present crisis, leaving also a large redun- 
dancy of articles for export, especially in the depart- 
ment of agriculture, and in not a few important me- 
chanical arts. 

Tour work of closely printed pages of double col- 
umns, with a fair paper and a clear and distinct type, 
with its numerous engravings, defended also by a 
strong and neat binding, presents a valuable book 
of reference ; a manual to be consulted by the agri- 
culturist and artist, as well as by the man of science 
and the historian of progress. Wishing to yourself 
and your worthy coadjutors full success, 



No. 24. 



From the New York Times. 
260 years " Progress of our Country." — If 
at all inclined to doubt that a great deal of useful in- 
formation may be bound up in a comparatively small 
compass by a judicious compiler, in the very hand- 
some work before us, we should find sufficient logic 
to make us devout believers. The writers have 
ranged through the wild fields of agriculture, com- 
merce, and trade ; very little that develops the ma- 
terial prosperity of a country, and marks its growth, 
has escaped their industrious research. Undoubt- 
edly, minute criticism might detect slight errors, but 
in a work of so comprehensive a character, strict 
accuracy would seem almost unattainable. The 
statistics given are full and clearly arranged ; the 
grouping of the subjects, and the evident method 
which the authors have observed in the accomplish- 



COMMENDATIONS. 






ment of their not inconsiderable task, are worthy 

of all praise. The work is one v 
larlyneed, as it is a lamentable facl that few people 
are so deficient in general knowlei 
tive to growth and development of tin >ir Dative 
country, as ours. The Englishman g 
an arsenal of statistics at his fingers' ends: he can 
tell you when the lirst shaft was sunk in the flrsl 
mine; when the lirst Loom was erected in Manches- 
ter. The panoply of facta in which he is arrayed 
makes him rather a ponderous and far from spright- 
ly companion, at times; but then he always | 
formidable as an adversary. Germans, too, have 
nearly everything by rote that relates to their own 
country. Frenchmen are quick to learn, bul 
have not very retentive memories generally, and 
are very apt to forget all, and more, than they once 
knew. It may be urged in extenuation of our na- 
tional delinquency, as regards a knowledge of our 
own country, that our country grows too fast tor 
our memories to keep pace with it, and that a Yan- 
kee can arrive by guessing at what others, less fa- 
vored in this respect, can only reach by delving in 
authorities ; but, on the whole, it is better to trust to 
actual knowledge of facts, and under any circum- 
stances such books as these are good things to have 
in the library. 



No. 25. 



From the Now York Examiner. 

260 Years' Progress of the United States" by 
eminent literary men, who have made the subjects 
of which they have written their special study. 

The citizen 'who desires to comprehend fully how 
the country in which we live has. under the foster- 
ing iuliuences of a good government, the enterprise 
of an energetic people, and above all, the blessing 
of God, grown from a handful of people to one of 
the leading powers in the world, should purchase 
and read carefully this work. It is no catchpenny 
affair. The men who have prepared the narratives 
of progress in the various departments of agricul- 
ture and horticulture, commerce, manufactures, 
banking, education, science, art, and the matters 
which goto make "home" so emphatically an 
American word, are not novices, penny-a-liners, who 
write on any or all subjects, with or without an un- 
derstanding of them, for the sakeof their daily bread 
— but men of high reputation, who have made the 
subjects they discuss the topics of a life's study. 
Every subject which will admit of it is finely illus- 
trated, and tables of statistics, carefully pp 
from the latest sources, show the present condition 
of each department, and demonstrate, as only figures 
can, how great the advance which has been made 
in each. As a work of reference, not less than as a 
deeply interesting book for family reading, it will 
be a treasure to any household that may obtain it. 



No. 2G. 
From the Now York Observer. 

260 Years' Progress of the United States."— the 
above rather formidable title-page is quite a full ex- 
position of the contents of this large work, which 



contain avast amount of ■dentine, historical, am] 
Btatistioal matter, and whlcl 

Jopaedia, as weD as history ol 

the country, durii 

tifloand practical men. who ha 

OH which they h 

rendering the work valuable ae a 

i! as for general readini 
we have in this work maj nder, 

gratitude, ai The history of no other 

try can furnish a parallel. 



No. 'J 7. 



From I ^mitii rio- 
vn<. Becrctarj of tin Chamber of Commerc 

of New York. ' 

260 | —The 

first eighty years of the national eztsi 
illustrated by no brilliant military exploits, rooh as 
for the most part make up the history ofmOBl coun- 

if the < »ld World, but the American peo] 
not the less on that account assume a m 
character, and a first rank among the nation! of the 
earth. Their success in ship-building and commerce 
at once placed them on a level with t: 
maritime nations. The inventive . I untir- 

ing industry of the people soon revolutionized the- 

manufacturing industry of the world, bj 
application of new mechanical powers to ind 
arts; and if the extent and cheapness of land for a 
time supplied the scarcity of labor in agricultural 
departments, it did not prevent the multipli 
of inventions, which have not only i nsely 

to home production, but have greatly aided that of 

European countries. The development i 
dustries forms the true history of '. 

irk i<( Mr. Stebbins has tdven a 
world of information upon each branch of tho sub- 
I a most authentic and attractive form. The 
is on ship-building, commerce, and lob 
transportation, pp reader a n 

nable information as astonishing for the 
of the results produced as interesting in the narra- 
tive. We know of no other work which, in the 
compass of two handsome volumes, contains booo 
varied and comprehensive instruction o: i 
reliable character. They form almost a complete 
library in themselves. 






From ill.- Becrataxy of Board of Trade, Phlla-Mphia. 
L. Stebiiixs, Esq. : 2 I examined with 

intereal the volnmea published by you, on the "Pro- 
gress of our Country," and found them partic- 
ularly valuable. The design struck me very ; 
ably, ami the execution of t - . ■ parti Could 

not have been intrusted to more competent ! 

The last eighty years of the history >■'.' 

has been one of unexampled progress, and it 
is now more than ever Important to brinj 

of every section the leading 
of this marvellous progr 



1064 



COMMENDATIONS. 



No. 29. 
From the Secretary of the Board of Trade, Boston. 

My Dear Sir, — My many cares just now have 
prevented me from a comparison of the statistical 
matter contained in the " work on our" Progress" 
with official tables in my possession, as well 
as an examination of some other things, concerning 
which authorities differ, but I have found time to 
acquaint myself witli the general topics and objects 
of the work, and do not hesitate to declare that I 
have not read more interesting pages for years. In- 
deed, the best informed among us, cannot, as it 
seems to me, fail to find much that is new, while to 
the young and to those who lack the means of re- 
search, so authentic and well-digested account of 
our country's ''Progress," will be of immense ser- 
vice. We all boast of our wonderful march in com- 
merce, in manufactures, in mechanics, and in the 
arts; and here we have it, step by step, In "facts 
and figures," and in brief and pithy narrative. 

With all my heart, I hope that the sale will be 
extensive, and that you may be well rewarded for 
your outlay of time and capital. 



No. 30. 



From the New Englander, New Haven, Conn. 

" 260 Years' Progress of the United States."— In 
this very large octavo work there is presented in a 
compact and easily accessible form an amount of 
valuable information with regard to the progress 
which the people of the United States have made 
in all the various channels of industry since the 
days when they were British colonists, which is not 
to be found in any other single work with which 
we are acquainted. Each one of these subjects is 
amply illustrated with engravings. The different 
chapters have been prepared by well-known liter- 
ary men who have each made the subjects about 
which they have written the study of years. We 
have examined the work repeatedly and with much 
care during the past three months, and each time 
have been impressed anew with its value. There 
is not an intelligent family in the nation who would 
not be interested and instructed by it, and find it a 
most convenient book of reference with regard to 
every thing pertaining to the industrial interests of 
the country. 



No. 31. 



From the Philadelphia Inquirer. 

" 260 Years' Progress of the United States.'" — To 
any one desiring at a glance a comprehensive view 
of the various channels of educational industry in 
commerce, manufactures, agriculture, statistics, etc., 
they are invaluable. They are profusely illus- 
trated with elegant engravings in the highest style 
of artistic merit. The volumes redound with sta- 
tistical and miscellaneous information of a standard 
character and permanent value. The expense of 
publishing a work of this character must have been 



very large, but we feel confident that a discrimi 
nating public have not been overestimated. 

There are among the peculiar characteristics of 
our people, wide- spread opinions prevailing, that 
books sold by subscription are of a necessity more 
expensive than when purchased in a general way 
at the counter of a publishing house. This is evi- 
dently an error that could easily be subverted by 
a little demonstration, and the publishers' remarks 
in the preface are to the point, and effective. We 
know of hardly any book or books which are with- 
in the reach of every -day life, that we would eooner 
advise a friend to purchase. Its value will be un- 
impaired for a lifetime 



No. 32. 



From the Boston Transcript. 

" 260 Years' Progress of the United States."— 
This work is the result of much careful research, 
exercised by many minds on a variety of important 
subjects. They show the industrial and educational 
steps by which the people of the United States 
have risen from their colonial condition to their 
present position among the nations of the world. 
They give, in a historical form, the progress of the 
country in agriculture, commerce, trade, banking, 
manufactures, machinery, modes of travel and trans- 
portation, and the work is' intended to be sold by 
subscription, and will dt-.-.btkSs-have a large circu- 
lation. It ought to be in every house in the land. 
It is more important than ordinary histories of the 
country J as it exhibits all the triumphs of the prac- 
tical mind and energy of the nation, in every de- 
partment of science, art, and benevolence. It is a 
storehouse of important and stimulating facts, and 
its interest can hardly be exhausted by the most 
persistent reader. 



No. 33. 

From the N. T. Herald. 
" 260 Years' Progress of the United States," by 
eminent literary men. — The object of this w r ork, 
as set forth in its preface, is to show the various 
channels of industry through which the people of 
the United States have arisen from a British colony 
to their present national importance. This is done 
by treating separately the improvements effected in 
agriculture, commerce, trade, manufactures, ma- 
chinery, modes of travel, transportation, etc. The 
preparation of these different articles has been in- 
trusted to writers whose pursuits qualified them 
to handle them exhaustively, and the result is the 
assemblage of a vast amount of statistical and 
other information which is not to be found in the 
same collective and condensed form in any other 
work extant. 



No. 34. 

From the Boston Post. 

" 260 Tears' Progress of the United States, 
showing the various channels of industry through 



commend LTI098. 






which the people of the United States have arisen 
from a British colony to their present National 
Importance," is the title of a new and exceedingly 
valuable work. The work gives in a historical form 

the vast improvements mad.' in ,. 

merce, trade, manufacturing, ther with a 

large amount of statistical and "ther inform 
It is illustrated with numerous engravings, and al- 
together forms a most valuable and instructivi 
panion to the writer, the business man, or the 
student 



No. 35. 



From Wm. \V. Tyrnkr, Principal of the American Asylum 
for Deaf and I>umr>, Bartford, Conn. 

I have examined your new national work, on the 
development and "Progress of the United States," 
and find that the information it contains en the wide 
range of subjects treated of must make it exceeding- 
ly valuable as a standard book of reference. The 
names of the writers of the different articles afford 
a sufficient guaranty that the facts and stab 
may be relied on as correct. I consider the work a 
very important accession to this department of 
literature, and have no doubt that it will find its way 
into the library of every private gentleman and 
every public institution. 



No. 36. 



Kruiu Superintendent Common 
Schools. Massachusetts, 

I have examined the Encyclopedia of Progrfss" 
with satisfaction. I consider it a work of great 
value, and it is one which I should be very unwill- 
ing to spare from my library. It is not only such 
a book as the literary or professional man would 
like to possess, but it is a book for every household, 
and for every school library. 



No. 37. 



From tlir Boston Journal. 
" 260 Years' Progress of the Un'"l Kt,if,<." — In 
this elaborate and valuable work the progress of the 
United ;_\ctes is illustrated by historical Bketches 
of the rise and development of agriculture, commerce, 
trade, manufactures, modes of travel and transporta- 
tion. The authors will be recognized as fully com- 
petent to treat upon the above subjects, and their 
sketches have great interest and value, as well for the 
facts which they present, as in illustrating the rapid 
progress of the United Stales in all that conduces 
to material wealth and national prosperity. The 
work abounds in valuable statistical information, 
and is interesting for perusal, and useful fur refer- 
ence. 



No 
from tli.> Philadelphia i 

eminent literary i 

riouschanni 1- of Industry through v. hid 

■ 
colony to their present m ; 

treats of the vast impro 

1 "" mannfactur 

of tniV( 1 an : 



No. 30. 
Won the ll mat, 

" 2f.(i Year? p -The 

tiih' conveys bn 

of information contained in : 

• n more than 
that they possess greal value as 

of arts and progp B8 in civilizat; : 
of 1 1 1 « - authors of the more ll 
era! of whom are knovi • high- 

ly respected, are a guaranty that their v. 

and si itemenl - n lial la ' ' ; r 1 
forbids an extended notice, but before 
pecially the agricultural departmi ;. 
that to every one who takes it np it i- one of the 
most fascini I 'pial- 

ity in a 1 

!•• of progress in Agricultun 
L. Flint. Secretary of the Massac! 
Agriculture) and is a most able and 
lection of facts in regard to the remarkable pro- 
gress of this country since the Revolution. 



No, 
From the Philadelphia Daily 1 'In. 

Mr. L. Stkkbins, — Alter carefully examining yooi 
valuable publication, on the wonderful "1 

the United Stat--." and having on varion 
in our professional bus i 
a work of reference, we are a 

its character. No work that v pives 
such spirited, comprehensive, and 
the pt ir country in political strength, in 
commerce, agriculture, manufactures, aid all branch- 
es of industry and art. The work has I D pre- 
pared with • 

treated with intelligence, and the - 
tion proves that the writer- i i ation. 

who have thoroughly inform* on the 

subjects they diSCUSS. The iflustl 1 the 

typography add much to the attra 

that should be in the hands of all who take an in- 

tntry, and : 
patriotic pride in its prosperity. 



No. II. 
Krnin tin' Secretary of Board "f K.'.r.r.ition. 

J>-ur Sir. — T 1 . I hnnk vou f rr y< >ur no- 

ble work giving a history of our " ] 



1066 



COMMENDATIONS. 



After such an examination as I have been able to 
give, I do not hesitate to pronounce it a work of 
unusual interest and value. 

As a depository of facts illustrative of the pro- 
gress of our country in the departments of industry, 
it is invaluable. 

Its wide circulation, at this eventful period, can- 
not fail to arouse and deepen that patriotic love of 
our institutions which is the pressing demand of 
the hour. 



No. 42. 

From City Superintendent Public Schools, 
New York. 

Mr. L. Stebbins: Dear Sir, — The great pressure 
of official engagements has hitherto prevented my 
acknowledgment of the receipt of the very beauti- 
ful and interesting work, giving a history of the 
great "Progress of the United States." I have not 
had time to peruse them thoroughly, but take great 
pleasure in stating that, so far as I have looked into 
them, the plan and general execution of the work 
seem to me to be admirable, and well adapted to 
the wants, as well of the rising generation, as of 
our fellow-citizens generally. I cheerfully recom- 
mend it to the ..avorable regard of school officers, 
parents, teachers, and others, as a very valuable 
compend of scientific and historical knowledge, and 
a9 a work well worthy of a place in every school 
or private library. 



No. 43. 



From the New England Farmer, Boston. 

" 260 Years' Progress of the United States." — 
This volume contains an immense amount of valuable 
and interesting information concerning the rise and 
development of agriculture, commerce, trade, man- 
ufactures, travel and transportation, the arts, and 
other prominent interests of this country. This 
information is contained in a series of essays by 
gentlemen, either and all of whom will be recog- 
nized as competent to illustrate the subject upon 
which he writes. 



No. 44. 



No. 45. 
From Mercantile Agency, New York. 
From a cursory glance at its contents I feel war- 
ranted in saying it possesses information of much 
value aud usefulness to all classes. 



From Frank Leslie. 

After copying the entire title-page, the notice pro- 
ceeds thus : 

Such is the comprehensive title of an elegantly 
printed work which covers a very wide range of 
subjects of special American interest. The work 
is, in fact, an industrial and statistical history of 
the country since its independence, encyclopaedic 
in character and arrangement, but yet suffi- 
ciently complete for every practical purpose. It 
may be regarded as an epitome of the publication 
of the Census and the Patent Office, and of the 
proceedings of our Industrial Societies, compact in 
form, convenient for reference, and deserving a 
place in the hands of every reading and reflecting 
man in the country. 



No. 46. 



From the Evening Post, New York. 

" 260 Years' Progress of the United States.' 1 '' — The 
range of subjects treated in this work is very full ; 
the writers upon them are well selected with regard 
to specialties, and their manner of handling is al- 
ways interesting, frequently thorough. The sys- 
tem pursued is not encyclopaedic, but historical, 
and, so far as possible, exhaustive. The growth of 
our agricultural prosperity, with particular regard 
to improvements made in breeds and machinery, 
and the dissemination of scientific knowledge among 
farmers, is well recited, and this department forms 
one of the most attractive features of the book. 



No. 47. 



From B. J. Lossisg, the Historian. 

Sir, — I have examined, with great satisfaction, 
your work devoted to the industrial Progress of th« 
United States." It is a work of inestimable value to 
those who desire to know, in minute detail, some- 
thing more of the history of the country than the 
events of its political c. d industrial life as exhibit- 
ed in the politician's manual, and the bold state- 
ments of the census ; especially at this time, when 
the civilized world is eagerly asking what we are 
and what we have been, that the old governments 
may attempt to solve the more important question, 
to them, what we will be. Your work, in fact and 
logical prophecy, furnishes an answer of which any 
people may be justly proud. Surely, no nation of 
the earth has ever experienced such bounding 
progress as this ; and in the last eighty years', as 
exhibited in your work, We see ample prophecies 
of the future, of strength, influence, leadership 
among the nations, such as the eye of faith employ- 
ed by the fathers, dimly saw. No American can 
peruse your pages without feeling grateful for the 
privilege of being an American citizen. 

I will use a very trite phrase and say, with all 
sincerity, I wish your work could go "into every 
family in our land," to increase their knowledge 
and to strengthen their patriotism. 



No. 48. 
From the New York Journal of Commerce. 
" 260 Years' Progress of the United States." — 
The plan is extensive, and appears to be judiciously 
carried out. The work is divided into departments, 
to each of which has been devoted his laborious 
attention, producing a readable, and at the same 
time valuable and instructive, summary of the ad- 
vances made. 



LE N30 



